What an asinine over complication of a simple thing.

[nepoweshiekfarmalls]

My 1994  Cutlass Supreme convertible has the 3400 DOHC engine.  The alternator is on the backside of the engine.  About a miserable half day project to replace.  Originally equipped with plastic air dam to divert cool air to the alternator, but many are missing now and the heat causes failure.  That engine also has a plug to seal the distributor hole from an earlier version of the engine, that can be leaky.   However, the 210HP 3.4 does a nice job propelling the car down the road.

[jeeper61]

2 hours ago, Rick G. said:

We love that RAV4 gasoline / electric hybrid. It’s not the plug-in hybrid. Never have to plug it in to recharge it. It charges itself during driving.

What is Hybrid really saving? Not the environment

You have two propulsion systems, more carbon was emitted to make make them than a single system ICE or BEV

Also two propulsion systems means twice the potential problems  

[IH Forever]

14 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

I set out to change the auto start battery in mom’s car. By the time I was done, I had the seat out of it, which isn’t power adjustable, but still has 20 wires to it. I had dropped one of the little studs down under the battery tray, spent 20 minutes with a magnet, but I couldn’t find it, it finally did surface, but I ended up putting a new main battery in it as it was 6 years old. 
there’s enough room under the hood to bring your lawnmower along if you want to, but they had to put the batteries under the seat. 

What are you bi***ing about????  She left you a whole dollar in the cup holder for your time.😄

[lotsaIHCs]

Hybrids shine in town driving conditions. They generally get better fuel mileage around town than on the highway. The batteries are a fraction of the size of an EV battery. The electric motor is usually integrated into the bell housing of the transmission or a separate housing between the engine and transmission. Most integrate the starter with the alternator. They are less about saving the environment than about saving gas during city driving. I don't think I've ever replaced a hybrid component other than one battery, 1 or 2 control modules and a handful of integrated starter generators. I worked on hybrids starting in 2011 so just a few failures over 15 years isn't a bad track record.

[Rawleigh99]

17 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee 

I thought you were going to say subaru! LOL 

[Ihfan4life]

9 hours ago, mjcolemn said:

The engineers that put batteries under the seats have obviously never seen or heard one explode!

Local quarry has batteries in the cab, under the seat in some of their road trucks.

Battery started off gassing and put the driver into the ditch, taking a utility pole out. Fortunately he walked away, with minimal injuries…

BMW has battery under the floor in the back. Can’t open the rear hatch without the battery releasing the latch. Have to crawl through to manually open it as their isn’t an external lock to open it…

[Takn4aFool]

my 2011 Grand Cherokee doesn't have that stupid stop/start crap, now i'll have to check into what that wifes 2019 Cherokee has for a battery location since it has stop/start

[Rick G.]

6 hours ago, jeeper61 said:

What is Hybrid really saving? Not the environment

You have two propulsion systems, more carbon was emitted to make make them than a single system ICE or BEV

Also two propulsion systems means twice the potential problems  

She saves a lot of money on gas. That thing sips gas. And, it’s relatively peppy to boot when you want it to be. 

As a precaution, we bought Toyota’s extended warranty when we bought the car. Toyota offers I think 3 or 4 different levels of extended warranty programs. We bought in to one which will cover us front to back for 7 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with no deductible. Of course that excludes normal wear and maintenance items.

She’ll want another vehicle well before we run out of extended warranty. If you buy again / trade in with Toyota, they’ll pro-rate back to you any unused portion of your current extended warranty.

Toyota hybrids are typically extremely reliable though. Right now we’re still running under our standard factory warranty, and haven’t yet had to take the car in for any warranty issues what so ever. I just make sure to take care of the vehicle’s routine servicing needs. 

Our RAV4 happened to come out of Toyota’s plant in Tahara, Japan, but RAV4s are also built in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, and, Georgetown, Kentucky. 

Did we need to buy the extended warranty, perhaps not. But it gives us peace of mind. We just rolled the cost of it in with the car loan. We took out a three year loan on the car. It will be paid off come mid October. I don’t believe in 4 or 5 year car loans. 

[Jacka]

19 hours ago, acem said:

Jeep Cherokees used to be good simple rigs back in the 90s.

Yes, I agree. My best Jeep Grand Cherokee was a 1998.That thing, 4.0,had 330,000 miles on it.I put 200k on it myself and paid $750 for it. Never used a drop of oil between changes.Doors, electric windows worked great.I sold it still running and inspected to a guy for a camp buggy. I had that jeep along with three other Grand Cherokees at the same time,all on the road.I now only have one 98 Jeep Cherokee. They all had the 4.0 ,the only motor I buy them with. They started to get cheap in 99 2000 years.Door routing wiring for the windows was horrible,electric gremlins in the system were frequent. The wires were very thin copper with soybean coating. Coating dried out wires and cracked,lost its strength and copper wires broke.My last one Grand Cherokee was a 2004, last year for the 4.0 and just sold it yesterday.