HEEEELP! Is my cage haunted? Mechanical opinions needed.

[MaxB]

I was under the impression you had to remove the engine to get into the water pump in the mr2s

FWIW write ups on the net look like they do it with the motor in place but it is pretty tight. The key to it seems to be that you have to be prepared to come at each bolt from above or below eg each bolt only has one ideal access point. Be prepared for a lot of clambering around.

[davereid]

The electric car has no real servicing, and your hands get no oil or muck on them, no oil on the road or in the atmosphere...Its a no brainer really, especially with maintenance and repairs

You are certainly on-track with your comments about maintenance and repairs.

But I'm not so sure about the no oil in the atmosphere thing. Theres two parts to emissions, firstly those that occur during the manufacturing and rubbish disposal process. Then those that occur during vehicle usage. Electric cars score badly on both.

IMHO..
The manufacturing of its batteries pumped more CO2 into the air than my Euro Diesel will produce in the next 15 years.
The manufacturing of the rest of the car cost the same emissions wise as a similar fossil fuel powered car
Its batteries will be stuffed in 7 years and you will need a new set, with an entire new set of manufacturing based emissions. While my diesel still runs on.
Their is a massive environmental cost reprocessing and disposing of the old set of batteries. Not to mention the cost, which would be much higher than my car has cost over the same period.

As to emissions from running the vehicle ?
Its heavier than an equivalent fossil fuel powered car. Its engine is very efficient by comparison, but the production of electricity at the coal fired power station that feeds it, is only about the same as my car. By the time transmission line losses are factored in, its fuel to motion conversion is lower than my car.


Damn.. electric cars should be banned, they are so bad for the environment !

[Mully]

Damn.. electric cars should be banned, they are so bad for the environment !

Sorry, OT, but did you see the South Park episode where one of the dads gets a Prius and ends up generating his own cloud on "smug".

Then he berates everyone else in town until they get hybrids too - the town ends up with an enormous cloud of "smug"

Good stuff.

[Hans]

Well, it's officially fucked. Will be on TM soon as a parts car. It is repairable with an outlay of about 600ish, but i just don't have the time or the nerves.