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also checked and there's a supercharger 5mi. n. of beckley.
of course that doesn't help with a bmw. in that case i'd pay to get a charger installed at your relative's home if they were up for it!
Tesla would be no problem at all, there are a bunch of superchargers. Issue is not being able to use those.
I actually did find another one. The Petro travel stop in Raphine has 350kW fast chargers and that’s a spot with good food etc. That would give me 2-3 stopping options which is better.
Even with a charger at his house I would have to stop and charge. It’s about 340 miles each way and running 80 like I do I would have to stop once for 30-40 min to get there with about 20% left.
His house is the old house my grandfather built, I would have to overhaul the whole electrical service and panel. It’s been renovated but it’s the same electrical panel as it was when it was converted from fuses in the 70s.
That doesn’t help me now when I’m deciding if I want a BMW I7.
I understand your point (and agree with it)...but I wouldn't be surprised if BMW come out with a retrofit kit for Tesla-grade charging-ports in their vehicles. There will be a LOT of pressure for other companies to do so....and it will be a lot cheaper for them to adopt tesla's system other than spend ore money developing their own,
That's one thing I will give Tesla credit for. Although there is still a long way to go, they have done their homework in at least starting to get an adequate nationwide infrastructure system for recharging....assuming that the electric grids themselves can handle the extra demand, which, of course, is out of Tesla's control.
I mean, let's face it.....this is just simple common sense. All gas and diesel vehicles use the same refueling hardware at gas stations.....why not for EV recharging? Anything else is just needless complexity.
I understand your point (and agree with it)...but I wouldn't be surprised if BMW come out with a retrofit kit for Tesla-grade charging-ports in their vehicles. There will be a LOT of pressure for other companies to do so....and it will be a lot cheaper for them to adopt tesla's system other than spend ore money developing their own,
That's one thing I will give Tesla credit for. Although there is still a long way to go, they have done their homework in at least starting to get an adequate nationwide infrastructure system for recharging....assuming that the electric grids themselves can handle the extra demand, which, of course, is out of Tesla's control.
I mean, let's face it.....this is just simple common sense. All gas and diesel vehicles use the same refueling hardware at gas stations.....why not for EV recharging? Anything else is just needless complexity.
I agree that eventually there will be one standard, and it will probably be NACS (Tesla) but thats not a certainty yet, and I can't bet on that when making a vehicle choice. I have to be comfortable with the charging infrastructure that exists....
Wife brought me a free H9 that is apparently a OE Varta with a die hard sticker on it. I guess it was just floating around so long that they cleared it out due to age... It was at 12.38 volts and about 50% SOC, I'm super happy that she remembered I'm on my factory battery and that I would need a new one soon! She also got me a new foam cannon
It's really nice when your wife is also a car person and listens to when you rant....
EDIT, cannon works insanely well. Was able to clean the car in 11 minutes first spray to fully dry since I can use a blower to just blow the water off thanks to the ceramic.
Very good coverage Went back to inspect how the cannon cleaned vs a manual wash and found it was 98% as good, only issues were some heavy insect hits. Also decided to go back and do the engine..... Harassed the wife as well when she got home, her car was far more dirty but it still worked very well.
Is it safe to wash an engine like that? I’m too scared I’ll cause an electrical or engine issue if I power wash my engine.
Totally fine, this wasn't really a very heavy wash even. The VW got a next level aggressive wash since the bay was a disaster and had tape/dirt/stains everywhere and was also okay.
The main thing to avoid is the fuse boxes, no reason to hit those at all and if you need to clean their covers from something severe than take the cover off and go clean it inside. Everything else is weather sealed and can go underwater, all engine seals are vacuum tight and pressure tight so even a power washer is no issue for it at all.
Even the spark plug wells have top seals to keep water etc out, cars like my dads Land Rover can literally go underwater over 3 ft and the engine is nearly totally under water without problems. Just keep the air intakes above water and it's fine.
Few questions, Striker:
- What model foam cannon?
- Does it use a regular hose or power washer?
- After you foam the car, are you rinsing it clean, and then hand washing it? If not, what are your steps?
Few questions, Striker:
- What model foam cannon?
- Does it use a regular hose or power washer?
- After you foam the car, are you rinsing it clean, and then hand washing it? If not, what are your steps?
Advance auto store label cannon, shockingly good and I'm suspecting this is the same one many other name brands put in their boxes.
Mine is a power washer version, I have a 4.0 GPM@2700 psi model.
First run I foamed the car when it was dry, let sit for 5 min, then switched to a white tip (low power, wide flat fan) and used it as a "blade" to wipe the foam off from the top down, then I got the blower out and dried it top down.
I then carefully looked it over before doing my
normal 2 bucket wash to see what the cannon missed. It didn't miss much at all, only some heavy insect hits and right behind the tires from 100+ runs.
On the 2nd run and on the LS460 I did dry foam, rinse, refoam, rinse, then dry. The 460 was severely dirty and it worked aside from three insect impacts.
From what I am seeing you can dry foam, rinse, refoam and then with the 2nd foam hit if desired use a mitt to get the difficult areas to make sure it's perfect. However I'm quite impressed how well the touchless methods with even a single foam run works. The effort is near zero and the speed is such I no longer care about getting the cars rained on.
If you want to blow dry the car off you need to have correct paint with ceramic on it or something similar. If you try it on a waxed or imperfect car it won't work.
Advance auto store label cannon, shockingly good and I'm suspecting this is the same one many other name brands put in their boxes.
Mine is a power washer version, I have a 4.0 GPM@2700 psi model.
First run I foamed the car when it was dry, let sit for 5 min, then switched to a white tip (low power, wide flat fan) and used it as a "blade" to wipe the foam off from the top down, then I got the blower out and dried it top down.
I then carefully looked it over before doing my
normal 2 bucket wash to see what the cannon missed. It didn't miss much at all, only some heavy insect hits and right behind the tires from 100+ runs.
On the 2nd run and on the LS460 I did dry foam, rinse, refoam, rinse, then dry. The 460 was severely dirty and it worked aside from three insect impacts.
From what I am seeing you can dry foam, rinse, refoam and then with the 2nd foam hit if desired use a mitt to get the difficult areas to make sure it's perfect. However I'm quite impressed how well the touchless methods with even a single foam run works. The effort is near zero and the speed is such I no longer care about getting the cars rained on.
If you want to blow dry the car off you need to have correct paint with ceramic on it or something similar. If you try it on a waxed or imperfect car it won't work.
This is what I needed to hear, thanks. I was hoping you could just use the foam and not have to use that as a precursor to a hand wash. I don't have/need a power washer so I'd have to see if one with the regular hose does the job good enough. I pay about $95/month for a hand wash "subscription" at a local place for both of our cars. Would be nice to not have to pay that 6-8 months of the year if this does most of the trick (I'll gladly pay it in the summer months). My kids would likely think this is cool and I could probably have them wash the cars this way.
We waxed the Mercedes this weekend, just using plain ole' Turtle Wax. What do you guys think about Turtle Wax? To me it's tried and true, good stuff. Car looks shinier.
We waxed the Mercedes this weekend, just using plain ole' Turtle Wax. What do you guys think about Turtle Wax? To me it's tried and true, good stuff. Car looks shinier.
The older SL looks good. That new one is a giant let down. I saw one in my area with a $47,000 discount as they are just not selling
striker, i have if not the same, very close to the same foam gun (chemical guys) and i also use with similar pressure washer. works great.
Originally Posted by jrmckinley
This is what I needed to hear, thanks. I was hoping you could just use the foam and not have to use that as a precursor to a hand wash. I don't have/need a power washer so I'd have to see if one with the regular hose does the job good enough.
i can't see how a regular hose could produce close to the same results but maybe it does because ultimately whether pressure washer or hose it's the same volume of water!
striker, i've never understood blowing off the water... i've tried with a leaf blower and was underwhelmed with the results.
The older SL looks good. That new one is a giant let down. I saw one in my area with a $47,000 discount as they are just not selling
It’s probably a 2023 model year vehicle built in 2022. Mercedes was very late delivering them to North America and then nobody wanted an “old” model, so they’re just languishing on lots with massive discounts.