So the snow and more importantly, ice, has gone from the ground in the most part. Time to resurrect the Vectrix and give it a gentle run to get the charging going.
It has been covered over for over a week and a half, and not touched.
So I get on, bike starts up all systems go. I go to pull away and hear a plasticy rumbling noise, like something has come off. So I stop the bike, get off, check all the fittings - nothing.
I get on, pull away and the same thing happens. I start rocking the bike backward and forward, and it still continues whenver the bike moves. I get off the bike and check everything by the forks and suspension - nothing.
Odd.
I then open up the glove compartment, and find a tin of WD40 that I purchased and dumped in there, rolling around causing the noise...
Be safe out there - and more importantly, don't be as f**kwitted as me!
:)
aa .all well and good but i had that sound for ages plasticky sound .from front of scooter..
well it ended up been the wheel bearings so don't be so shore that you have solved it ..??
but i hope you are correct .
as i am the only one so far to have bearings to have gone and the sound that you mentioned sounds so so like what i had
and there is a silly connector that connects to the front mud guard and joins the front break pipe line this does come loose from tiime to time
but vectrix decided to not fix this but i ended up cable tying it up but is little loose .but is safe.kev
We can't all be engineers ;-)
Luckily, the Vectrix truly is "Plug-N-Play" - which is how I've used it since I got it. 4,000 miles of just riding without the slightest knowledge of how the thing works. But, I know that I'm saving money by not buying gas and I know that just a little less money from the U.S. economy is going to our enemies in the middle east, and just a little less CO2 is being emitted into the atomosphere...
Whatever the reason, and however it works - we're all on the right track. :-)
And the good news is....you found that can of WD40 you thought for sure you had bought recently! HAHA!! ;-)
Been there and done that! :-)
Of course, if it had been ME, I wouldn't have found that can until AFTER I went out and bought ANOTHER ONE! HAHA!! ;-)
vectrix and a prius? join the club!
we're a smug bunch :)
Nice fleet. I'm using a VW polo bluemotion (1st generation), it easely hits 3.4-3.6 liters/100km.
Even tough it is far more efficient than the prius (30%), for me it is just another oil burner. The second 2010 generation is about to get 20% better mileage than my version, and the 3rd one 2014 will be hybrid. Pure electric by when? Too much time to wait, as VW is moving slow: My goal is to find a suitable electric car withn 1-2 years. What will be your next step, AIRCON? A think city OX? An aptera?;-)
nice car!
i'm always puzzled about why people continue to compare a small car like a polo with 60kw and 195nm and a combined fuel consumption figure of 3.9l/100km to a full size sedan like a Prius with 107kw and up to 400nm and 3.9l/100km combined even loaded with a list of standard items that most cars don't even have as optional!
Also, next year I believe the Prius will be made to be a plug in with lithium iron batteries that can do 20km without using the petrol engine. That will be inadequate km for many people, but more than enough for me in most situations. It certainly shows the direction they're heading in anyway.
Fully electric cars are on their way soon and will make a great stable mate for my Vectrix.
Yeah, the two other Vectrix riders in my area also own Tesla Roadsters. Boy do I feel inadequate!
Well, I just bought a broken 1998 NHW10 Prius and got it going again within a few hours, thanks to the lessons learned from the Vectux!
The NHW10 Prius is a used import from Japan, and the scenario is much like with Vectrix in Australia: No dealer or workshop support, no manual, parts are tricky to get, Japanese display and instructions only, proprietary software and cryptic error codes!
In other words, a feast for an Ozzi Vectux veteran!
The difference is of course that this time I knew all this before I bought; and I bought at a very low price, rather than near the peak as with the Vectux. And it only has 41000km on the speedo.
I got the Prius for AU$2125.- and that means that the Vectrix is beginning to pay for itself after all! Two years ago, when I bought the Vectrix, I could not have dreamed of fixing this car in just a day.
Today, I think I be able to add about 10,000.- to the cars value. If I do that again with another one, I'll brake even in my personal EV balance books!
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
2 thousand bucks? awesome effort.
I can see you have a point. Are you from USA? Please consider that the prius in Europe is a BIG car. Average car is something between the VW polo and the VW Golf. This is why I'm aslo puzzled about people who need as many extras and as many power as he can afford in a big, really big car. In my opinion (just an opinion), all I need from a car is to seat five, and to bring us from A to B with the highest possible efficiency.
let me wonder: Is the Prius an efficient car?
Let's compare a non hybrid like my old bluemotion, version 1.1 from 2007, with a prius II from 2007:
___________Polo Bm I.1_________Prius II______efficiency
City:_______4.4 l/100km_______5.0 l/100km________-12%
combined:__3.8 l/100km_______4.3 l/100km________-12%
Road:______3.2 l/100km_______4.2 l/100km________-24%
It is in open road where the hybrid system is less useful. Probably if the Prius II got a TDI engine and gears, efficiency would have increased dramatically.
Now let's compare the new bluemotion with the special prius III ECO, with 15' wheel rims.
___________Polo Bm II_________Prius III_______efficiency
City:_______3.9 l/100km_______3.9 l/100km________-0%
combined:__3.3 l/100km_______3.9 l/100km________-15%
Road:______2.8 l/100km_______3.7 l/100km________-25%
Despite the Prius III' dramatic increase of efficiency in the city, the system is still 25% less efficient in open road. Curiously, the 1.2 TDI engine was used in the 2000 audi A2 platform, getting the very first prototype 3.0 l/100 km. http://www.audiworld.com/news/01/A2TDI/content.shtml
The commercial version in 2002 got a road consumption of 2.8l/100 km. ha! 9 years ago the technology was there!
Now let's imagine a polo Bm III hybrid... will it be more efficient than the Prius III eco?
In my opinion, the prius is too big, too powerful and too heavy to be really efficient. It is just an optimized car which follows the pattern of the past century, more power, more extras, more... As peak oil kicks in, the cars will be reduced in size, power, extras, and weight, and efficiencies around 1-1,5 litres/100 km will be hit.
Don't get me wrong, I like the prius and it is a good transition car, but like my polo, it is not the future. This is why I asked you which electric car where you looking for... by your answer I realized that you were not an european citizen... ;-)
pd:Another sample I've found which follows the 21st century pattern is the Loremo: http://www.loremo.com/englisch/02der02_varianten.htm. 120 mpg!
Thanks for going to all that trouble. Interesting reading. For my part, I'm a bit of a petrol head, so for me a car is not just for going A-B.
my point was that for its size and weight and power the Prius is unmatched. whether or not anyone needs that size and weight and power is another issue altogether! imagine if our vectrix could be 1/2 the weight!
i agree that hybrid technology is only a transition, but it's got to start somewhere of course, and I have no idea where the final answer lies.
I'm in Melbourne Australia btw
i THANK YOU .....
very much as i real need to change my car some time next. year and i currently own a citroen c3 1.4hdi multi changeable convertible this car does what it says on the tin...
and it is the the most economical convertible in england and i think it well well under stated.+ its one of the yep cheapest cars for the year around yep you heard me correct........
it may be citroen and the fit of plastics are not bmw hey but were not talking bmw prices are we..
well for a start the road tax dropped down from £60 per year to £35 per year because of the emissions and i have just been told that the road tax is going to drop down to £ wait for it
£20 per year wow........ the engine it diesel and been told and its a fact that the petrol version is more nosier its not the fastest car well it will hit 60 in 15 seconds well thats well ok
as i didn't get it for that it was its versatility and economy i can get aprox on a run 70/85 mpg + in fifth gear it can go in no probes at 30mph it just chug n chugs
and at motorway speed i keep to 50 to 55 mph and 2. / 1/4 thousand rpm not bad
.it will be up for sale soon but i need to replace it with 5 door hatchback?? and really could do with semi auto
1 reason mother in law disable and can be awkward getting people in back and wheel chair too .
2 girlfriend think would find auto easer as she is getting older and think thats what she wants now .
so i am now in a predicament as to what to get as there is no point in getting the prius mk2 as thats what i had my heart on as the girlfriend liked the sound of the self park
system of one of the many things this car has owell.
back to the drawing board i would love a car that will do 80+ mpg and emissions the lowest in uk but would need to be able go 300 miles at a time ?????
thats second hand as well .it needs to be super efficient my be a trade mine in??
kev
It's certainly true that United States people are used to driving large, inefficient cars - most of us (not me!) have the silly and unsubstantiated idea that bigger is better, bigger is safer.
Trying to reduce our carbon footprint; I traded in a car that got an average of 25 MPG (10 kilometers/liter) for the Prius, which gets 53 MPG (22 kilometers/liter) in the summer and 43 MPG (18 kilos/liter) in the winter, for an annual average of 48 MPG (20+ kilos/liter). While this is a far cry from the smaller cars in Europe and Asia, it's a step in the right direction. If more U.S. folks buy currently available hybrids it will help significantly, since the cars being traded in are usually huge, wasteful, "tanks".
My next car will be fully electric. I have a deposit on the Aptera, but we'll see what happens with their company. I'm also keeping an eye on the Triac, the iMiev, the LEAF, etc.
fascinating stuff!
Dear Aircon, if you want fascinating stuff, have a watch at the next BMW generation:
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficient_dynamics/phase_2/bmwvision/introduction.html
356 HP, 800 NM, 0-100km/h in 4,2 sec, and combined consumption of 3,76 l/100. Plug-in Electric + "tdi" + gears, the european choice for the transition. Do you like it?
love the concept, hate the website!
im always puzzled why people compare petrol and diesel on the same footing.
if its CO2 reduction you are after, look at the CO2 output.
petrol is 2.3kg/L
diesel is 2.7kg/L
added the original insight into the top row, course could be construed as cheating since its only 2 seats :p
shame they're rare as hens teeth (unless you can inport a second hand one from japan).
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
That probably corresponds exactly with the higher energy density of diesel, because the energy really comes from combining a carbon atom with 2 oxygen atoms, making one CO2 molecule.
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
I've been waiting for your argument:
yes, I have not been honest at all, as diesel is not the same as gasoline: Diesel's energy density is around 11.000w/litre. Gasoline is only around 8.000w/litre...
Useful energy inside the vectrix is around 2.800wh, which equals 0,25 liters of diesel... I'm also puzzled with people who try to compare a 2.800wh Vectrix with a traditional gas scooter with 20% efficiency and 80.000/5 wh of useful energy inside its 10 litre tank (16000wh/2800wh = 6 times more energy)... ;-)
Thanks for all these co2 numbers, really interesting. Personally I don't care about Co2. There are more important issues, like the collapse of our society due to lack of cheap and abundant oil, and the possible die off of 5.000.000.000 people due to lack of energy to grow food in time. Have a look at:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
fair point.
in that case you would indeed look at energy use per km, rather than co2. electric vehicles would, of course, win here, since the oil use is very minimal :D
just to be difficult, ill use the numbers for petrol and diesel i've managed to come up with :p
petrol: 8.89kwh/L
diesel: 10.7kwh/L
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline
the reason the insight system improved so much on the open road was that it did use a traditional gearbox, and only really used the e motor for hard acceleration and braking. (fewer energy conversions, less losses).
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
I think both your arguments miss the fact that diesel and gasoline are being derived by distillation of crude oil. So in order to stretch out the oil supply, you would want to use both of theses parts of crude oil.
Out of a given quantity and quality of crude oil you can get so many liters of diesel, so many liters of petrol, so much thicker oil, and so much tar etc etc.
You cannot just turn it all into diesel, or all into petrol!
But maybe I misunderstand how this distillation process works...
This information may be used entirely at your own risk.
There is always a way if there is no other way!
it is possible to turn petrol into diesel, its just spectacularly energy intensive.
not much profit in it, so doesn't happen unless theres a supply problem
it also depends significantly on the type of crude you have.
sweet light has a really high easy to turn into petrol and lpg content, almost non-existent diesel content.
Australias oil reserves are almost exclusively sweet light, so almost all diesel in Australia comes from imported oil.
the heavier oils have much greater easy to turn into diesel content, but not so much petrol.
Europe has (or rather has access to) much of both.
the other thing is there are overlapping uses of the oil.
for instance the part of the heavier oils that could be turned into diesel could instead be turned into heating oil for winter.
or used instead for bulk sea transport
both those uses require less processing than conversion to diesel.
Matt
Daily Ride:
2007 Vectrix, modified with 42 x Thundersky 60Ah in July 2010. Done 194'000km
Ha! Ha! Ha! Undead!!! Great story!!
As a VechTech I had a DEALER call me with a similar problem. I spent a lengthy time on the phone with him going through all possible causes of the clunking noise from the front end with no result. totally frustrated, I jumped in the van and drove to him. When taking the bike off the sidestand I heard the clunk and again when rocking from side to side and front to rear whilst holding the brakes on. I did a check of the usual suspects but found nothing but when I opened the glovebox, lo and behold.... 2 AAA batteries rolling around!!! I put some tape over them to stop them rolling around and had the bike returned to the customer with a note and you can guess what that said!!!
Ages ago when I had a garage I had a lady (sweet old dear!) who complained of a strange noise from her car. Problem was, no one else could hear it!(Typical when one takes a vehicle in for a problem diagnosis) So, to keep her happy (and at no charge) I told her the radio volume was too low and she needed to have it up louder, which she did and thought I was a miracle worker, never hearng the 'noise' again!!!
It happens to all of us mate!!!
Doug Townley
info.DTES [at] gmail.com
(Formerly Vectrix Europe Technical Supervisor)
One door closes, another door opens
All this talk of burning oil....
Oil is the base material for most of what we have around us today, this computer key board, the clothes I'm wearing, the paint on my walls, the packaging my bread and milk comes in. These, if we put our minds to it are recycleable and the material could be used again and again. We have a huge resurce of easily mutated material that can be used many times to make material items for our use and pleasure. But we chose to use a large potion of it once, crudely, to extract the solar energy layed down in it millions of years ago. We are squandering a resource and not utilizing alternatives. Our grand kids will look back at us and shake their heads