Electric Vehicle Project
Assessing the condition
June 22, 2002
On June 5th, I won an auction on Ebay for one of four US Electricar Geo's. The cars were being sold by a broker in Fla who had no interest in the cars, and was selling them as-is, sight unseen, no questions asked.
Not the brightest way to buy a car, let me tell you. Not because the seller might be dishonest (he was not in the slightest) but because you could be buying anything from a cherry to a box of rocks.
Bidding was fierce all the way through; I got the last one for the princely sum of $4,510.00 on a snipe bid at the last moment. Great, I won.
First job was getting it to MD. That cost $600.00. Then once it arrived I took a look at it.
Overall, the condition was good. Apparently someone had moved the car with a forklift, and had collapsed the spare tire well. Also looks like said person ran it into the AC and radiator. Strangely enough, apart from a broken fan blade they did not pierce the AC *or* the water system. I have no idea how that happened (luck).
The car was as dead as a doornail, so I started by taking a quick check of the components. Everything appeared to be there, battery pack was intact, body appeared solid, computer, and all accessories were intact. I pulled the accessory battery, and hooked up a 12 volt battery after ensuring I knew which connection was + and which was - (color coded them with tape).
There was a loud *CLICK* as soon as I hooked the battery up. Solenoid closing. I then hopped in and turned the key...
The lights came on. First the fault light came up, which means the computer was working. Then after 5 seconds the READY light came on.
Impossible. The car was up and had passed it's diagnostics. I pressed down on the accelerator pedal.
The car moved.....
It's ALIVE!
Ok, the car moved. That in itself was a very interesting statement: The car had power, the batteries in the tray still had a bit of life, and the controller was operational. After verifying that it was working, I put it on a long charge..
And it charged and charged. I then discovered that the water system wasn't working; looks like something was obstructing the pump. So it would charge, hit the temp limit, shut down for awhile, then charge some more. Fortunately it was cold that night. Took about 13 hours of charge time before it was full.
Now the batteries are reading about 85% full. Which isn't bad for old batteries. I am hoping that with some driving the batteries will come back to life; it looks like they had some charge left and they weren't freeze-damaged or reversed. Good sign.
The next task I have to perform is getting the car to the point where I can have it inspected. I fixed the water issue (kinked hose) and a number of other minor problems. The last thing that needs to be done is to get the darn AC fan replaced; it's used by the car to keep the radiator cool while charging. Without it, the car will overheat on charges.
But it's close :-)
Chris