After 2 years and 22k miles of daily commuting and doing 90% of all our driving the Ion has hit 50k miles and 8 years old:
Work done during ownership, much of which was probably due before I bought the car, as is usually the case with second hand cars:
* New front discs and pads - the old pads had plenty of thickness left but the discs were badly corroded and slightly warped due to exploding rust. Same as the
Xantia! Can't seem to keep these discs rust free and they always give that rusty grinding sound first thing in the morning for a couple of miles of use in anything other than dry weather. Not sure if it's regenerative braking reducing friction brake use so much that the surface rust can accumulate, or whether Apec discs just have poor corrosion resistance. Might try different brand discs next time, if there is a next time.
* Replaced the front brake caliper guide pins - the original ones were worn enough to cause the calipers to rattle noisily on rough surfaces. Also fitted the optional anti-rattle shims and ditched the lower rubber bush caliper pins for all metal ones. No more rattles from the brakes.
* Replaced drop-links in search of a clunk over certain potholes - didn't make any difference so I suspect the clunk is from a track rod end!
* Rear left drum brake was sticking on and/or being grabby in wet/cold weather, did a clean and service of the drums a year ago and seems mostly OK now, however in cold wet conditions the rear brakes are still a little bit grabby when coming to a stop. Not sure what the solution is there - it's not bad enough to warrant more effort on it at the moment, and the drum brake linings have nearly new thickness left. This just reaffirms my dislike of drum brakes!
* Replaced a broken rear left seat tilting handle where the hole had split/stripped.
* Replaced 12v battery recently which was almost dead - despite this the car still functioned normally.
* One set of tyres the first year I had the car - which still have about 5mm of tread left. Unfortunately the rear left has been replaced twice more since then due to un-repairable punctures!
* Traction battery has degraded about 10% in the 2 years and 22k miles I've had the car, which is about 3x faster than expected. (Expected would have been about 3% over this mileage) This seems to be down to 3 specific cells that are much "weaker" than the other 85 cells, and the usable capacity is limited by the weakest link in the chain when you have a series string of cells. Other Ion's of the same mileage as mine generally show significantly greater usable capacity remaining so I suspect it is a case of bad luck and a couple of defective cells rather than normal degradation.
I am keeping an eye on these weak cells and considering my options to see whether the effort replacing those three cells would be worth it or not. The cells are only available on the second hand market from wrecks and it is difficult to find cells with equal or better remaining capacity than the cells I already have in the car. A dutch guy collects and strips EV batteries packs and had some recently and was offering four cells for £200 delivered, however when he tested them they had less remaining capacity than the cells already in the car - so were of no use to me. To be useful they would need to have at least as much capacity as the worst cells that were not being replaced.
The car still drives fine but I think I've lost about 3 miles of range, and rapid charging speed is a little slower due to higher cell resistance, most likely. As the range is already very marginal in winter for my daily commute I think I'll keep it two more years until its loan is paid off then see if I can move it on and replace it with an EV with a bit more range - not sure what yet though! EV second hand prices have actually gone up in the last two years - I could sell it today for £1000 more than I bought it.
However the EV's that I would potentially replace it with have all likewise gone up as well, pushing them tantalisingly out of my reach at the moment.
All in all, it's been a good little car and a toe dipped into EV land, I've learnt a lot about EV's, and now know what to look for and what to avoid etc... and most of the work I've done to it has been "elective" work rather than work that it absolutely needed, however I am finding the range just a bit too tight in the winter and the drivers seat just a bit too uncomfortable for the 35 miles a day I do despite trying various cushions and padding etc... I suspect also as Joshua gets a bit bigger (coming up on 3 soon) and starts wanting his pals ferried around in the car with him that we will need a bigger car anyway! By that time the
Xantia will be banned from the roads due to low emissions zones so it won't be around anymore.
Over night it got down to -4C with 90% humidity so about -5C dew point. In the morning it was still -3C but the headlights were completely clear of condensation or fog inside. I then closed the rear hatches to seal them back up again.
