New Car

 Our Honda CR-V is a "1997".  Our Honda Civic had been a "2000", but it was totaled in 2019.  We have been a one-car family for a while.  George usually rides his bike.  So, it has worked out fine.  I thought it was time to invest in a new car, which had more safety features and was better for the environment.  I don't like large cars but I thought that I should get something larger than the Civic. Our joints will only be getting older and stiffer.  Many of my friends have Subarus and have liked them so I was looking at the Subaru Crosstrek, a compact SUV.  When we got down to seriously looking we also looked at the hybrids.  On January 29th we actually started looking.  We looked at Subaru Crosstrek Limited and Hybrid, the Nissan Leaf, the Honda CR-V Hybrid, the Kia Niro Electric, Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV), and the Hybrid.  I LOVED the color of the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid but it was very uncomfortable and had almost no trunk. The Limited was also uncomfortable and did not get good gas mileage.  The Honda CR-V was way too big (it is larger than my current CR-V).  I am not quite ready to go completely electric so the Leaf was out plus it was even more uncomfortable than the Crosstrek.  That left the Niro. It was comfortable and the plug-in Hybrid gets better gas mileage.  So, we decided to go with that.  Sunday, we test-drove both Niros. I wanted some color that would stand out.  The only choice was red so we went with that.  There happened to be the only one available in the Northwest, but we had to plunk down the financial commitment right away.  Whew.  We bought the car on January 30th.  They had to drive down to Medford OR to go get it on the 31st.  We went to pick it up on February 1st.  So we got the car with 283 miles on it.  Donovan synced our phones and gave us a rundown of all the features.  I drove it around the parking lot a few times.  Then George followed me home.  

Kia Niro PHEV

They had not put much gas in it so I went and filled it up right away and then we plugged it in. Now I will have to learn how to use it.  Thank you Donovan and Jacob at Ron Tonkin Kia in Gladstone. 

It was a good sign on the day we came home with the car.

They both fit in the garage.  We plan to pass the CR-V on to Robbie.

My friends asked me what I was naming my car.  I haven't done that since my very first car, Limbu (which means lime in Marathi).  That was what color it was.  So, now I have a red car but it is good for the environment - so a "green" car, maybe a Christmas name.  I came up with Holly (red and green).  I tried, unsuccessfully, to think of some name with PHEV (plug-in electric vehicle) in the name.  One meaning of the name Niro is a green plant with red berries.  That would fit with Holly.  So, I guess, HOLLY it is.   

ADDENDUM: 8/19/2022 - I had been planning on seeing how long I could drive the car until we needed to get gas but then George read that that is not good for the vehicle.  The additives in the car can thicken and get gummy.  So we decided to get gas.  George put in 9.7 gallons.  It is an 11.9-gallon tank. I guess we do need to try to use the gas every once in a while. 

 ADDENDUM 9/12/2022 - On August 31st I went out to the car to go run an errand and I found that the battery was dead.  Argh. It took us a while to figure out what was going on.  When we called the Beaverton Kia and they said that they could get us in in October.  The Gladstone Kia could get us in in 2 weeks.  Ugh, but we needed the car now.  Finally, George got the neighbor to come over to jump the battery of the car.  That got it working.  Everything seemed ok.  But then on 9/12/2022, it did the same thing.  George had bought a portable charger so we got it working right away.  But now what.  Then we found a "Service Action IGPM Sleep Mode Operation Logic Improvement (SA 497)" The bulletin provides the procedure to update the software logic of the Integrated Gateway and Power System on vehicles produced between June 2, 2021 and March 8, 2022. It addresses the concern with parasitic battery draw when the vehicle is turned off which can lead to a discharged 12 Volt battery. When we called the Beaverton Kia back and told them about this Service Action they said that we could bring the car in tomorrow.!! I do hope that this works.