That’s Quite the Loaner (or why I hate the Mustang)

Dearborn, we have a problem.

After happily driving my Mach E for a couple months, and having gas pumps, oil changes, ‘maintenance’ and other relics of my vehicle past drift gracefully into the recesses of my brain, I was smacked upside the head back to reality with a dreaded ‘Service Vehicle Soon’ warning light on my dashboard.

Immediately – naturally – I thought ‘WTF is this?’ and quickly headed to the amazing ‘Mach E Forum‘ to see a) what this could mean and b) if any other poor suckers have recently been struck by this amber nightmare.

Of course – despite how much I have come to love and rely on those forums – nothing quite seemed to match what I was experiencing. Results were all over the place from people saying it’s related to charging issues, others saying they had this light show up, only for it to go away on it’s own on the next start, to others saying it’s a precursor to the dreaded ‘Stop Safely Now’ warning, or the HVBJB battery issue. So, after hoping that after a few starts this warning would just resolve itself (hey, it’s A plan, ok?), I headed to the dealership.

Not surprisingly, nobody at the dealership seemed concerned about my warning light, and told me the earliest they could see me was a week later. Being the Christmas Holidays, I somewhat understood and didn’t really want to be dealing with a vehicle issue anyway, so I took the appointment and went merrily on my way.

I should add that at no time prior to the light coming on, or in the week I drove around with it on, did I notice any issues with my vehicle at all. Everything seemed perfectly in order. I hoped that the light was maybe something to do with a Software Update that couldn’t be pushed out, or maybe something else extremely minor that the car was being over cautious about reporting to me. I was frustrated though at the lack of information in the app – my ‘Vehicle Status’ section showed ‘No Alerts’ and there was nothing at all to indicate that there was any issue. For a ‘computer on wheels’ – I find the lack of information / transparency about the vehicle status to be no better than the ICE age.

Anyway, this brings me to Thursday when I was finally able to bring the vehicle in to the dealership to be diagnosed. After a few hours of waiting, I finally received a call with the bad news: my vehicle has some sort of coolant leak. It’s ‘minor’ (at this point) I was assured, but that ‘Ford engineers’ are ‘aware of and interested’ in this situation. There is apparently some sort of gasket flaw that ‘is not a recall’, but ‘probably will be’. An engineering or part flaw that I guess is not widespread but could be? And, the kicker on top of it all – the part is back-ordered and there’s no timeframe of when it may be available. Regardless, it’s not safe and/or recommended to drive the vehicle.

Uhh…what?

I understand vehicles have issues, and with this being a fairly new model, it’s not surprising that things can and do go wrong. However, I wasn’t expecting to hear that I wouldn’t be able to drive my vehicle for ‘days or maybe even months’. The good news – I suppose – is that I will be getting a replacement Mach E as a loaner (more about that later) that is ‘the same as the one you have’. Of course, everything is covered under warranty, so I won’t have to pay for any of this, other than the inconvenience.

So – as of now, I am vehicle-less and the future of my Mach E is unknown. It will (un)happily sit at the dealership until this mystical part or parts come in and that’s about all I know right now.

I am of two minds – 1) clearly frustrated and full of ‘why me?’ feelings. This just should not happen with a new vehicle, that I was loving and excited about. At the same time, 2) everyone so far at the dealership has been good and they do seem very sympathetic and want to make sure I am taken care of with a loaner vehicle and whatnot. The fact that this ‘issue’ is being taken seriously and addressed now before it really becomes a problem is good in my opinion and I’m happy that – at least for now – it seems to being handled well.

One of my biggest reservations in getting an EV was – not surprisingly or uncommon at all – range anxiety.

I live about 400km from Toronto, and have always considered that distance my general benchmark when going on road trips. In all previous vehicles – at least in recent memory – getting to Toronto on a full tank of gas was no-problem, and would enable a bit of driving around the city before needing to fill up for the return trip home. At least that was my general experience.

So when searching for an EV, I didn’t even look at any vehicles with a range less than 400km, and ultimately decided to go with the extended range Mach-E (468km estimated range).

Of course, after doing further research and reading review after review, it became clear to me that this whole ‘guess-o-meter’ thing was legit, and that range basically boils down to ‘well, it depends’. Regardless, having a rough number as to the ‘ideal’ range gave me a starting point to do my EV shopping.

While looking for vehicles, I had to really admit to myself that my typical ‘trip to Toronto’ benchmark was more like a ‘mythical’ trip. I rarely travel ‘up the 401’, and the overwhelming majority of my driving is less than 100km per day, often much, much less. Why was I so focused range and highway driving, when I rarely do it?

Anyway – as mentioned, I bought the extended range AWD Mach-E. and have been extremely happy. I’ve never seen anywhere near the quoted 468km range, but I also had never charged to 100% either.

That all changed (mostly) when I finally hit the road to go to Waterloo, Ontario for a hockey tournament for my stepson.

Leading up to the trip, I had been pretty busy with work, and it was sort of unclear if we’d need to go up Thursday night , or wait until Friday morning (the tournament schedule was incredibly late). As it turns out, we ended up leaving Thursday night, but I hadn’t really had time to charge up the car. We departed with about 82% battery in temperatures around 8º Celsius. The trip was roughly 300km, and as we left the house, I had an estimated 360km of range. I knew we’d likely make a stop to charge on the way, i just hadn’t really figured out where.

As we started to drive, it became very apparent that there was no way we were going to get the 360km out of charge, and the estimate almost immediately dropped about 30km as soon as I hit the highway. Travelling at about 120km/h give or take, I watched the range drop much faster than the km distance to go. As we passed London, Ontario (roughly 180km into the trip), I had about 35% battery left, with a range of about 120km. My range anxiety was building, so I decided to stop off in Dorchester, Ontario at a Petro-Canada Station, as it was an easy-off, easy-on exit from the highway, and they had a L3 charger. 17 minutes and $8.50 later, we added 30.5kWh, and about another 120km or so of range (if I remember correctly).

The rest of the trip was uneventful, but my roughly 250km of range from leaving Dorchester quickly evaporated. We arrived at our hotel somewhere around 40% battery and something like 125km of range estimated. The hotel had complimentary EV charging so I let it go to 100% (for the first time!) overnight as I knew we’d be doing a lot of driving all weekend back and forth to games.

Throughout the weekend, I think we used about 40% of the battery, and so I re-charged up overnight Saturday night before we headed home Sunday – back up to 100%, with an estimated range of around 440km.

Driving home, I felt much more confident leaving Waterloo with a full battery, and we drove the whole way home without a charge, pulling into the driveway with somewhere around 20% battery charge left.

So… what did I learn? Well, I still get a bit of range anxiety, even though we had zero issues making it to anywhere we needed to go and free charging at the hotel was awesome! Could you imagine getting a free tank of gas from a hotel as part of your room rate!?

I also learned that my mythical trip to Toronto seems highly unlikely to do on a full charge – maybe if I dropped my speed and/or it was much warmer out, it MIGHT be do-able, but not without me constantly looking at the guess-o-meter and sweating the entire time.

But I also learned that stopping to charge isn’t that big of a deal. In less than 20 minutes we were on our way. It gave me a chance to take a bio break and re-fuel on caffeine, and my wife really didn’t seem to mind the extra 10 minutes or so on this stop compared to any typical highway rest-stop trip we’d ever done in the past.

I especially enjoyed that the entire weekend road trip cost me $8.50 (thanks to home charging and free charging at the hotel). Previously when I drove my Jeep, doing the same trip would have cost about $80 – $100 in gas. I’ll take the extra 10 minutes for charging to save $70+ any day!

Since we did that trip, we also did another trip to Hamilton, Ontario (just a little further than Waterloo), and it was much of the same – stopped to charge in Dorchester, and made it to Hamilton with about 30% charge. We probably could have made the trip without stopping as this time I left home at 100% charge. However, it was a much colder day, and we needed to stop for a bite to eat anyway, so I decided to stick to what I know and stop at the Petro-Canada. This time, we fuelled for about 27 minutes at a cost of $13.70 for 34.1kWh added.

Driving home on that trip was again done without stops, but I squeaked into the driveway with only 5% charge remaining. I might not do that again, but we were just eager to get home and didn’t feel like stopping anywhere. Again, colder temps meant running the heat the entire trip, plus the heated seats, so I guess that’s what ate up the additional battery.

All-in-all, I would obviously prefer more range to have more of a ‘safety-net’ in place for these types of trips, but as I currently have no plans for another such journey any time soon, I am good with my purchase and am still overall MUCH MUCH happier driving my EV day-to-day. When we do head back out on the road it will likely be the Spring or even next Summer and range should hopefully be better. It would absolutely be nice to be able to do a Toronto trip on one charge, but even in warmer conditions, I don’t think that’s likely to happen. Regardless, the ‘sacrifice’ of 10-20 minutes extra on one of these trips to save money and do whatever little I can to help reduce emissions is way more beneficial to me.

Unless maybe it was the grand opening of a new station for an hour, or a random $10 gift card as part of a giveaway, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone giving away free gas or diesel.

And certainly never 24/7/365!

Yet in the EV world, apparently, it’s not at all uncommon to find free charging stations. Natrually, most of them are paid, but I’m learning (and happy to see) that many common locations – for example: municipally-owned parking lots or arenas, hotels, and car dealerships – offer free charging to anyone who drives an EV.

Prior to buying my Mach-E, I had looked at PlugShare to check out charging stations near me, and saw that some were free, but I always kind of assumed it was either a mistake, or it referred to free parking, or that there was some sort of catch. After all, NOTHING is free.. right? Thankfully, I guess not!

Anyway, the other night, I took a short drive over to one of these alleged free chargers at a Chevy Dealership, and was impressed to see an L3 Charger just happily sitting there waiting for me to plug in. They didn’t care that I had a Ford – it’s just a nice little service they provide.

So, I plugged it in and quickly saw my range expand, thanks to the (nearly) 50kWh charger…. all for FREE! Both the speed and cost certainly beat my L1 home charger. And, considering it’s less than 5km from my house, this won’t be my last visit.

I know this is nothing shocking to anyone who’s owned an EV for longer than a day, but to me, it was just one more thing that validated my choice to jump into EV ownership, and I’m happy to be part of this growing community.

I am sure a day will come where it just won’t be economically feasible for Free charging to exist, but as long as it’s an option, I’ll take advantage of it where I can!

Today I took delivery of my first EV: a 2023 Ford Mustang Mach E.

But first, a bit of history.

I guess you would say I’m a Jeep Guy. Make that I was a Jeep Guy. For almost 20 years, I’ve been driving Jeep vehicles; the last 8 of which have been in Jeep Wranglers. I wouldn’t necessarily say I loved my Jeep – it had its share of issues, especially electrical – but I liked it enough that I kept going back to the brand, and really never looked at anything else.

That all slowly started to change with the emergence of Tesla and their legitimacy of the Electric Car. For years, I silently admired my co-worker’s Model 3, and decided that ‘my next vehicle’ would be electric – most likely a Model Y (as the 3 is just too damn small for my 6’3″ frame). Of course, every time I looked, the price tag was just too far out there, and I never really seriously considered it.

Of course, once Tesla started making serious inroads, other manufacturers rushed to launch EVs and/or PHEVs and Jeep was no exception. But while I occasionally looked at the Jeep web site at the Wrangler 4xE, I never seriously looked considered it. I figured if I was having electrical issues with my Gas Jeep, what would make me think they could do a Hybrid Jeep well? Despite my reservations, a few weeks ago, I received an email from Jeep promoting some loyalty savings deal on trading in my Jeep to move to a new Wrangler.

This wasn’t the first email of its kind I’d received, but for whatever reason, I clicked through and started doing a bit more-than-casual research. I started to actually consider the 4xE, and thought that the relatively puny 40km battery range might actually be a nice toe-dip into the world of EVs. And, while, I did somewhat look into it, I found the cost of the Wrangler to be as high or higher than the Tesla, and still didn’t really trust Jeep with the electric side of things. However, I was more than happy to see the estimated trade-in-value for my Jeep, and that’s what really started me down the path of looking into a new vehicle more seriously.

So – back to the Tesla site I went, and, again started looking at a Model Y, knowing that it suddenly became much more affordable with my high-value trade-in. Naturally, my research didn’t end with the Tesla site, and I headed to YouTube. Quickly, I became somewhat obsessed with EV reviews, and seriously started picturing myself owning an EV.

One video that was served up to me (unfortunately, I can’t remember what exact video it was) compared the Model Y to the Mach E. Prior to that, I guess I was aware that Ford had an EV, but had only seen a couple on the road, and never really even gave it much thought. However, this video really made a solid case for the Mach E as a true Tesla equivalent. I was immediately impressed with the Mach E, and actually preferred the styling and fit-and-finish compared to what I knew about the Model Y. This led me to ultimately contacting a friend who works at a Ford dealer to ‘tell me a bit more about this Mach E’ thing.

We all clearly knew how this would turn out.

My quest to learn more about the Mach E quickly turned into a test drive, and as soon as I got behind the wheel, I knew I was in trouble. I loved the way the Mach E felt familiar, yet also futuristic. There were real controls: A turn signal AND wiper blade stock! An actual, physical PRND dial! A real, honest-to-goodness volume knob! A legitimate Steering Wheel with cruise control and volume buttons, and not some futuristic airplane yoke! Everything just made sense, yet there’s no getting around the 15.5 inch futuristic iPad turned sideways control panel. It felt to me like the perfect blend of the past and the future.

I don’t think I can take credit for this, but I have since described the Mach E as a car that happens to be Electric, vs. a Tesla which is clearly an Electric Car. It’s a small distinction, but to me the Ford is familiar, fun and futuristic, while the Tesla Model Y and 3 are just too far into the future for me – too minimalistic, too dependent on touch-screen controls, and too tightly linked to their ever-increasingly off-putting (to me) owner. I don’t intend this post or site to be political at all, but I find it increasingly difficult to separate Tesla the company and its vehicles from their owner.

Another factor in my decision to go with the Mach E is CarPlay. I am a huge Apple fan, and, despite my issues running CarPlay in the Jeep, have grown to love the integration between my phone and my vehicle. Why Tesla refuses to support it, I will never know. But I do know it was a major factor in my decision. I know GM is abandoning CarPlay and Android Auto in future products, and that’s a huge reason they were never on my consideration list. The fact that Ford’s CEO has praised and embraced the future of CarPlay was a major reason I now own a Mach E.

My final big reason was the recent-ish announcement that Ford and Tesla made that Ford EVs will have access to the Tesla charging network, starting in 2024. For years, I have heard that a big advantage for Tesla was its charging network, and the YouTubers all agree. However, that major advantage will go away starting next year, and I’m looking forward to having much more charging choices as I grow into my EV ownership.

Well, that’s a lot of words for a first post, but I hope to update the site often as I get to learn what fitting an EV into my life looks like. I intend to bring a Canadian perspective to this, as most of the YouTubers I watched and articles I read leading up to my purchase are American, and well, we do things a bit different up here.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope to post again soon about my experiences!