Hello strangers, sorry I ain’t been on in a long time but I have my kona for 18 months now and have 20500 miles on it. So here’s the good, the bad and the faulty lol.
I like the car, it’s a bit smaller than what I’m used to and tbh if it were an ICE I’d call mobility and say I made a mistake and would hope for a change, but that’s purely down to boot size even with the bottom shelf permanently out.
It’s the top trim and I like all the safety features even if the collision system is a bit of a nuisance when getting ready to pull out sometimes. The bongs don’t really annoy me except for the open door one which drives me insane. The ACC? Is great with the lane assist. The option to pre heat/cool the car is definitely something I would want on all my cars now tbh.
It’s comfortable enough as are the seats although at 5ft 11 and 15 stone I do have my seat back a bit which doesn’t really leave much leg room behind me and tbh I would not like to share the back seat on a long drive with two other adults. Mind my seat has now got a creak in it which is annoying. The radio does cut out a bit also and after a service the 12v lighter fingy doesn’t work now. Yes it’s got some cheap plastic but I do find it a nice place to sit and all buttons and knobs are ok although I do find it daft that I have to turn the auto hold on all the time. I find the head lights are very good, bright with lots of coverage. The HUD is very handy with all the info it displays. I do have a spastic left leg/foot and fount the angle of the foot rest to much so I took it out, just two bolts then trimmed with a multi saw to give a more suitable angle and now it’s fine. Oh and it’s fast, really fast and fun to drive and I’ve no grumbles about the handling, mind my kids do miss the butterflies over the bumps as it doesn’t happen at all in this car lol. I spend most of the time in eco with two bars and very rarely use the break as lifting my foot of the accelerator is usually enough to stop and if not I use the paddle. Sound system is very good also.
Grumbles, well I do think it’s a very noisy car with wind and tyre noise, and I mean noisy. A mechanic friend said he didn’t find it much louder than his car, he drives a 10 yo 2ltr diesel Audi lol and he suggested that due to no engine noise that’s maybe why I find road/wind noise loud, surely it’s even louder with an engine. Anyway it’s definitely noises than the 3008 it replaced.
I was not to disappointed in the range which is always around 230 in winter and 260 in summer until I read a few posts on here and saw that you folk are getting 300+. At the start I drove it like an ordinary car, neither to fast or to slow and the last load of months I’ve tried to go really easy with a mix of coasting and not going to hard or fast but it seems to make no difference tbh. Now I think I may have found a fault which may be causing it. There is a biggish gap between my bumper and bonnet which is like a big wind trap, it’s about 5mm if looking straight at it, so if wind is going at it, it would just go into the motor compartment. Just this last few weeks I’ve seen a few kona ev’s and I run my hand across them and none are as big although only two out of four were flush. I googled it and nothing came up, but I learned that the rubber dampers on the bonnet can be adjusted so I did which brought it down a few mm, but there’s still a gap.
In terms of running out of electric, I done what I mentioned before on here and run it down as low as I could and got 7 mile from it went from number range to the bars before it went into crawl mode and then another two miles in crawl before I chickened out and got it on the charger, but at least I know I can get 9 maybe 10 miles if I get caught out.
I have an EV tariff which at the start was 9p per KW and it’s now up to 15p and I just program it to charge between 1am and 7am which always gets me 100%. I do most of my charging at home tbh although there’s a free 50kw not far from me which I use now and again. And I’ve recently came home from an 1100 mile road trip around Ireland with no problem with charging, although the fine for staying over 80% is a pain as I always need the 100 as most of the time I very rural.
Side note for those waiting on delivery. I live just around the corner from my dealership in Belfast and saw a brand new still wrapped kona ev ther last week which I thought strange as so many of you folk are waiting on delivery. Long post and sorry for not posting earlier, it’s just been a horrible year tbh.
I hope you all get the cars soon and enjoy them. GL