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18 Posts
Hi!
I was wondering if someone with an Ariya (ideally an Empower+ in case there are differences with trim) would be kind enough to help me double confirm something.
Short Version: How wide is the car with the mirrors in? I’d read for ages that the width was 74.8”. Then we noticed in the new brochure it was listed as 85”. So I had a dealer measure and they said it was 85 with mirrors out and 79 with them in. The long driveway around our condo to the parking lot out back is only 83”, and given our driving habits, only 4” of clearance may unfortunately be a deal breaker for us.
Long Version for anyone interested: I tried to buy an Ariya last week and had a HORRIBLE experience.
I have a Platinum+ reserved, but had been thinking of switching to a FWD model if I found an acceptable one in stock somewhere. This was for a number of reasons, most importantly bringing the cost down after losing the tax credit as well as getting some extra range and the under floor trunk storage back. I found an Empower+ in Northern Lights (my preferred color!) only an hour away in Jersey, and had been debating taking the plunge.
Then my wife rear ended a truck. It’s all just cosmetic damage, and the other guy didn’t stop, so our rates shouldn’t go up as long as we don’t waste money fixing our 18 year old Yaris, but the whole front end pretty banged up. I decided to take this as a sign and bite the bullet.
So I went to the dealership with every intention of buying the car. I went on a quick test drive and asked the saleswoman some questions, and it became clear very quickly that she didn’t really know anything about this car. Which was annoying, but I cut her some slack as she did admit it was so new they hadn’t been fully trained on it yet.
Then I applied for financing. This particular dealership had never sold an EV out of state before, and weren’t sure if New York charged taxes on EVs (apparently Jersey doesn’t), so they wanted to confirm. This took three full hours, and they never did get it confirmed, so they came back and said they’d just have to charge tax as normal, and if it turned out it wasn’t necessary, they’d refund me later. Again, annoying, but not that big a deal as I assumed NYS sales tax would apply.
While we were waiting, though, my wife noticed the aforementioned number in the brochure. Since 85” is literally bigger than our driveway, I started to panic a bit and asked if we could confirm which number was correct. They asked the service department, who said it varied a bit based on trim, which may explain the difference. Then they found a tape measure and manually checked. They said it was 85” with mirrors out, 79” with them in. I started freaking out a bit more, since that wasn’t what I’d been planning around for literally years now. But was trying to keep my cool and think about if we could make it work if we were careful.
Then they finally gave me final sales numbers. In addition to the high NY taxes (what are ya gonna do), they’d also added a $5k dealer markup and some other unexpected fees, making the car nearly $70k! They quickly took off the dealer markup when it seemed like I was going to walk, and went into obnoxiously high pressure sales mode (“what is there to think about?” Etc). Which really irritated me. They came back a second time and had gotten the final price down to about $60k, which given MSRP and taxes and everything seemed reasonable. But I was really stressed about the driveway problem and really angry about the whole experience, so I just went home to “think.”
I had been considering the Ioniq 5 as a backup option, and while I don’t like the interior anywhere near as much and would lose a couple features, it’s a pretty comparable car in most of the ways that matter most. So I scheduled a test drive for this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve only ever gotten to sit in one at an auto show, but have never actually driven it.
But in the meantime, I was thinking again: is that 79” number right? I’m still reading 74.8 online, even on sites that do note that with mirrors it’s 85”. And if that’s accurate, I think it’s more workable. And I do love the Ariya a lot, so it would be a shame to have waited so long only to have the whole deal killed by 4 lousy inches.
I probably won’t go back to that dealership in any event. But I had been in contact with another dealer that has the same trim/color coming in any day now, and I still have my Platinum+ reserved if I wanted to wait. So I still have a couple options for buying a suitable Ariya if I can convince myself that the driveway is workable. With 8” of clearance, I think it is. With 4”, I think it’s not.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer any insight, and apologies to anyone who actually made it through my whole rant here!
I was wondering if someone with an Ariya (ideally an Empower+ in case there are differences with trim) would be kind enough to help me double confirm something.
Short Version: How wide is the car with the mirrors in? I’d read for ages that the width was 74.8”. Then we noticed in the new brochure it was listed as 85”. So I had a dealer measure and they said it was 85 with mirrors out and 79 with them in. The long driveway around our condo to the parking lot out back is only 83”, and given our driving habits, only 4” of clearance may unfortunately be a deal breaker for us.
Long Version for anyone interested: I tried to buy an Ariya last week and had a HORRIBLE experience.
I have a Platinum+ reserved, but had been thinking of switching to a FWD model if I found an acceptable one in stock somewhere. This was for a number of reasons, most importantly bringing the cost down after losing the tax credit as well as getting some extra range and the under floor trunk storage back. I found an Empower+ in Northern Lights (my preferred color!) only an hour away in Jersey, and had been debating taking the plunge.
Then my wife rear ended a truck. It’s all just cosmetic damage, and the other guy didn’t stop, so our rates shouldn’t go up as long as we don’t waste money fixing our 18 year old Yaris, but the whole front end pretty banged up. I decided to take this as a sign and bite the bullet.
So I went to the dealership with every intention of buying the car. I went on a quick test drive and asked the saleswoman some questions, and it became clear very quickly that she didn’t really know anything about this car. Which was annoying, but I cut her some slack as she did admit it was so new they hadn’t been fully trained on it yet.
Then I applied for financing. This particular dealership had never sold an EV out of state before, and weren’t sure if New York charged taxes on EVs (apparently Jersey doesn’t), so they wanted to confirm. This took three full hours, and they never did get it confirmed, so they came back and said they’d just have to charge tax as normal, and if it turned out it wasn’t necessary, they’d refund me later. Again, annoying, but not that big a deal as I assumed NYS sales tax would apply.
While we were waiting, though, my wife noticed the aforementioned number in the brochure. Since 85” is literally bigger than our driveway, I started to panic a bit and asked if we could confirm which number was correct. They asked the service department, who said it varied a bit based on trim, which may explain the difference. Then they found a tape measure and manually checked. They said it was 85” with mirrors out, 79” with them in. I started freaking out a bit more, since that wasn’t what I’d been planning around for literally years now. But was trying to keep my cool and think about if we could make it work if we were careful.
Then they finally gave me final sales numbers. In addition to the high NY taxes (what are ya gonna do), they’d also added a $5k dealer markup and some other unexpected fees, making the car nearly $70k! They quickly took off the dealer markup when it seemed like I was going to walk, and went into obnoxiously high pressure sales mode (“what is there to think about?” Etc). Which really irritated me. They came back a second time and had gotten the final price down to about $60k, which given MSRP and taxes and everything seemed reasonable. But I was really stressed about the driveway problem and really angry about the whole experience, so I just went home to “think.”
I had been considering the Ioniq 5 as a backup option, and while I don’t like the interior anywhere near as much and would lose a couple features, it’s a pretty comparable car in most of the ways that matter most. So I scheduled a test drive for this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve only ever gotten to sit in one at an auto show, but have never actually driven it.
But in the meantime, I was thinking again: is that 79” number right? I’m still reading 74.8 online, even on sites that do note that with mirrors it’s 85”. And if that’s accurate, I think it’s more workable. And I do love the Ariya a lot, so it would be a shame to have waited so long only to have the whole deal killed by 4 lousy inches.
I probably won’t go back to that dealership in any event. But I had been in contact with another dealer that has the same trim/color coming in any day now, and I still have my Platinum+ reserved if I wanted to wait. So I still have a couple options for buying a suitable Ariya if I can convince myself that the driveway is workable. With 8” of clearance, I think it is. With 4”, I think it’s not.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer any insight, and apologies to anyone who actually made it through my whole rant here!
