Thinking of becoming an Enginer Installer

They are straight forward to install. However, Enginer is currently switching components suppliers and is in a state of transition. I'd wait for a few weeks to see where it all goes.

 

Install it in your car, fine. install it in a customer car, no. Defect rates on parts are 20% plus, and the BMS doesn't work at all.

Unless you have the time/can charge a customer for your time to do a couple of weeks testing (and repairing) in your own car on each kit before you put it in a customer car it is not worth it.

Don't get me wrong, it -does- work and the results are -really- good considering the price, but it is not yet a hassle free product.

 

As Octane says, they are busy trying to change suppliers. The batteries seem ok (we don't have longevity data yet, though) if you get a working converter it seems ok (mine has been running since december) same with the charger. The BMS is the real problem, and if you were to do this i'd reccomend not getting the supplied BMS16D and putting in a miniBMS instead.

 

I'll add my two pence worth.

I was tempted by the enginer kit BUT I get the impression it is a kit for the more technical DIYer and not really for someone like me who doesn't know his volt from an amp.

If you start selling the kits you might get someone forgiving who understands it's new technology pushing the boundarys, but equally you could get someone who having just paid the best part of a months wage on a load of kit wants it to work 100%, 100% of the time - which from reading users comments on this forum - it doesn't yet.

I guess if you make this 100% clear at the start you should be ok.

 

I'm w/Grumpy. I have no interest in PHEV kits, but it seems every time I glance at Enginer threads, I get the impression that it's unreliable and hacky.

If people here on Priuschat have so much trouble w/them, I think you'll end up w/a bunch of unhappy customers (esp. those who aren't tech savvy or EEs), possibly hounding you, demanding refunds, wanting to sue you, etc.

How about being a HyMotion installer instead? It seems reliable enough (I think) for people like TheForce and rechargeit.org.

 

A couple of points, yes, it's hacky. Would I personally buy one again? Well, if Enginer stays around to service THE main component, i.e. DC Converter, then yes. Lately, when I stay away from 200 mile round trips on the weekend, I'm routinely getting over 100 MPG reliably.

Nobody knows if Enginer will survive its current transition. We should begin to know in about 3 weeks.

That's worth the wait. If it goes well, they will have a very robust system at 30% the cost of anything else and given a very typical driving profile can reliably provide 100+ MPG.

 

This is an interesting thread worth to keep an eye on it.

 

Spanks79,
I encourage you to take some time talking to other installer/dealers. Feel free to call me any time or send a PM with a number and time to call you.

As a shop owner and an installer I would be sure you have liability insurance in place, and additional product liability insurance is probably a good idea as well. For now, each unit that comes directly from Enginer should be bench tested through several cycles of charging/discharging at the very least. In the car would work, too. Many of the quality issues tend to show up with initial tests.

As an installer you will also want to set a price that makes sure you'll still be able to be in business and make sure you aren't losing money on each unit.

If you plan on simply installing the units and not providing any after-the sale service, then a low fee like $500 might work. But if you plan on providing any kind of warranty on your labor, $500 will not cut it. As you have read, besides the pre-installation testing, currently there are additional hours spent after the installation tweaking, or replacing components, as well as educating customers and filling in the information voids that Enginer may have missed. To stay in business you cannot do that work for free, so you'll either need to build the cost in up front, or charge by the hour for the services. I would lean towards the former.

You will be putting your reputation on the line, so be sure to educate and screen customers ahead of time. No sense selling to someone who thinks they are turning their car into a "stomp the pedal to the floor" EV, since that is not what the Enginer system can provide.

Best of luck.