Our Sparrow is for Sale! Now is your chance to get a hold of a great Sparrow that has many upgrades and has been meticulously maintained. This is Sparrow #183 out of about 300 made by the now defunct Corbin Motors. It is a 2000 model year, but we bought it in November 2002 and we're the original owners. The Sparrow has about 2900 miles on it (this changes as we will still drive it about 40 miles per week until we sell it), but the battery pack only has 500 miles! The sparrow has a maximum range of 35 miles, but that will full deplete the batteries which is not healthy for lead-acid batteries. The maximum safe range for our little bird is 25-30 miles. We have never taken it more than 22 miles on our brand new pack so they are in prisitine condition.

Appearance
This Sparrow is red with flames over the front that change color. The flames were painted with the Dupont color change paint that changes from purple to blue to bronze to orange depending on what angle the light hits the car. It's a truly spectacular paint job that you just have to see to appreciate! Take a look: Sparrow Pics. There are also gleaming chrome rims that came standard with the Sparrow. The tires still have over 90% tread on them according to my friend who works at America's Tire Company. The Sparrow has been washed about twice monthly and waxed every other month. We only used Meguir's products for the best protection to the paint finish.

Accessories
We had the heater/defrost hose replaced at the Corbin factory right after we received the vehicle since it wasn't working properly; both work well now and will keep you nice and toasty in cold weather. Also while at the factory, we had the Corbin folks tighten the parking brake so that it works fine now. The CD player works fine, but the radio doesn't get much reception. It's just a matter of hooking up an antenna though and it'll be great. I never did it because I'm not much of a radio person. The wiper and wiper fluid sprayer is in great working condition as well. The power windows are both in great working order. The inner door handle works great now (didn't work that well when we first got it). The outer door handle, door lock, and trunk lock all are in great working order. The turn signals, brake lights, and headlight (high beam too) work great!

Features, Upgrades, & Extras
Brand New Batteries: 13 brand new Exide Orbital deep cycle batteries were installed in August 2003. The dealer that originally maintained the batteries didn't really know what they were doing and ended up overcharging the batteries. We were able to use the Sparrow for almost a year with the worn out batteries, but it finally became a bad situation in July 2003. We decided to use Exide Orbital batteries in the Sparrow since other Sparrow drivers have had much better luck with them than the Optima Yellow Tops. The batteries alone cost about $1400. I did all of the work myself and am quite proud that the it came out so well. After installation, I did a few break in runs of 4, 6, 10, 15, and 22 miles. This was to ensure that the batteries have a proper "awakening" and are able to serve a healthy, productive life. The Sparrow now hums along and the batteries are rock solid. The batteries have only 500 miles on them, practically brand new!

Ed Ang Regulators: Ed is a fellow Sparrow owner and engineer. He built a regulator to protect the batteries from overcharging which is frequently the cause of premature battery failure in EVs. Ed's Sparrow has over 15,000 miles on the same Exide Orbital batteries using the same regulators and the same charger! I cannot guarantee that this Sparrow's pack will have the same life, but I followed Ed's lead in using Exides and regulators for the specific reason of battery pack longevity. The regulators cost us about $450 not to mention my time to install them.

Charger: Ed also helped me test the Zivan 110V charger in the Sparrow. The charger is up to spec and goes through all of the proper charging stages without worry. The charger has the latest chip (V9) and puts the batteries into a "float" stage after fully charging the batteries. The batteries can be maintained in perfect condition on the float stage indefinitely. There is also a temperature probe that detects 'thermal runaway" and shuts off the charger to protect the batteries. Thermal runaway is a situation in which they batteries do not charge properly which causes the charger to run longer than normal, damaging the batteries. The thermal probe ensures this does not happen and even if it did, the regulators keep the batteries safe. We know the probe works because this past summer, I drove home on the hottest day of the summer after charging the batteries in the sun at work. The probe kicked in and shut off the charger whille charging at home that evening because the batteries were hot from baking in the sun all day.

Timer: I will also include a 20Amp timer for the charger. We purchased the timer before getting the new batteries and regulators to guard against overcharging the old battery pack. The timer works great and is just another added safeguard to protect the Sparrow's batteries.

Defanging: Clare Bell a well-known eletrical engineer in the EV community that worked at Corbin on the original Sparrow as well as other EV companies came to defang the Sparrow (isolate the battery pack from the vehicle chasis). This is an essential safety procedure that was "overlooked' by Corbin. This process cost us $200.

Patch Box: I installed a patch box to be able to check the voltage of each battery without having to open the hood or tear apart the car. Each connection is fused so there is not chance of shorting the pack and severely damaging any of the components in case of an errant probe. Most of the connections in the box are working, but some are loose and we're not getting readings from a few of the batteries. I have been wanting to fix this, but that would mean tearing apart the bird again, something that I just don't have time for these days.

Spare Belt: We have a brand new spare belt from Gates that cost $80. Our belt hasn't broken nor do we have reason for concern, but it happens once in a while to other Sparrow owners so I bought one "just-in-case". The belt is brand new and stored in the box.

Brakes: We had Clare test our brakes when she came out to defang the sparrow and she said they are in great shape and stop quite well.

Radio Shack Teflon Lube Gel: The Sparrow's belt drive tends to squeak if not properly lubricated. The Radio Shack Lube Gel has been recognized by Sparrow owners as the longest lasting and non-corrosive lubricant. I have 3 tubes left (worth about $10). The new owner will need to re-lubricate the belt once ever couple of months. The process is not at all difficult and takes about 15 minutes after you get the hang of it.

Body Panel Bolts: To aid in the process of lubing the drive belt, I've replaced the hex screws holding the panel with standard bolts. I used an adapter with an electric screwdriver to get the bolts off/on quickly to save time during the belt lube process.

Headlight Aiming Bolts: The headlight aiming bolts that came with the Sparrow were a tad bit short. I did a little bit of research and after some trial and error found longer bolts that work well with the Sparrow.

Emergency Hammer/Seat Belt Cutter/Flashlight: Just got this neat little device that acts as a glass hammer, seat belt cutter, and flashlight all in one neat little unit. It is made by Coleman and is bright orange.

E-meter Setup: The e-meter for the Sparrow was calibrated improperly when we first received it. We've recalibrated the e-meter according to the guidelines created by the Sparrow brain trust.

Registration: The Sparrow is registered in California until Nov 2004. We've paid the triple car tax so you don't have to (if you live in CA)!

What it's like to own a Sparrow
Owning the Sparrow is not like owning any other car. You'll turn lots and lots of heads on the street and grab lots of attention. You'll see people wave at you, smiles, say hi, and lots of other fun things. It's like instantly becoming a celebrity. We've even put up a webpage to answer questions about our Sparrow. Both my wife and I love driving the Sparrow. It's a nice feeling driving around knowning that you're not contributing to our world's growing problems with pollution and our nation's need to go to war to get more oil.

There are caveats to owning a Sparrow however, things we didn't know about before purchasing it. It is a higher maintenance vehicle than your average Honda Civic. However, that being said the community for Sparrows is amazing. I knew absolutely nothing about EVs when I purchased the Sparrow. I had no idea how it worked (I understand the basics of electricity, but am not an electrical engineer by trade or training). I simply knew that the Sparrow was a 3 wheeled electric car and that was it. Through the community found at Sparrow_EV Yahoo! Group, I learned everything I needed to know about maintaining and working on the car. These people are simply amazing in their knowledge and willingness to share information. There is an extensive archive of data for the car that far exceeds what the original manufacturer knew about the cars. Everything I know about the Sparrow I learned through these folks and I owe my happy 2200 miles of EV driving to them.

Driving the Sparrow
Driving the Sparrow is almost like driving a regular car, with a few differences. It's smaller and much easier to park. Other Sparrow owners have experienced the rear wheel sliding out, but we have never experienced that. both drive the Sparrow very conservatively and never push her to the limit. We've driven the Sparrow on sunny, cold, and rainy days and she just keeps humming along. The Sparrow can go up to 70 mph and gets carpool privileges since it is technically a motorcycle in the eyes of the DMV. I've driven on the freeway a few times and it's not as unnerving as I thought it would be. I drive the sparrow once in a while to work on expressways where the speed limit is 50 to 55mph. Usually though, my wife drives the Sparrow to school on surface streets with 40mph speed limits and the car is great there as well.

Problem Areas
I hate it when I get bad information and don't intend to give potential buyers misrepresented information. Here are the things that are not exactly right about the car:

Body: The body and the paint of the Sparrow is nearly flawless. There is one area of touch up paint on the body in discreet area (the very bottom of one of the body panels). It looks like edge of the panel was bumped into the corner of a wall and scraped a little bit. There is also an area of the paint that doesn't look as uniform as the rest of the car. The color looks a little bit faded. This area is about the size of a 50 cent piece and again, not noticable until inspected closely.

Squeaks: The drive belt squeaks (as mentioned above) and requires oiling every couple of months. The brakes also squeal a little bit when the car comes to a near stop. To fix this would require the use of no-squeal brake pads which I never installed due to difficulty involved. The door squeaks a little bit while opening and closing (probably easily fixable with WD-40, but never bothered me).

Patch Box: As stated above, the patch box works for most of the batteries, but does not work for a few of the batteries. To be honest, though I really don't check the batteries as much as I used to simply because I'm not worried about them any more. I know they are balanced and I know they are strong because the voltage is very stable during higher amp draws (70a-150a). Also the wiring of the box, leads out from under the seat, into the passenger compartment, under the door jam to where the patch box lives (between the hinges of the door). I thought it would be a great place to house the panel for checking while driving. I found that this is not the case for two reasons: it'd be mad to try to check voltages with a multimeter and probes while driving (very dangerous) and the positon is a little blocked by the thickness of the door so it just isn't possible to check while the door is closed. At any rate, if you're handy with wires, you have the basic groundwork there already and you would just need to run longer wires to get the box into the trunk area if you decided to do that.

Charging: Since the Exide Orbital batteries a little bit taller than the original Optima Yellow Tops, you will need to take the seat off during charging since the regulators will get quite hot and can leave burn marks on the under side of the seat. This is quite easy as the seat is held in with two screws in the front. Actually, we don't keep the seat screwed in as we charge almost daily. Once you take the seat off, just rotate it 90 degrees and slide it under the steering column while the Sparrow charges.

Pricing
The asking price for the car is $10,500. Keep in mind that there is a practically brand new battery pack that cost $1400 + $450 of regulators to protect the batteries from overcharging, an extra belt, lube gel, timer, emergency hammer, and other little upgrades. If you were to add in the labor to get a "from the factory" sparrow as reliable as this one that would add thousands more. If you want a reliable sparrow you will want to do most of these upgrades anyway, so buying this sparrow saves you not only the hassle of getting them done but also some money. The car is in great working condition and has been maintained as our pride and joy.

Contact
The Sparrow is based in Santa Clara, California, about 45 minutes south of San Francisco. I will be happy to coordinate with buyer-paid shippers, but I would guess that with all the cool people here in the Bay Area I'll find someone local to buy it. I'm happy to offer test drives.

You can contact me, Tommy Suriwong, at the email address: titaniumtommy ( at ) yahoo (dot) com
Or phone 650-693-2870.