james h
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| posted on 4/9/17 at 07:46 PM |
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Quick poll regarding hybrid and alternative fuel cars
Evening all,
Just wanted to get a car forum's opinion on the current alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) marketplace. My question:
Q. Is it easier, or more difficult to make an informed decision when purchasing an AFV compared to a conventional car?
I'd be interested to hear any other thoughts about AFVs.
Cheers!
James
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ianhurley20
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| posted on 4/9/17 at 08:38 PM |
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Interesting that you should ask this question as I have just gone through the process of trying to buy a hybrid car. I had a Citroen C4 1.6hdi EGS
and as it was 10 years old looked at lots of cars. Honda do hybrids (Jazz) an Toyota do several but Yaris and Auris were my main targets. To cut a
long story shorter I gave up. Hybrids are expensive. The Nissan Leaf does not have the range and they are all far too expensive. What did I buy? A
Citroen DS4 Airdream 1.6hdi EGS Eco Dstyle. It came out about 3k at least lower in price than the hybrids and at an average 62mpg is very economical
and the standard of trim and toys is very much better than the hybrids. Very happy with my choice of car, maybe next time.
[Edited on 4/9/17 by ianhurley20]
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twybrow
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| posted on 4/9/17 at 09:02 PM |
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As a company car driver, it was an easy choice going for an Outlander PHEV a couple of years ago as the tax and personal fuel came to £90 pm. But now
the tax is going up year on year, it looks like a harder decision when I replace it in 18 months or so. They are still attractive compared to a
similar size diesel, but the whole company car thing is looking less and less appealing at the mo.
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mark chandler
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| posted on 4/9/17 at 09:36 PM |
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Pretty hard I would say, my brother had a car on a contract and the residuals fell through the floor to well below the estimate when purchased, not an
issue in his case as he just handed back but a s a private buyer.... Not pretty.
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russbost
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 07:22 AM |
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I'd say it's a little more difficult, but mainly due to lack of readily available info.
I've just gone thro' the new car buying process (my super zero road tax, 60+ to the gallon Dacia is still available for a few more days b4
new car arrives & it goes to we buy any car!) & found it very difficult to get much good info re Hybrids etc. I thought all recent (last 2 or
3 years) hybrids were plug in, as I see very little point in a hybrid that you can't charge from the mains, the only gains you're making
are otherwise pretty much just the regenerative braking, but I discovered that most hybrids don't plug in & the ones that do - PHEV's
- command a VERY high price tag, yet residuals seem to fall thro' the floor - Ouch!
Really I would much rather have bought diesel again as mpg on the current car is phenomenal, but I'm probably going to be doing only around
4,000 a year now, so economy of much less importance, & as the government have now labelled diesel as the fuel of Satan (AGAIN!) & you have
our London Mayor making the usual knee jerk reactions & people screaming left right & centre to ban them from city centres or make high
charges to use them in cities I was really bothered as to what diesel residuals will do over the next few years
Decided I would buy nearly new, but of course no one has been buying petrol cars have they, as we were all encouraged to buy diesel, so there was
b*gger all available, then found a brilliant deal from Mazda of Romford & have settled on a Mazda 6, £4k cheaper from them than any dealers
offered on Car Wow!
I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator
headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names
furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours.
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1
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NOTE:This user is registered as a LocostBuilders trader and may offer commercial services to other users
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nick205
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 08:02 AM |
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I'd say it's harder.
The uncertainty around which (if any) alternative energy type is actually better or will take the lead is difficult. Personally I'm very far
from convinced about electric cars. Is electric energy any greener than oil based energy. Do countries really have the capacity to charge millions
of cars every night. Infrastructure - petrol/diesel fuel stations are everywhere and work well enough, trying to replace them with an electric
infrastructure ? I can't see it working myself.
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SJ
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 08:27 AM |
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quote:
I'd say it's a little more difficult, but mainly due to lack of readily available info.
I've just gone thro' the new car buying process (my super zero road tax, 60+ to the gallon Dacia is still available for a few more days b4
new car arrives & it goes to we buy any car!) & found it very difficult to get much good info re Hybrids etc. I thought all recent (last 2 or
3 years) hybrids were plug in, as I see very little point in a hybrid that you can't charge from the mains, the only gains you're making
are otherwise pretty much just the regenerative braking, but I discovered that most hybrids don't plug in & the ones that do - PHEV's
- command a VERY high price tag, yet residuals seem to fall thro' the floor - Ouch!
Really I would much rather have bought diesel again as mpg on the current car is phenomenal, but I'm probably going to be doing only around
4,000 a year now, so economy of much less importance, & as the government have now labelled diesel as the fuel of Satan (AGAIN!) & you have
our London Mayor making the usual knee jerk reactions & people screaming left right & centre to ban them from city centres or make high
charges to use them in cities I was really bothered as to what diesel residuals will do over the next few years
Decided I would buy nearly new, but of course no one has been buying petrol cars have they, as we were all encouraged to buy diesel, so there was
b*gger all available, then found a brilliant deal from Mazda of Romford & have settled on a Mazda 6, £4k cheaper from them than any dealers
offered on Car Wow!
Interesting! I've got a Mazda 6 petrol estate on the way as well. The local dealer only offered the £2500 discount and 0% finance though and
couldn't match buying it online.
When I had my last company car in 2008 a Prius was a complete no-brainer as I made money from driving it. Not sure I would buy any hybrid as a private
punter though.
Stu
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russbost
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 08:50 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by SJ
quote:
Interesting! I've got a Mazda 6 petrol estate on the way as well. The local dealer only offered the £2500 discount and 0% finance though and
couldn't match buying it online.
When I had my last company car in 2008 a Prius was a complete no-brainer as I made money from driving it. Not sure I would buy any hybrid as a private
punter though.
Stu
It's a 25.5k list price car & best offer from Car Wow was 23.5k - unless of course you have it on their finance when it dropped to about 21,
that really infuriates me as it is so misleading!
Mazda Romford did the same spec car for 19.5 on the latest Sept reg, it quickly became a no brainer!
I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator
headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names
furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours.
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1
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NOTE:This user is registered as a LocostBuilders trader and may offer commercial services to other users
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SJ
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 09:05 AM |
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quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SJ
quote:
Interesting! I've got a Mazda 6 petrol estate on the way as well. The local dealer only offered the £2500 discount and 0% finance though and
couldn't match buying it online.
When I had my last company car in 2008 a Prius was a complete no-brainer as I made money from driving it. Not sure I would buy any hybrid as a private
punter though.
Stu
It's a 25.5k list price car & best offer from Car Wow was 23.5k - unless of course you have it on their finance when it dropped to about 21,
that really infuriates me as it is so misleading!
Mazda Romford did the same spec car for 19.5 on the latest Sept reg, it quickly became a no brainer!
I've tried Carwow a couple of times and found their prices to be quite high. Looks like yours is a higher spec than mine as the dealers would do
it for £20,560 on 0% finance and it is costing me £17,495, so still £3k cheaper
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coozer
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 09:31 AM |
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AF cars need more time and a total change in direction from car manufacturers governments and the king, the oil giants...
We had electric cars way back, electric trams for the masses and even milk floats. Oil company's made sure we stayed with fossil fuels..
I would go for an electric vehicle for my day to day bits but they are simply too expensive. And ugly...
TNT down the road had some 7.5t electric delivery vans and they spent more time in the garage for maintenance than out on the road. They've all
gone back now and they have no af vehicles now
1972 V8 Jago
1980 Z750
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ianhurley20
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:06 AM |
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Russbost - have you tried 'we want any car' as they made me a much better offer than we buy any car did?
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SJ
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:11 AM |
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quote:
Russbost - have you tried 'we want any car' as they made me a much better offer than we buy any car did?
My Mondeo will probably be going to one of these outfits. Looks like I should get around £1500 for a 59 reg 2.0 tdci. 'Webuyanycar' and
'wewantanycar' seem to offer about the same.
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:25 AM |
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not convinced new hybrid is going to save anything on fuel compared with an older petrol car when you take depreciation into account. I think
you'd have to do a phenomenal mileage (much more than is realistic) to break even. There are loads at my work who go on about the cars mpg,
which may be 30mpg higher than mine for sure but their car cost £30,000 more than mine and is losing value faster than I think they want to know.
There's also the service issue, how do you service such technically complex cars yourself, you can't so then you have to add service
charges on top. Then there's the batteries ,not cheap and have a very low finite life that every potential buyer will be concerned about.
Not knocking new tech but wouldn't touch it myself
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hkp57
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:30 AM |
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I joined the Hybrid bandwagon this year, my wife has a 23 mile daily commute and the Ford Kuga Titanium Sport power shift we had drank like it was in
the desert.
And as I now have a van for load lugging and the Kuga was getting a bit old we looked into the alternative market thinking Hybrid cars would be
stupidly expensive.
OK so the Toyota is a bit smaller, no 4 wheel drive but it does all we need, plus its kinda quirky which we like. With the same level of options, all
the toys and full leather the C-HR was 5k cheaper than the ford, comes with a 5 year warranty as standard but if you keep your servicing to a Toyota
approved shop they will warranty the hybrid system and batteries for 10 years.
On the wifes 23 mile commute on a mixture of open motorway, gridlock motorway and city driving to the center of Edinburgh she gets 64mpg.
Went from a tank and a bit a week in the Kuga to 1 tank a fortnight in the Toyota, she also still gets lots of pointing and staring even some USA
tourists wanting their photo with it lol.
Toyota C-HR 1.8 Hybrid Limited Edition.
 
Description
Fleet
SKC Raptor R - Hayabusa
Toyota C-HR Hybrid Limited Edition
Honda VFR1200 CrossTourer
DCT
Marlin Roadster 1800
Mercedes Vito 116 Sport
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SJ
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:36 AM |
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From my experience it is heavy traffic where hybrids work really well, though maybe stop-start closes the gap somewhat. Before my Prius I had a Passat
diesel which did high 40s mpg on the motorway but oniy high 20s in London driving. The Prius did high 40s on the motorway but was only a couple of mpg
less in central London.
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 11:44 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
There's also the service issue, how do you service such technically complex cars yourself, you can't so then you have to add service
charges on top. Then there's the batteries ,not cheap and have a very low finite life that every potential buyer will be concerned about.
Have you looked at servicing costs for electric cars? The Hyundai Ioniq is about £100 a service cheaper than my Hyundai i30, and they're
roughly equivalent in size. Even the Tesla Model S service is cheaper than my i30! There's not a lot to check - suspension, bearings, check
the diagnostics (worth a look at the Tesla website to see what they do).
The batteries do lose some capacity over time, but nowhere near as much as people think - there are Prius taxi drivers who've covered many
100,000's without problems. The problem for me is that there are new and much cheaper battery technologies coming along - some out of the
laboratories and very close to commercial use - that will make cars with the current batteries hard to sell in the future.
I'd really like to have an electric car as it would really suit my driving habits, but I'm not prepared to pay the huge capital expense up
front. The all-electric Ioniq is somewhere around £30K, the plug-in hybrid roughly the same, and I'm not going to spend that kind of money on a
middle-of-the-road saloon, no matter what fancy extras they put on it.
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Mr Whippy
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 12:13 PM |
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I think we were talking about hybrid rather than pure electric cars. There are considerably many more parts to a hybrid than a engine based model or
pure electric so servicing is very unlikely to be cheaper.
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russbost
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 12:47 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by SJ
quote:
Russbost - have you tried 'we want any car' as they made me a much better offer than we buy any car did?
My Mondeo will probably be going to one of these outfits. Looks like I should get around £1500 for a 59 reg 2.0 tdci. 'Webuyanycar' and
'wewantanycar' seem to offer about the same.
We want any car have offered about £400 less than WBAC did! which didn't seem exactly generous for a top spec low mileage less than 3 year old
car in the first place. It will really grieve me to sell the car to one of these cowboy outfits, but I really can't be bothered with advertising
it for ages & having idiots ring me up with stupid offers!
I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator
headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names
furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours.
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1
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NOTE:This user is registered as a LocostBuilders trader and may offer commercial services to other users
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 12:50 PM |
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Maybe my post was muddled and didn't say what I meant it to - here's the list of prices for the Hyundai range:
UK price list. You can see that the hybrid service is the same as the petrol cars. Unfortunately
for me, the diesel cars are more expensive, which is why I fancy an electric car next time around. Your comment about non-dealer servicing is valid -
only the dealers are likely to have the technology to service their own brand's vehicles.
I was a bit wrong about Tesla's prices - but they're not a lot more than for my diesel car.
My other comments about the useable life of the Prius and the new battery technologies are still valid, I believe.
[Edited on 5/9/17 by David Jenkins]
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ianhurley20
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| posted on 5/9/17 at 03:59 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by DeuxChevaux
quote:
Russbost - have you tried 'we want any car' as they made me a much better offer than we buy any car did?
My Mondeo will probably be going to one of these outfits. Looks like I should get around £1500 for a 59 reg 2.0 tdci. 'Webuyanycar' and
'wewantanycar' seem to offer about the same.
We want any car have offered about £400 less than WBAC did! which didn't seem exactly generous for a top spec low mileage less than 3 year old
car in the first place. It will really grieve me to sell the car to one of these cowboy outfits, but I really can't be bothered with advertising
it for ages & having idiots ring me up with stupid offers!
Oh dear - we want any car offered twice what we buy any car did - swings and roundabouts I suppose
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hkp57
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| posted on 6/9/17 at 02:06 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I think we were talking about hybrid rather than pure electric cars. There are considerably many more parts to a hybrid than a engine based model or
pure electric so servicing is very unlikely to be cheaper.
Toyota charge exactly the same for conventional drive trains for their hybrid system. There are no serviceable parts on the hybrid system and anything
on it has a 5 year warranty.
https://www.toyota.co.uk/owners/service-mot-maintenance/full-service-details.json
Fleet
SKC Raptor R - Hayabusa
Toyota C-HR Hybrid Limited Edition
Honda VFR1200 CrossTourer
DCT
Marlin Roadster 1800
Mercedes Vito 116 Sport
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smart51
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| posted on 6/9/17 at 07:06 AM |
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I'd say harder. Partly because fuel consumption figures are lies. Hybrid cars are allowed to artificially charge their battery to maximum
before starting the test. This will never hapen in normal use because they always leave space to store regenerative braking. The result is that they
go further on battery power only in the urban fuel economy test than they would do in normal use. So the urban MPG figure is (even more)
unrealistically high. If you want to write off the extra cost of buying a hybrid against the fuel saved, you can't because the figures are
false and by an unknown quantity.
All that said, we looked at buying a Yaris Hybrid a couple of years ago when we swapped my Mrs' car. The shortlist came down to the Yaris or a
1.2 Peugeot 208. She picked the 208 on ride comfort and a slightly nicer interior but could easily have gone the other way.
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hughpinder
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| posted on 6/9/17 at 12:31 PM |
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We took a test drive in the Mitsubishi PHEV, as my mrs gets a company car and the tax is much lower.
The reality is that she does 40k a year, mostly 200+ mile days or down the back lanes of Lincolnshire, so we asked the dealer we were going to for a
test drive to check the battery was fully discharged so we could get a realistic idea of the fuel use we would actually get.
We turned up and the car was fully charged, so we ragged the car round the lanes until the battery was empty (12 miles, we were giving it the beans
though), reset the trip meter, then drove normally for about 30 miles - about 12 on lanes and 20 on the A180 (cruise control on at 70). Average
32.8mpg - the 'offical' mpg is something like 157! (but of course it would have been using the engine to recharge the battery too). She
actually got the L200 pickup, which is currently averaging slightly better mpg!
We ran LPG cars for a few years with variable results - the honda civic did 217k on it and no engine problems, but slightly less torque than on
petrol, and about 20% more litres used per mile.
We also has a subaru 2.5 which we did 80k on LPG. On that you really couldn't tell the difference in power/torque compared to petrol, it also
used 20% mole fuel per mile. The oil seal piston rings failed in the end, and there was some rumour on the internet that the lpg may cause this.
We used to run them until the gas ran out and then fill up next gas station we found just to run on petrol for a bit to lube the valves etc, so did
about 5%of the miles on petrol.
When we converted the cars to LPG it was 17p/l and petrol had just gone up to 80p. Gas stayed low for about 4 years so for us it was an amazing
saving, but the gas prices are much higher relative to petrol now so may not be economic.
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britishtrident
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| posted on 6/9/17 at 05:35 PM |
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A friend has pair of Renault Zoe (which share a driveway with his Nissan Pathfinder!) he gets a range of over 40 miles (mainly M8 motorway) they
love them running cost are next to nothing compared to their previous petrol Renaults but really only regard them as useful for local runs.
[I] “ What use our work, Bennet, if we cannot care for those we love? .”
― From BBC TV/Amazon's Ripper Street.
[/I]
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britishtrident
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| posted on 6/9/17 at 05:50 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by hughpinder
We took a test drive in the Mitsubishi PHEV, as my mrs gets a company car and the tax is much lower.
The reality is that she does 40k a year, mostly 200+ mile days or down the back lanes of Lincolnshire, so we asked the dealer we were going to for a
test drive to check the battery was fully discharged so we could get a realistic idea of the fuel use we would actually get.
We turned up and the car was fully charged, so we ragged the car round the lanes until the battery was empty (12 miles, we were giving it the beans
though), reset the trip meter, then drove normally for about 30 miles - about 12 on lanes and 20 on the A180 (cruise control on at 70). Average
32.8mpg - the 'offical' mpg is something like 157! (but of course it would have been using the engine to recharge the battery too). She
actually got the L200 pickup, which is currently averaging slightly better mpg!
We ran LPG cars for a few years with variable results - the honda civic did 217k on it and no engine problems, but slightly less torque than on
petrol, and about 20% more litres used per mile.
We also has a subaru 2.5 which we did 80k on LPG. On that you really couldn't tell the difference in power/torque compared to petrol, it also
used 20% mole fuel per mile. The oil seal piston rings failed in the end, and there was some rumour on the internet that the lpg may cause this.
We used to run them until the gas ran out and then fill up next gas station we found just to run on petrol for a bit to lube the valves etc, so did
about 5%of the miles on petrol.
When we converted the cars to LPG it was 17p/l and petrol had just gone up to 80p. Gas stayed low for about 4 years so for us it was an amazing
saving, but the gas prices are much higher relative to petrol now so may not be economic.
LPG has been killed as road fuel by price increases, a pity because the latest high tech LPG conversion kits that talk to the engines own computer
via the OBD II port are ace.
Japanese cars and LPG have a chequered history mainly due to valve seat recession which can be side stepped with valve saver lube injection Subuaru
have their own issues with ot without LPG, not quite as bullet proof as their reputation .
[I] “ What use our work, Bennet, if we cannot care for those we love? .”
― From BBC TV/Amazon's Ripper Street.
[/I]
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