Life's Little Irritations

[Sagitar]

When I bought the PiP I took advantage of the offer of free installation of a tethered charging point and had it fitted in my garage. The whole of that process went very well and I am delighted with the result.

Another part of the offer was free access to the Polar network until next March. I was told that I would receive a card in the post.

Not having received the card by today (nine days since the installation of the charging point). I rang the network managers and was told that they had not yet received any information from the installers (British Gas). A couple of 'phone calls seemed to sort it out and I am hopeful that I will get the card by Friday. A minor matter, but it does tend to take the gilt off the gingerbread.

Earlier, I applied to a local charging network and paid their fee for registration. They promised a card within five working days. Eleven days have passed and the card has not arrived. Yesterday I called their offices to ask what was happening. I was told that the guy who could tell me about it was not available but would give me a call back. He hasn't.

Improvements in technology are not necessarily accompanied by parallel movements in administration.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

But I bet they're managing to invoice the Government for as much as they can.

Throw our tax money about with !Removed! abandon and want it wasted.

[aCactus]

It took a long time for me to get my Polar card as British Gas made a mess of the paperwork - they ended up sending a van with the correct forms for me to sign. I have never used the card as there is nowhere local that I would want to go with a charging point apart from the Toyota dealer. As well as the card you also get access to the web site that holds the data from your charging point.

[Chris Dance]

Hi Sagitar,

As you say the BG installation was carried out very efficiently. I received my Polar charge point card within a week of the installation. I would like to purchase a PIP next year but what puts me off is no spare wheel. I would be interested in what you think of your PIP. and the can of "gunge" instead of a spare wheel. I had a split tyre on my Prius after only 9000 miles, my fault it was a very miserable dark night and I hit a kerb. The AA chap said if I had not got a space saver spare wheel he would have had to call a tyre company out at my cost to fit a new tyre. Gunge would have been no good in my case. As it was at midnight I would not have thought much of waiting around for a tyre company or a car transporter to take the car home. Mrs would not have bee too happy either.

[Sagitar]

Hi Sagitar,

As you say the BG installation was carried out very efficiently. I received my Polar charge point card within a week of the installation. I would like to purchase a PIP next year but what puts me off is no spare wheel. I would be interested in what you think of your PIP. and the can of "gunge" instead of a spare wheel. I had a split tyre on my Prius after only 9000 miles, my fault it was a very miserable dark night and I hit a kerb. The AA chap said if I had not got a space saver spare wheel he would have had to call a tyre company out at my cost to fit a new tyre. Gunge would have been no good in my case. As it was at midnight I would not have thought much of waiting around for a tyre company or a car transporter to take the car home. Mrs would not have bee too happy either.

The spare is a considered risk. I don't like it a bit and have made sure that Toyota understands the level of my discomfort. The vast majority of my mileage is short local journeys, which is why the plug-in is so attractive, so on most of my journeys I am never far from home. I have considered buying a skinny and may well still do so, but I would be likely to depend on the roadside assistance (and a taxi if necessary) if something went wrong. I have a complete set of spare wheels and I would put one of those in the boot or inside the car for a long journey. It is entirely unsatisfactory in my view but I figured it was worth the risk in my circumstances. I certainly would not expect others to necessarily take the same view.

I like the PiP and the usage is working out much as I expected except that I had been expecting to be able to get at some of the local recharging points and I have not yet been able so to do in the absence of a card. Even so my average consumption is showing as 92 m.p.g. this morning. I am still on the first fill, have done about 300 mile and am three bars down on the fuel gauge.

I phoned the local network people again this afternoon and this time their promise to ring back was kept. Profuse apologies followed with a promise to get a card in the first class post today, so I have my fingers crossed.

[Chris Dance]

Thanks Sagitar,

I may wait for the Gen 4 to come out and see if that has a spare wheel!! I doubt it will have one. At the moment the Auris estate looks a likely purchase next year; at least you can get a spare wheel at a cost. I like toyota cars but why on earth do manufacturers not heed the needs of their customers?

Happy motoring. I appreciate your reply.

[PeteB]

Hi Sagitar,

... I would like to purchase a PIP next year but what puts me off is no spare wheel.

... I had a split tyre on my Prius after only 9000 miles,

... The AA chap said if I had not got a space saver spare wheel he would have had to call a tyre company out at my cost to fit a new tyre. Gunge would have been no good in my case. As it was at midnight I would not have thought much of waiting around for a tyre company or a car transporter to take the car home. Mrs would not have bee too happy either.

The spare is a considered risk. I don't like it a bit and have made sure that Toyota understands the level of my discomfort.

... I have considered buying a skinny and may well still do so, but I would be likely to depend on the roadside assistance (and a taxi if necessary) if something went wrong.

...I like the PiP ... my average consumption is showing as 92 m.p.g. this morning. I am still on the first fill, have done about 300 mile and am three bars down on the fuel gauge.

I dearly wanted a PIP too. I drove a converted plugin around 6 years ago and often got 1000-1500 miles on a tankful! (although the Gen 2 had a bigger fuel tank [about 2 gal] and the conversion had an EV range of almost 40 miles).

Currently, I do short local trips first thing, again at lunch time, and again in the evening (OAPs taxi!) - it would so work for me.

Also, a good way to get reasonable equipment and sensible 15" wheels - another message that's just not getting through to Toyota.

What really got my goat was the tiny firm that did the conversion managed to fit a much higher capacity Battery under the boot floor and still leave room for the space saver. It hadn't occurred to me as the remotest possibility that a firm with all Toyota's technical resources would fail to do the same.

I recently read on one of these forums about a PIP owner who had a puncture late at night and the gunge ran out of the hole in the tyre. He was 3 miles from home, but waited 3 hours for recovery and got home at 2 am next day!

In the morning he had to leave the car jacked up while he took 2 taxi rides to take his wheel to a tyre shop.

Before I finally settled on my 'ordinary' T3, I started to think in terms of using a roof box for the spare (then could have a proper full sized one!) for the one or two long journeys I do where I couldn't get my luggage and a space saver in the boot, but I also plan some pan-Europe trips in a year or two, but then cursed myself for even daring to think this - -it would wipe out the rest of the years advantages at a stroke!

[Cyker]

Yeah, it's stupid as the kind of puncture a can-o-goop will fix is one that you can probably over-inflate the tyre and get to a repair place or somesuch rather than waste time changing tyres!

I'd say half of the punctures I've had are ones that a tyre place won't repair and thus one that gunk won't help with either. Heck, I had some puncturesafe tyre sealant put in all my tyres and the first puncture of the season I get? Right in the £^&%$'# corner of the tyre!

Even a space-saver is more useful vs a sidewall puncture than the goop.

It's a shame those airless tyres I saw on Tomorrow's World oh so many years ago have made so little progress!

[wass]

A lot of mobile elevating work platforms have what look like air filled tyres but actually, they are foam filled ( with tiny air bubbles). They are perfectly ok for low speeds. I don't think that they have perfected the high speeds yet and so we wont see airless tyres on conventional cars for some time to come. More is the pity.

[Cyker]

Well they demo'd one on TW that was rated up to 90mph. Main problem was that it made the ride as bad as a silly-ly-low-profile tyre and at speed it was so noisy you couldn't hear the presenter guy talking