Gen 4 Plug-in

[PeteB]

Oh yes, and I've just found a review that says the C-HR’s  CD figure is 0.33 - I didn't think it was that horrendous - it would have been considered good in the 1980s.

Even the dumpy original 1997 Gen 1 Prius saloon was 0.29 which was very good considering it's form factor.

Each 0.01 improvement is fairly major, and becomes a bigger jump as the numbers get smaller (opposite way round to the Earthquake scale, but same principle).

So the Gen 3 Prius (0.25) to Gen 4 (0.24) (both on 15" wheels - add 0.2 for 17"), was a much bigger deal than the .01 improvement from 0.26 of the Gen 2 Prius.

[Ten Ninety]

0.33 is probably quite good for that style of car, given its height and what is visually a large frontal area. Your 61mpg is much closer to what I'd have expected, so I'm a bit mystified as to why the one I tried was so poor in that respect. Maybe the tyres were underinflated.

Either way, the Gen4 is a more appealing option right now. I do still want to try a CT, despite it being an Auris in a frock, just to see what it drives like. There are a whole raft of obvious negatives it would need to overcome, and I suspect the earlier comments about ride quality in particular will ring true, but I need to be sure I'm walking away from electric memory seats and a Mark Levinson sound system with good reason! 

[PeteB]

Yeah, I'd like the electric memory seats, but little else.

Is the CT's Hybrid system still the 3rd Generation rather than the 4th like the current Prius?  My Gen 4 Prius generally gets about 100 extra miles per tank full compared to my previous Gen 3, despite the claimed tank size being 2 litres smaller on the newer car.

When I was lent some top of the range RX and LS models in my previous job, I loved the electric memory seats, which included the rake/reach of the steering column.  Also nice on those that when switching off, the steering column moved out of the way, to make entry/exit easier, and reverted to the preset position when switching on again.  Not sure if the CT does that.

Apart from missing things like the HUD, digital instruments,  for the price the missing 2 years off the warranty would also have grated.  When I considered a Lexus NX Premier, the 42k cost Vs £28 for the Prius really made the 3 year warranty look stingy.

 

[QuantumFireball]

12 hours ago, PeteB said:

Is the CT's Hybrid system still the 3rd Generation rather than the 4th like the current Prius?

Yes, I guess once the new Auris is out then the replacement CT will soon follow.

I was in one recently, was surprised by the lack of a HUD too. The seats are a lot nicer than my Prius though...

[PeteB]

4 minutes ago, QuantumFireball said:

I was in one recently, was surprised by the lack of a HUD too. The seats are a lot nicer than my Prius though...

Even on Lexus models available with a HUD (RX, NX as far as I know) it only comes on the most expensive Premier level.  So if I bought an RX I'd have to spend over £60k on a Premier!

[YarisHybrid2016]

I'm waiting for a project to complete before getting one!

I wish the glass roof was available on the Prius! I definitely missed it (I understand why it isn't an option).

The seats in the Excel (leather) were not quite as I thought they'd be - they felt as if lacking in padding, yet ended up being the most comfortable seats I've ever sat in. They made the Yaris seats feel positively hard!

The car I had second time, didn't have the tonneau cover, but the first one did.

The dealership were going to charge it for me, but the sales guy who used it left the cable at home! I charged it using charge mode.

The ride quality alone is worth the price of admission, and I got used to the side display.

I agree with the comments of the speed limiter and adaptive cruise hijacking the display - annoying! I got used to hitting "Return" on the steering, though it was an unwelcome distraction.

For me I thought adaptive cruise worked well. It seemed to ignore the traffic in the other lanes, which I was looking for specifically. I thought it might detect them and react inappropriately, but it behaved as I expected. Note I ran it at far distance (3). Maybe it is less paranoid due to braking distance?

My only concern with the system is whether dirt on the sensors affects operation. I could see me cleaning the front often, to be sure.

I'm also unsure if where it "looks" is steerable, e.g. when going around a long corner, whether the cruise looks to the side slightly. It would be very impressive if it did.

Overall I liked/loved everything about the car. The only negative I found (roof) was due to already having it on my current car.

The auto headlights weren't a problem 90% of the time, but they did struggle on hilly roads with detecting oncoming traffic. It dimmed, but didn't cancel high beam, causing traffic to flash me.

I also found it wasn't quite sensitive enough to tail lights, so at a long distance it would use high beam.

The auto switch was easy to operate (IMHO), and once I learned where to feel the switch, I could switch it off when necessary.

I wish it was possible to set the speed below which it went into EV mode. With any electric charge (not hybrid mode) it tried to use it all whenever possible. It would have been better if it could remain as a hybrid above 60 MPH (or even 50 MPH), and only use electric mode below this speed. I think I could have got even better economy as a result. As it was I was easily achieving a computer-reported 80+ MPG.

I've glanced at Lexus a few times, but the Prius seems unbeatable.

[Ten Ninety]

3 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

The auto headlights weren't a problem 90% of the time, but they did struggle on hilly roads with detecting oncoming traffic. It dimmed, but didn't cancel high beam, causing traffic to flash me.

I also found it wasn't quite sensitive enough to tail lights, so at a long distance it would use high beam.

The auto switch was easy to operate (IMHO), and once I learned where to feel the switch, I could switch it off when necessary.

Interesting - so it still has a 'high beam' then and not just a constantly-adjusting adaptive beam?

The auto high beam on my GS is hopeless, so it's got to be an improvement on that. I'm used to being flashed anyway, as people don't like the Lexus HIDs even when they're dipped!

[YarisHybrid2016]

Yes - when you switch off the auto mode it just works like normal.

[PeteB]

8 hours ago, YarisHybrid2016 said:

...I agree with the comments of the speed limiter and adaptive cruise hijacking the display - annoying! I got used to hitting "Return" on the steering, though it was an unwelcome distraction.

...My only concern with the system is whether dirt on the sensors affects operation. I could see me cleaning the front often, to be sure.

I'm also unsure if where it "looks" is steerable, e.g. when going around a long corner, whether the cruise looks to the side slightly. It would be very impressive if it did.

...The auto switch was easy to operate (IMHO), and once I learned where to feel the switch, I could switch it off when necessary...

You can go through some menus and switch off the various updates on the left MFD one by one (so if you want to keep one or two, you can).

Dirt hasn't affected my Adaptive CC at all, but a surprisingly small amount of snow stops it working completely, and presumably renders the AEB inoperative too!  Very (and I mean very) heavy rain can stop it working too.

The ACC does look where you steer, but there is a slight delay when the car in front moves out of it's field of 'vision' before you start to steer yourself.  That can cause the car to momentarily start to accelerate and then stop doing so as you steer slightly later and reacquire the 'target'.  The effect is very slight, but I've adapted my steering to steer very slightly earlier to try to keep the car in front in view a bit more.  To be fair, the manuals tell us to only use it on fairly straight "freeways", but that's a bit like telling Tesla Autopilot users to keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times!

I'd challenge you to find the auto dip switch while negotiating some of the twisty, highly embanked single track lanes near me when you're turning the steering wheel like a stop ***** on the Queen Mary in pitch black conditions, while being unable to accelerate enough to get them to come on automatically (27 mph) without having high beams on to see the banks.  Even pulling to stalk to operate the flasher is not easy, I just find it safer to leave them permanently off.

[YarisHybrid2016]

I think for most driving I'd leave them in the manual mode. It seemed it would be most useful on a motorway or A road. I agree that for country roads they are not great (in terms of reacting to other traffic). Dips where the car is pitched down or up relative to the oncoming traffic causes it to not work correctly.

I did like the way the lights blanked the oncoming traffic though! That did work very well (for those that don't know, they stop illuminating where it detects the oncoming traffic only).

I didn't see the lights moving due to steering input, in either auto or manual mode. Do they do this? If they do, it wasn't obvious.

Overall, the headlights are awesome!