My Journey to Getting a Corolla

[Hardy888]

Hello,

I am writing this as a form of therapy as I wait for delivery of my new Corolla. It contains little useful information and it requires no answer but feel free to comment.

I have been driving for around 10 years now. I am not really a car guy in the traditional sense but I do appreciate nice cars, I love driving and I enjoy watching Formula 1.

My first car was a W reg (2001) Ford Focus. It had a 1.6 naturally aspirated petrol with (mated to- as the motoring journalists like to say) a three speed auto with, wait for it... overdrive. Being 20 years old and owning an automatic was sacrilege to my friends but me being a poor student and the car being a gift from my grandad, I was in no position to feel hard done by. The car was surprisingly good for what it was albeit that it was slow and not very reliable I loved it. At that time I was driving around 20k miles per year and at 35mpg the Focus was costing too much. Introduce the 308.

A couple of years later I traded in the Focus to upgrade to the Peugeot 308. It was an upgrade in every way over the focus: beige in colour, only a year and a half old and with a whopping 92 horsepower from its 1.6 litre turbo diesel. Crucially, this car had a manual transmission for more street cred and could easily achieve 70mpg on a motorway run. At this point I still knew very little about cars and pretty much went for the first one the guy at Arnold Clark showed me. I loved the 308 almost as much as I loved the focus but the relationship soured after about two years. It needed some repairs due to a rock hitting the bottom and breaking the fuel line and new brake discs at 30k miles. I thought that wasn't very long for brake discs so I started asking questions about how reliable the owner of the garage thought my 308 would be. To my horror he opined that French cars tended to have problems with electrics as they aged so I could expect things to crop up over time.

I was making a decent amount of money at this point so I started shopping around for an upgrade. I was doing a lot of miles up and down the A9 which at that time still didn't have average speed cameras so it was very much whacky races and I had been in a couple of close calls when trying to overtake lorries (cars coming the other way at 95mph kind of close calls) so I wanted more overtaking punch and something a bit more comfortable. My mum had owned Volkswagens for years and swore by them and the local dealer in Inverness has a great reputation for customer service (and still does). I test drove a Ford Kuga with 180hp diesel which was lovely but noisy and expensive for what you got, a Tiguan which was nice but again , expensive for the features. I finally settled on the Golf. 2.0 litre turbo diesel. Powerful enough, economical enough and very very comfy inside. I loved the Golf just a little more than the 308 but less than the Focus. It was a semi-sensible choice for a man of 24 and my first new car purchase. I was the proud owner of a 65 plate golf Match.

For most of my life I was not a Toyota fan. My first real awareness of them was in 2015 when I was getting the Golf fixed after someone ran into the back of me and smashed up the rear bumper and boot lid. The repair centre was right next to the local Toyota dealer and I had a chance to look around while burning some time. I looked at the Auris hybrid sitting in the forecourt and scoffed at the relatively stodgy interior and frumpy looks outside. I knew better than to buy a hybrid of course, as we all knew back then hybrids were only good in town and long-distance driving was much better in a diesel. Off I went secure in the knowledge that I had made a good choice in the Golf. Low and behold a few months later spawned: Dieselgate. It turned out VW had been less than up-front with its Euro 5 NOx Emissions and although my Golf was a Euro 6 I was furious with them. The news spoiled the image of VW entirely in my mind and all I had was a sour feeling of having been lied to.

My life changed suddenly when I was under threat of redundancy at work so I decided to ditch the Golf on PCP. I initiated the voluntary termination and away it went. For the first time in years I did not have a car to call my own. Where I lived in the Scottish Highlands at the time public transport was utterly inadequate to get around so I borrowed my sisters VW Up! for a few months to get to and from work. I won't say too much about the Up! except to say that it was adequate as a runabout. I ended up going to back to university so for a couple of years I did not own a car as I was broke and had no real need for one. Being a lightweight car guy however, I spent a lot of time on Youtube watching Scotty Kilmer videos. Anyone who has seen Scotty Kilmer knows he has probably resulted in more Toyota Sales than all of their sales people combined over the last couple of decades. I eventually got the car bug and started shopping around for something cheap to buy and run but that had enough power and space to be comfortable and fun to drive whilst also being reliable. Under Scotty's influence I started looking at Toyotas but to my disappointment I couldn't find one that really ticked the boxes. The petrol Auris looked like an OK match but it lacked power. Eventually I compromised and went for a Honda Civic. Honda is a brand that Scotty would say isn't what it used to be but can still make decent cars. I found a 1.8 naturally aspirated Civic developing (more motoring journalism) 136 horsepower. Not quite the 150 of the Golf, but enough.

The 2007 Civic Type S was an awesome machine. It had the sporty looks, the reliability and it had a cool moonroof. It also returned a surprisingly good 43 mpg without really trying; so long as you didn't rev it up to its peak at 6500rpm. Which of course you did because it only had any power at all above 4500 rpm. At that point it burned about as much oil as it did petrol but wow was it fun. Alas, like all of my cars the fun wasn't to last. I got engaged. At that point I was still doing huge mileage commuting to work and my fiance hardly drove at all so it didn't make sense for us to have two cars. Hers was on a lease which was ending and the car bug was back at me so off I went to the internet (covid restricitons were well in effect by now) and started shopping for a car. She wanted an automatic and I wanted an estate with enough power and great fuel economy from either Honda or Toyota. It turned out that automatics and fuel economy were the antithesis to each other in almost every case. Every case except the hybrids that is. With an official return of over 70mpg (on the old measurement), a CVT auto and Toyota engineering, the Auris went straight to the top of the list. I rushed down the the dealer and took it for a test drive. (the rules sill allowed those at that point) I fell in love with it instantly. It wasn't really the best in any category you threw at it but the Auris was good enough in every category. With used car sales bombing and low interest rates I picked the 2017 estate business edition hybrid for a mere £12k on PCP costing £170 per month. I am still driving it to this day and I have put 40k miles on it with but one issue with the headlights both blowing at once, apparently a common issue with these cars. It is by far the most well rounded car I have owned and I couldn't recommend it enough to someone looking for dependable and efficient driving. Over that 40k miles I have averaged about 58MPG indicated which I am very pleased about. I had been at the Toyota dealer a few times getting it serviced and the new Corollas caught my eye. Sleek, very high tech and powerful with a 180hp hybrid option. Alas at 25-30k they were way out of my PCP range so with the Auris I stuck. Until.

With the easing of lockdowns and the surge in demand for microprocessors coupled to a lack of supply new car wait times increased and accordingly used car prices shot up. Having added 18 months and 40k miles to my Auris I then had a firm valuation of it at over £14k. For the first time the value of my car had appreciated  and by quite a lot. It seems the car bug bit me at just the right time. I was now in a position to trade in my Auris and have a sizeable down payment on a shiny new corolla. Armed with a 3.5k Carwow discount, a deposit contribution and 0% PCP offer I ordered a 2.0 Hybrid Touring Sports in Design trim. I initially ordered the HB but cancelled it when I received a better offer on the estate making the price the same. That was on the 30th November 2021 and here I wait still. Refreshing the app twice daily to check for an update that never comes.

This is my story so far.

[StreetHawk]

Nice write up 👍

I’m 3.5 months into my wait, still processing. Looks like some others are seeing movement so hopefully not too much longer for us.. 

[Spo2]

Nice, to hear your journey. Started with Ford. Then got Daewoo which was a copy of Rover 200, i think. That was incredibly reliable- nothing went wrong except a bulb of the tail light in 40k driving. After that, dove Golf TDI for most miles and loved the torque of the diesel.This was my first diesel car. I had old 1.9 PD TDI which was without dpf and pulled like a train and would do 60mpg without any efforts. Strangely, i had chance to buy the new Auris rather cheap but dismissed as i believed it won't beat diesel nor it was as refined as Golf. Got rid of Golf as my wife is quite involved in green and sustainability. Also VW car has the issue or expense of cambelt and water pump change every 4 years. I also spent money on clutch, brakes and some other bits and have spent most money on Golf. I expected turbo to fail soon and with cambelt change imminent, I sold the car and got a 1 litre petrol turbo Kia Ceed, which was pretty much a clone of Golf. It was better than Golf in every way, had very cheap servicing cost and did 45 mpg during my ownership. The car was highly aerodynamic- the car would coast for long distance that helped to get high mpg. Also it had a grill that would shut off and had a flat panel bottom for aero dynamics. Didn't require any expenses except replacing front Wiper Blades. Only issue was excess noise in the cabin from tyres. I guess this could have been sorted by changing tyres. Due to chip shortage, the value of Ceed increased and I sold it for a profit of 1500. We checked and test drove 2 litre Corolla HB and liked it except for the tiny boot. Toyota dealer told delivery time was like 4 to 6 months. We also saw CHR at the dealer- we were told shorter delivery time for CHR and my wife liked that, so we ordered C-HR via Carwow. We got good discount and along with financial deal, it was cheaper than buying a used car 1 to 2 years old. Luckily, we got the car in a month! IMO, it doesn't beat diesel (which i think is demonised - new diesel vehicles are more cleaner than petrol vehicles) but is best solution for us currently. I quite like CVT and there is a lot of unnecessary brouhaha about the droning noise amongst the motor journalists - i find it idiotic to floor the car- i never did with my diesel car, so why i would do with a hybrid.  We considered BEV as well but at the current level of product development and infrastructure, our requirements are not met. Also, i am risk averse and not an early adopter! 

I am sure you would enjoy Corolla, it is a lovely machine, and it was the only hybrid that I drove before buying CHR.

[Stopeter44]

11 hours ago, Spo2 said:

I quite like CVT and there is a lot of unnecessary brouhaha about the droning noise amongst the motor journalists - i find it idiotic to floor the car- i never did with my diesel car, so why i would do with a hybrid.  We considered BEV as well but at the current level of product development and infrastructure, our requirements are not met. Also, i am risk averse and not an early adopter! 

The Toyota e-cvt system is one of the best automatic transmissions I have ever driven, I think the best is a ZF 8 speed with 3 litres of TDI diesel in front of it, but I wouldn't want the running costs associated with that (think Audi, etc).

Never floor the accelerator ? Let's say I don't make a habit of it, but I can think of occasions when it has been useful, especially with small(er) capacity cars to get past, say, agricultural machinery, etc.

For a very long time, since the appearance of the first Zoe, I thought the BEV was the future, I am not so sure now. I would have kept my previous 208, if I had been more disciplined, it was good for at least another 75k km, but having started looking at new car options, and having the money to do so, I decided to buy the Yaris.

All things considered, it was a hybrid or nothing for someone, like me, with low to average mileage wanting only one polyvalent car. 

[Cyker]

I think you're right, they are the future... just not the now! Given it took Toyota 20 years to make the hybrids powerful, engaging to drive and finally beat diesel mpg, I'm expecting a similarly long development cycle for BEVs.

I have KHAAAAN! to thank for having a Mk4 as, if not for him, I'd still be driving my Mk1 D4D! But I'm under no impression the Mk4 is in some way good for the environment; I don't think its low emissions will make up for the pollution created for it's construction vs the Mk1 in its lifetime.

It is a bloody fun car tho'  I've not had a hybrid before it that you *could* (if you wanted to) give it all the beans and it will actually haul and not just make a lot of engine noise, which was something the press always whined about on the older ones.

Hmmm maybe that's why I'm getting through my tyres so much faster than TonyHSD... 

[Stopeter44]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

But I'm under no impression the Mk4 is in some way good for the environment; I don't think its low emissions will make up for the pollution created for it's construction vs the Mk1 in its lifetime.

That's a good point. Do you remember when it was normal to repair things ? Like shoes, for example! (Or radios, TVs, and especially clothes). If we were all focused on saving environmental emissions, I don't think many of us would be changing cars very often.

[Cyker]

Worse yet, manufacturers are actively trying to prevent us from repairing our own stuff, hiding schematics, using copyright and intellectual property law to sue people who try etc. Apple and Tesla are the biggest examples, but other manufacturers are trying it on too, seeing that they haven't suffered any negative consequences.

There's a bit stink going on in the USA atm with farmers vs John Deere - Apparently it's gotten so bad you can't even change a light on some of the tractors without needing JD to 'pair' it to the tractor, which requires the tractor to be taken to JD and thus a lot of down time.

The farmers have had enough and are suing the proverbials off them in right-to-repair states and I really hope they win!

[Hardy888]

Great to see so many people can relate to the story!

There is one other part that I would like to add which is why I switched form being a diesel fan to hybrids.

On paper the turbo diesels have better fuel consumption than hybrids and they are well known for being great at cruising on motorways at high speed and delivering good economy while they do it. As I said before I scoffed at the performance of the Auris when I owned the 2.0 golf. I bought into the idea that a hybrid was only good around town and rubbish if you do a lot of long distance driving like I do. Diesel was king for that. To an extent that is still true but since owning the Auris I have discovered that the gap is much smaller in motorway driving than I thought. The 2.0 diesel golf I owned would do about 55 MPG on a long motorway run and could do about 68 if driven very conservatively. In those days I was under the common misconception that on long motorway runs a hybrid is pointless because "it's just like driving a normal petrol car but with the added weight of the Battery and electric motor". Hence a hybrid was only useful when doing a lot of driving around town and not on long runs. How wrong I was! Again I can thank Scotty for opening my eyes on this one. As I am sure most people on here know, the hybrid uses an Atkinson-cycle engine. What I have come to realise is that the Atkinson engine accounts for about half of the reason that hybrid cars use less fuel than conventional petrol cars even on long runs. In short, they work by using different valve timings to a normal engine which means they can get more energy out of the same amount of petrol than a normal engine. The trade-off with the Atkinson cycle is that you need a larger engine capacity to achieve the same output as the Otto-cycle conventional engine. This is why the internal combustion engines (ICEs) in hybrids have comparatively low power outputs. For example the 1.8 in my Honda put out 136hp and the 10-year-newer 1.8 on my auris only outputs 90hp. The power deficit with the Atkinson-cycle hybrids is made up for by the electric motor. This means that on a long motorway run the car can take advantage of the fuel efficiency where it doesn't need the power then use the electric motor to boost the output when accelerating. This is all in addition to the electric motor running on its own at lower speeds where the ICE is least efficient. All that is to say a hybrid is far better on a motorway run than a petrol car. 

In terms of hybrid v diesel the main reason I switched was that I didn't want a diesel after dieselgate and the diesel autos did not promise great economy. The final thing I would like to point out is the real world economy of diesel v hybrids. I will compare the 2.0 golf diesel that I owned, the Auris hybrid that I own now and the corolla hybrid that I will hopefully take delivery of in the next month or two.

Golf 2.0 diesel combined mpg (from my observation) was 55mpg.

Auris Hybrid combined mpg 58.

Corolla 2.0 Hybrid figure taken from Honest John (which I have found to be accurate with previous cars because it is user-submitted) 51 mpg.

Of course diesel is 8.5% more expensive than petrol at the moment and this seems to be about the normal split.

Increasing the diesel consumption by 8.5% puts it up at 50 (ish).

This means that the 2.0 hybrid with 180hp delivers the same fuel cost per mile as the 2.0 VW turbo diesel.

I understand this isn't very scientific but the basics make sense and it does show that in terms of fuel consumption on long runs there really isn't much between the hybrids and diesels at all.

[Cyker]

Well it was kinda true, esp. for motorway runs, but the current gen of hybrids can match most equivalent diesels for motorway mpg.

I'm quite impressed that this Mk4 Yaris can actually beat my old Mk1 D4D for motorway mpg (That's 18 years of development for you!  ), despite being 200kg heavier, and is actually more responsive and has better handling to boot!

They're also much more reliable than current diesels - I'd never buy a Euro6 diesel as the amount of emissions control stuff bolted on just increases running and maintenance costs and reduces economy and reliability.

I reckon if they didn't need those, diesels would be able to hit a real-world 100mpg by now, but then we'd probably all have asthma or something so I guess you have to pick your battles!

I do wish diesel hadn't been thrown to the wolves with such a sharp U-turn by politicians tho' - It's still the most efficient combustion cycle bar none, and is much more flexible than petrol engines for use with alternative fuels, and I was really hoping air-blast and ducted injection would get to market and prove to be truly clean-burning! But this is unlikely to happen now that everyone is dropping it like a hot potato!

 

[Yugguy1970]

I've always liked the way a powerful diesel drove, low down torque no fuss.

Just add an easy remap for more torque and better cruising mpg.

[Cyker]

Yeah, that's also what I loved about my Mk1 D4D - If I wanted to go faster I just pressed the accelerator more and the car would respond. It was soooo painful going to the 'more powerful' Mk2 1.33VVTi, as if I did the same thing, basically nothing would happen - I'd have to downshift 1-2 gears and rev the engine up to provoke any noticeable response, and after being used to that instant diesel torque in every gear, I absolutely hated it.

The Mk4 is much more like driving the diesel - If I want to go faster, just plant the accelerator more and the car responds instantly; It does get a bit revvy if I push too much but there is a force accompanying the noise so it's okay, and no different to a regular petrol engine in that regard. I find if I'm progressive and don't just stomp on the loud pedal it doesn't even rev up that much while still delivering a nice 'push'.

 

[TonyHSD]

16 hours ago, Hardy888 said:

Great to see so many people can relate to the story!

There is one other part that I would like to add which is why I switched form being a diesel fan to hybrids.

On paper the turbo diesels have better fuel consumption than hybrids and they are well known for being great at cruising on motorways at high speed and delivering good economy while they do it. As I said before I scoffed at the performance of the Auris when I owned the 2.0 golf. I bought into the idea that a hybrid was only good around town and rubbish if you do a lot of long distance driving like I do. Diesel was king for that. To an extent that is still true but since owning the Auris I have discovered that the gap is much smaller in motorway driving than I thought. The 2.0 diesel golf I owned would do about 55 MPG on a long motorway run and could do about 68 if driven very conservatively. In those days I was under the common misconception that on long motorway runs a hybrid is pointless because "it's just like driving a normal petrol car but with the added weight of the battery and electric motor". Hence a hybrid was only useful when doing a lot of driving around town and not on long runs. How wrong I was! Again I can thank Scotty for opening my eyes on this one. As I am sure most people on here know, the hybrid uses an Atkinson-cycle engine. What I have come to realise is that the Atkinson engine accounts for about half of the reason that hybrid cars use less fuel than conventional petrol cars even on long runs. In short, they work by using different valve timings to a normal engine which means they can get more energy out of the same amount of petrol than a normal engine. The trade-off with the Atkinson cycle is that you need a larger engine capacity to achieve the same output as the Otto-cycle conventional engine. This is why the internal combustion engines (ICEs) in hybrids have comparatively low power outputs. For example the 1.8 in my Honda put out 136hp and the 10-year-newer 1.8 on my auris only outputs 90hp. The power deficit with the Atkinson-cycle hybrids is made up for by the electric motor. This means that on a long motorway run the car can take advantage of the fuel efficiency where it doesn't need the power then use the electric motor to boost the output when accelerating. This is all in addition to the electric motor running on its own at lower speeds where the ICE is least efficient. All that is to say a hybrid is far better on a motorway run than a petrol car. 

In terms of hybrid v diesel the main reason I switched was that I didn't want a diesel after dieselgate and the diesel autos did not promise great economy. The final thing I would like to point out is the real world economy of diesel v hybrids. I will compare the 2.0 golf diesel that I owned, the Auris hybrid that I own now and the corolla hybrid that I will hopefully take delivery of in the next month or two.

Golf 2.0 diesel combined mpg (from my observation) was 55mpg.

Auris Hybrid combined mpg 58.

Corolla 2.0 Hybrid figure taken from Honest John (which I have found to be accurate with previous cars because it is user-submitted) 51 mpg.

Of course diesel is 8.5% more expensive than petrol at the moment and this seems to be about the normal split.

Increasing the diesel consumption by 8.5% puts it up at 50 (ish).

This means that the 2.0 hybrid with 180hp delivers the same fuel cost per mile as the 2.0 VW turbo diesel.

I understand this isn't very scientific but the basics make sense and it does show that in terms of fuel consumption on long runs there really isn't much between the hybrids and diesels at all.

Fully agreed here 👌, add that the diesel will need a major repair or as a maintenance expensive parts replacement at around 100k miles, plus the other repairs during the use of the car, things goes wrong on these cars like crazy, where in a Toyota very rarely if ever goes wrong. Toyota hybrids wins 👍

[Kental]

6 hours ago, Cyker said:

Yeah, that's also what I loved about my Mk1 D4D - If I wanted to go faster I just pressed the accelerator more and the car would respond. It was soooo painful going to the 'more powerful' Mk2 1.33VVTi, as if I did the same thing, basically nothing would happen - I'd have to downshift 1-2 gears and rev the engine up to provoke any noticeable response, and after being used to that instant diesel torque in every gear, I absolutely hated it.

The Mk4 is much more like driving the diesel - If I want to go faster, just plant the accelerator more and the car responds instantly; It does get a bit revvy if I push too much but there is a force accompanying the noise so it's okay, and no different to a regular petrol engine in that regard. I find if I'm progressive and don't just stomp on the loud pedal it doesn't even rev up that much while still delivering a nice 'push'.

 

Back in 2009 we had a early 1.33 stop start, we found it a great and compared to the Aygo it replaced exceptionally refined and also comparable (road and wind noise wise) to the 2.2d Spaceship styled Honda Civic we had as a main car at the time. The ride was far superior to the Honda. The smoothness of the stop stat was fantastic compared to the Fords I tried 12 years ago. 

[Cyker]

I never got the stop-start to work reliably with mine, but I must say the 1.33 was buttery smooth - Could barely tell it was running at low RPM!

It was painfully gutless compared to the 1.4 D4D it replaced tho'  

Had to choose between driving economically or quickly, which is painful when you're used to being able to do both at the same time!

The 3-pot in my Mk4 is far far less refined; I swear it's even less refined than the 3-pot in the Aygo! But being a DERV person I find the dakka weirdly soothing... and it sounds properly roarty when giving it the beans  

[Kental]

8 minutes ago, Cyker said:

I never got the stop-start to work reliably with mine, but I must say the 1.33 was buttery smooth - Could barely tell it was running at low RPM!

It was painfully gutless compared to the 1.4 D4D it replaced tho'  

Had to choose between driving economically or quickly, which is painful when you're used to being able to do both at the same time!

The 3-pot in my Mk4 is far far less refined; I swear it's even less refined than the 3-pot in the Aygo! But being a DERV person I find the dakka weirdly soothing... and it sounds properly roarty when giving it the beans  

I've only really had the Yaris mk4 engine mooing when really really pressing on cross country on dual carriageway roads with roundabouts every 2 miles or so, the A31 from Alton towards Winchester for example. Otherwise very subdued.

As an aside wasn't the 1.4 D4D the engine used by BMW Mini in the mk1 before the Peugeot tieup in the mk2 Mini.

[Cyker]

Yes, I believe it was! That's some good random bit of trivia knowledge you have there!

[Hardy888]

So I've had a couple of days with the Corolla. I am delighted so far!

The drive up from Kent was really fun using the adaptive cruise control and the lane tracing on the motorway made life very very easy. I averaged about 51 mpg over the 500 miles or so doing a mix of 60-70 and some extended periods well above the speed li... [REDACTED ON THE ADIVCE OF LEGAL COUNSEL]

I didn't notice any undue noise as others have commented on. It isn't the quietest car but its just kinda average for noise. 

It is exceptionally good at keeping up with the lane 3 traffic.

The part leather seats in the design trim are amazing. Very comfy and the material feels great. 

This is the first car I've had with the smart door locking and that is very cool and is definitely something I would miss on a car in future.

I was surprised to see the car came with a space-saver wheel. Apparently you can only get it on models without the panoramic sun roof because of the weight and CO2 emissions ETC.

The car looks much better in person than on the website. The 17 inch alloys are particularly attractive and look very sporty.

One quirk which I don't like/haven't worked out yet is the voice control on the android auto. When I'm using android auto the voice control button activates the car's own voice control, not google. To use the google one you need to touch the button on the screen and this seems a bit odd. I also wish there was a better spot to put my right foot when using cruise control for extended periods like there is for the left. Final niggle: the auto hold feature needs to be activated every time the car is started. On the Golf it stayed on every time when you turned the car on and off. I will need to get in the habit of pressing it each time I get in the car and put my seatbelt on. Small niggles but I thought I needed to present a balanced view. 

Overall it is a lovely car and a real pleasure to drive.

I will get some photos once it has been cleaned up a bit from the drive.

[StreetHawk]

Try holding down the voice control button for a few seconds, doing this used to bring up Siri on Apple CarPlay instead of the cars voice control system. Worked on my MY21 TS. 

[Hardy888]

This is right. Holding the button for a sec brings up Google Voice rather than the car system

[Spo2]

On 4/7/2022 at 3:48 PM, TonyHSD said:

Fully agreed here 👌, add that the diesel will need a major repair or as a maintenance expensive parts replacement at around 100k miles, plus the other repairs during the use of the car, things goes wrong on these cars like crazy, where in a Toyota very rarely if ever goes wrong. Toyota hybrids wins 👍

In addition to expensive repairs with diesel, don't forget VAG cars require cambelt and water pump changes every 4-5 years and can cost £500-600. Tony's estimate of problems with diesel from 100k is generous, i take this from 80k. Diesel was good if it was company car, lease would end in 3 years and the retail buyer would change the cambelt. Car makers went so aggressive to sell to businesses that lots of diesel cars' service interval was every 2 year instead of 1. So in 3 years of lease, it was only serviced once. This helped to minimise the cost to businesses but passed on future problems to retail buyers. Loads of such 3 series are out there whose retail customers are unhappy. 

What you would miss is the torque of the diesel engine but 2 litre hybrid minimises that shortfall. I have started to like when the car drives in EV mode which is a proxy of BEV. I like silent and torque, and think I will like BEV! 

[Cyker]

That's the problem with diesels - You have to buy an old one; The newer ones have so much emissions control stuff bolted to them it's made them far less reliable.

Old diesels were practically indestructible! It's funny that the prevailing view is diesels are unreliable now - It was the other way around before; I certainly found my 2 Mk1 D4Ds far more reliable than the Mk2 1.33 that replaced them; Neither really suffered a single mechanical fault and only had to go because of KHAAAAN! and his ULEZ for my one, and a perpetually damp village rusting my brother's one to death  

 

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Spo2 said:

In addition to expensive repairs with diesel, don't forget VAG cars require cambelt and water pump changes every 4-5 years and can cost £500-600. Tony's estimate of problems with diesel from 100k is generous, i take this from 80k. Diesel was good if it was company car, lease would end in 3 years and the retail buyer would change the cambelt. Car makers went so aggressive to sell to businesses that lots of diesel cars' service interval was every 2 year instead of 1. So in 3 years of lease, it was only serviced once. This helped to minimise the cost to businesses but passed on future problems to retail buyers. Loads of such 3 series are out there whose retail customers are unhappy. 

What you would miss is the torque of the diesel engine but 2 litre hybrid minimises that shortfall. I have started to like when the car drives in EV mode which is a proxy of BEV. I like silent and torque, and think I will like BEV! 

You will love it the BEV, they drive exactly the same as Toyota hybrids and the only difference is that there is no engine to kick in, just all quiet 🤫 I kind of always expecting for that to happen when I drive bev, perhaps I have a hybrid sickness after that many years and miles driving those  ⛽️/🔋 

[Spo2]

58 minutes ago, Cyker said:

That's the problem with diesels - You have to buy an old one; The newer ones have so much emissions control stuff bolted to them it's made them far less reliable.

Old diesels were practically indestructible! It's funny that the prevailing view is diesels are unreliable now - It was the other way around before; I certainly found my 2 Mk1 D4Ds far more reliable than the Mk2 1.33 that replaced them; Neither really suffered a single mechanical fault and only had to go because of KHAAAAN! and his ULEZ for my one, and a perpetually damp village rusting my brother's one to death  

 

Mine was without dpf vag 1.9 tdi. The engine was rock solid but rest of the car was not though I think still better built than most cars. As the car gets old, lots of other parts need to be replaced as well. I won't be all blaming Khan- any decision-maker in place of him, would have probably done the same. 

[Spo2]

6 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

You will love it the BEV, they drive exactly the same as Toyota hybrids and the only difference is that there is no engine to kick in, just all quiet 🤫 I kind of always expecting for that to happen when I drive bev, perhaps I have a hybrid sickness after that many years and miles driving those  ⛽️/🔋 

Tony, you driving VAG diesel would have to change cambelt every 2 or3 years. mine was every 4 years or 60k and i think newer ones are every 5 years or 100k. Yeah, just watched a review of bzx4 on you tube. 

[TonyHSD]

Slightly off topic.
Yesterday walking on my road and I can hear a regenerative braking, turned around and it was bmw 330e, all quiet. Well that is a nicer one hybrid I thought, then he pulls away at the junction and I can hear a starter noise then engine revs, lol , sorry but this is not how a real hybrids should be. I would rather have Toyota or simply 330i or 330d . 👍