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Apart from 2 forays into other marques I've pretty much bought Fords, and mostly the XR/ST/RS ones at that, my whole life. I only switched to Toyota due to Ford withdrawing the Fiesta as I really missed the smaller cars. And their obsession with electric only 🤔 So I was always going to be a reluctant soldier and my purchase was going to be full of scepticism and maybe (hopefully not) regret. But I have to say that I absolutely love the Premiere edition because: - I love the blue colour - The body shape is excellent - The economy is amazing - It drives beautifully - It's a technical tour de force. Love playing with the throttle to try and tease as much economy out of it as I can and the HUD is just fab - The adaptive cruise is more intelligent than Ford's - The ability of the speed limiter to match itself to the current speed limit with just one button press is just excellent. I use the speed limiter constantly so this is really good - Mrs Dastardly (Penelope?) loves it - The configuration options on the dashboard are excellent. - It just feels like it's been designed by boffins, rather than people in overalls But it's not all roses 🌹 Some, albeit minor, annoyances. - The engine is quite harsh/growly. Ford's 3 pot system is much smoother and not nearly as loud. - The door handles feel quite flimsy due to being quite thin but I'm sure I'll get used to that. - The positioning of the window controls are a little strange compared to what I am used to. Very high up. Probably just me though - Severe lack of internal storage. Door pockets are tiny, no opportunity to store anything in the centre console - Quite annoying that your personal options, e.g. turning off PCA, resets every time you re-start the engine, unless I'm just being thick - The "Hold" button resetting itself on every journey is bizarre. Should remember the setting or just be a configurable menu option. - Lack of factory options e.g. sunroof, heated seats. Would have paid for both The negatives are just minor/personal really as the positives are so good. Haven't been this happy with a new car acquisition for a long time 👍

Well, I spotted the Toyota Yaris Cross Premiere Edition that has all the bits I wanted, so drove from Wokingham to Pontypridd early this morning and bought it and drove it home 😄 So it was farewell to my Aygo X Exclusive. Credit to the previous owner, it's pristine and looks like it's never been used and it even has the stickers still on the shocks etc 👍 So I will be reading the owners manual to get to know it, but one thing's popped up early which I noticed on the way home. All the windows do full auto down and up, but not the drivers, not sure if that's a setting or a fault !!. I'm sure more questions will follow through time 😄

At last we managed a long run today (200mile round trip) so I can start to share my thoughts about our shiny new Blue Demon! First things first, please ignore the mpg in my sig as it is wrong. I made a mistake when entering our first full tank fuel up and because Fuelly caches stuff, the real measured figure of 56.8mpg, probably won't show until tomorrow. Not withstanding my mess up, I am really impressed with even 56.8 for a first neck to neck anyway! The Red Baron (my previous Launch Edition 2020 car) only managed 48.3 at its first so I am well impressed with Blue Demon's efforts and when you consider that everything will be a bit "tight" etc, that's a great result. Also, it wasn't that hot today either barely getting above 11-12 degrees C so that should be borne in mind... So, what do I think of the new car and the way that the new (more powerful) drivetrain works? As an overall impression and please bear in mind that everything I may say is very subjective and just my opinion based on comparing it with my previous car, I would have to say that I am very impressed with the many improvements but also a bit frustrated with some of the annoyances! One of the first things that hit us both as we settled down to a cruise at about 65mph was just how quiet it was inside compared to the Red Baron. When I opened the driver's window ajar (the top kept within the wind deflector depth) it didn't even seem to be as loud then either. In my opinion, they have certainly beefed up the insulation in some way or ways. You can still make the engine "growl" if you want but even that seems to be a bit more muted than before. Most of the journey on the main roads (either dual carriageway or motorway) was completed using adaptive cruise control and this highlighted something straight away. There seems to have been a lot of improvements in the software department in regard to how things operate now. The system as a whole seems to be a lot less aggressive and "rough around the edges". Things like lane centring and speed matching are a lot smoother and more well controlled. Especially good now is the way it takes a curve when, for example, you go from one motorway to another at an intersection which usually involves some long sweeping slip road bends as you traverse from one to the other and some measure of speed reduction is usually required in the process. Guess what? It is now virtually automatic and oh so smooth in execution! First, it measures the bend well and steers it very gently with no jerks at all whilst at the same time gently slowing the vehicle in the process by some 10-15mph as you negotiate the bend and once the road straightens out again and you are on the next motorway, it gently regains the speed you were travelling at before! All in all, a very well managed process. The radar is also so good now it virtually never lost the lane markings or edge of the road once all the way there. Even around town it is so well mannered even at very slow speeds. We tried the built-in Nav for a time and also Android Auto but eventually stayed with the latter as the built-in Nav is so old fashioned in terms of its display (a personal preference I know) and harks back to the days of TomTom displays. I'm afraid Google beats it hands down with a full screen of realistic looking landscapes from satellite shot overlays and is so much more relatable with what you are actually seeing on the road instead of spidery roadmaps with no features on it at all. One nice change I really liked is that the interior rear view mirror can also go straight up and down now as well as the usual ball joint adjustment. This is particularly useful for people like myself with a 6'3" frame and also allows more of the windscreen between the top of the (bigger) head unit and the base of the mirror, to be clear and unobstructed ahead. Also at last they have separated the nav voice and audio stream properly in that you can adjust them separately now from the same control now (which didn't work at all well before). Anyway, I've probably gone on long enough for now so I'll finish this episode here and will offer some more thoughts later...

The irony is making new cars is itself a big source of emissions; EVs don't magically remove pollution from the air when they pop out the factory, they are just a lower direct source of them over their life-time but they still have the same large initial foot print as any car. If we were serious, we'd ban the sale of new cars almost completely and manufacturers would have to pivot to maintaining old ones, but the knock-on effect of that to the world economy would likely be catastrophic as everything involved in the supply chain suddenly looses its income. There's just no quick and easy solution short of decimating the world's population. Everything is too interlinked, and pulling on one thread will just unravel others without careful planning.

Crime in the UK is on the increase, and the types of crime being committed are something we would not have expected only a few years ago. But don’t be surprised at the way things are going. The government, the police, the courts and many of the over-pious population have senselessly dismissed the fact that criminals are only controlled by ‘fear of consequence’. I hate it when I hear a police officer call a delinquent “mate”. Making the prisons “cushy” along with ridiculously lenient sentences, is simply encouraging the rabble to come back for more. I can never understand the courts giving suspended sentences or to carry out unpaid work. Neither can I understand coming from a poor background being mitigating circumstances. The criminals are very lucky that I am not delegated to set out punishment - back would come the stocks, the birch, and capital punishment for unprovoked killing, and especially for killing a police officer. And, if we really want to stay safe, the police must be given wider powers to protect themselves from malicious harm.

Ok, it's been a while since I added to my own thread and we've done a fair few long journeys now so here are my further thoughts about the HEV 130. Differences that I have noticed So many but here are a few. I don't know what they've done to the software that works out the mpg but it is proving to be much more accurate than my previous car, The Red Baron. When I pulled in to the filling station earlier, the average for my current tank had just clicked over to an indicated 57.4mpg and so I was expecting a real mpg of between 55-56mpg tank to tank. Imagine my surprise when I filled in Fuelly when we arrived home and the real mpg came up as 57.7!! Obviously, this is only the third fill up so it's a work in progress, so to speak, but it's certainly looking much more accurate now. Another thing that I have noticed (which may be connected to the above) is that the speedo reading is much closer to the true mph than before. I have set up my DRCC for 1mph increments and an overspeed of 2mph difference to true speed (both in the appropriate settings section). At an indicated 32, the car is actually doing a true 30 and 40 & 50 are roughly the same but sometimes fluctuating back to 39 or 49. If I want to cruise at a steady 60, I now set it for 63mph and it doodles along at a true 60 exactly. Previously, I had to set the cruise at 65 to do a true 60. Also (and I know @Cyker will love this!) I have tried the DRCC acceleration settings, all of them (Low/Med/High), and I have to say that High probably works the best in terms of economy because it doesn't mess about getting you to your set speed and then backs off the throttle quickly to a cruising gait at your set speed. Accelerating more slowly will definitely use more fuel in the long run as Cyker has repeatedly asserted and I agree with him. On a long run, this car is even more relaxing to drive; if that's possible! All of the safety aids just work and in a much more subtle way than they did in the Red Baron. A highlight of all those aids is probably the way that it takes bends in its stride now (it was useless on the Red Baron) gently slowing from your set cruise speed as the car traverses the bend (think slip roads) and then gradually regains the speed as the road straightens up. It is really nice and reliable; even with cars around you. The overtake prevention also works well which surprised me a couple of times. It uses both the BSM system in tandem with the proximity detectors on the rear corner of the driver's side and soon flashes up on the HUD and gently prevents you from pulling out but not overbearingly so. I love the PKSB (Parking Support Brake) function and it has saved me from marking the car a few times now because I have misjudged the image that I am seeing in the rear camera. It's a bit of a surprise when you first experience it as it appears to make a "grinding" kind of noise when it actuates but it certainly stops the car suddenly!! Annoyances Again, there are quite a few but here are some. The RSA system, although mildly better is still pretty rubbish and still gets distracted by 20mph limit signs at the entry to estate roads but sometimes it now corrects itself fairly quickly as long as it also has the current map data but this feature still needs much more work to be truly effective and safe. If you are using AA or AC for your Nav, one of the annoying things is that the voice instructions can be cut off in mid flow should a beep or bong happen during the speech stream. This is quite ridiculous and could be easily sorted out in software. I've tried using the built in Nav system (where the latter doesn't happen) and, compared to AA or AC, it is awful in my own subjective opinion; which is a pity as at least directions are able to come up in the HUD as you are approaching a feature or junction etc. I still keep on going back to AA (in my case) as it is much more fluid and the voice instructions are much more natural. The built in Nav voice sounds totally robotic and disconnected in nature and the map display is so low tech for this day and age. I hate it. Following on from the PKSB above, the image from the camera (as has been mentioned elsewhere) is very low resolution and could be radically improved with a better quality camera. However, at least the additional icons that come up for all around the car and showing visually which bit is getting closest to the car is very good so, mixed feelings about the rearward views. Lastly, for this post, and probably the most frustrating is that they give you all these options to set up your dashboard images and when you've got them just how you like them, when you switch the car off and back on again, it changes some of the inset displays back to what it thinks you should be seeing and there doesn't seem to be any way of making your chosen layout the default!! Very annoying!! That's all for now.

As regards tips, I make sure that my household staff are paid above the minimum wage, and always get extra walnuts and oranges at Christmas 🎄.

I am still plugging in every day and it takes less than a minute to get the ctek5 to show 4 lights. Yesterday I went to the doctors and had to park in a side road about 15 minutes walk from the surgery. I got out of the car and pressed the key......nothing happened so I thought pollocks, the fob battery must be flat. No choice but to walk to my appointment and leave the car unlocked. For the next 45 minutes all I could think of was whether the key fob would start the car. Got back to the car I pressed the fob a few more times with no flashing lights, tentatively got in and.........no wonder it wouldn't lock. It was sitting there in ready mode. At least it had probably charged up the battery but good job it didn't get pinched.

I have water in my Yaris too ... Evian, Smart and Highland Spring if anyone wants some

So after a full week back in an Aygo I thought I would share something that’s been on my mind.. As I drove down last weekend to pickup ‘Smurf’ , in the back of my mind, as I drove my BMW diesel I was thinking ‘I have been out of an Aygo a while, I wonder if it’s going to be slower than I remember, do I have rose tinted glasses looking back on the past? Is going from the BMW to the Aygo going to feel like I’m at walking pace.. am I making the right decision ?!? I soon got this out of my head, as some will know I have done high mileage in Aygos so know them well and reminded myself why I wanted to get an Aygo again.. but I did wonder if with 3 years out of one I may be hanging onto an old dream, old fun times, old memories etc.. Well, after now a week and a few hundred miles the grin hasn’t left my face, it’s faster and nippier than I remember (go on laugh..) and yep, those old Aygo memories are back, and I’m now making new ones too 🙂. I will sound like a fool now, but Aygos have been part of my life, commute and adventures since my first one in 2009 (Aygo Platinum).. I feel like I have an old friend back. It’s also great actually driving again, changing gears, engaging with the road, bends and car.. rather than just sat in an autobox with the world going by. In a week, I have detailed the car, paint corrected some small stone chips with the OEM Cyan Blue paint, fitted an OEM rubber boot liner (must have bargain at only ~£37 posted from Toyota, and fitted my private plate, or vanity plate as some say lol. And I have also figured out my car has the satnav module installed in the glovebox and on the touch screen.. absolute bonus as the Toyota dealer never advertised it with that ! in short, I’m absolutely chuffed to be back in an Aygo, I look forward to every drive and the only time I thought about the BMW was when the dvla tax refund cheque came in the post for £280! Result. Im glad to be back

Air-con shouldn't need servicing after only two years. The sanitizing the system scam is used by a lot of dealers. The last time I took my car in for a service, I told them not to bother calling me to ask if I wanted it done. You need to use your air-con all the year round, to avoid seals drying out.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement don't you think? I have had two Mk3 Yarises and I am on my 2nd Mk4 (all top of the range with auto climate control). The climate control on all of them was/is excellent as long as it is adjusted correctly. Set and forget to 21°C, a/c on permanently and make sure external air is on. Cools well in the Summer and heats well in the Winter. Never fogs up inside. Can't do better than that.

Hi all, as we have been discussing battery problems in other posts on Thursday evening my car refused to start. It did unlocked itself though with keyless but then after no brake booster sound and obviously no start, the interior lights were dimmed. I have tried to recharge with smart charger in auto mode with 0.8amp supply and after 30-40 min battery shows full 13.0v , disconnected the charger and voltage dropped to low 11.2v, and 10v after a while, definitely a new battery was needed. I booked for collection from nearest GSF car parts a Yuassa S46B24R for £174 with 10% discount but next day they didn’t have it in stock so I rung Toyota local dealer and they had one for only £136, it looks the same battery with Toyota labels. With the use of smart charger I jump started the old lady and collected the new battery, all fitted in easily, similarly to the hybrid battery replacement very enjoyable experience. Anyone looking for a new battery either big or the small one , just buy from Toyota dealer. 👍 The original battery does look indeed the one supplied with the car back in 2010. , AGM - good technology 👌⚡️

Also, when did it become a Police "Service"?? Whose brilliant woke idea was it to call it that? Let's get back to calling it a Police Force and start using a bit when carrying out arrests!!

So after much deliberation I bit the bullet today and bought a lovely blue Aygo at a Toyota Dealer not to far from me. I have been thinking of going back for a while. It’s a 2016 X- Cite Limited Edition, in great condition with a full Toyota service history. The miles are a little higher at 76k, but it’s clearly been well looked after. I have been out of an aygo for 3 years and I’m really looking forward to the simplicity, frugality and whipping around with a smile 🙂 . I have had a few Aygos in the past and this generation was my favourite (No disrespect at all to the new one). I love the level of tech compared to the first series (phone connectivity, DAB, touch screen, reversing camera, limiter etc.. whilst still being go cart like. An added bonus, this one is £0 tax which helps in the current climate £ I pick up in a week, have asked for some rubber mats and a boot liner to be ordered in and I’m good to go.. I absolutely cant wait. Stu

When completing jigsaws I always find the 4 corner pieces first and then go for the straight edges and eventually work my way in. However, I didn’t realise that this jigsaw was round and as a result there was no corner edges. Wasted half the afternoon looking for these non existent pieces so the jigsaw ended up on the floor in thousands of pieces.

New bike...along with my current Cross...suitably positioned . 🙂

I absolutely love and respect the folk who buy new cars and sell them on 2 or 3 years later with fairly low mileage. They enable me to buy them at a fraction of the cost of a new one 🙂 . But joking aside, I got over my desire for new cars after 30 odd years of driving company cars that were replaced every 2 or 3 years (but with pretty high mileages on them). That included two Toyotas - the experience of which resulted in my buying that brand when I went self-employed.

I never struggled with rear vision, I can work out where the back is by using the mirrors and the camera. Of course my work vehicle is a tad bigger. A mate of mine filmed me passing him yesterday but his is even bigger than mine. e542c1a3-4b03-4e55-8377-47ab8ec994a5.mp4

They won't, manufacturers under are pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, they use far less oil in an engine these days and a lot of manufacturers have extended service intervals, not less. Modern oils are much better than the old days of 20w-50 that needed changing every 5-6000 miles. Imagine how many millions of litres of old used oil would need recycling if every new car needed a 1000 mile oil change

We've had air con in our cars since 1998 (14 new cars in that period) and needed a service/regas on one car at 4 years old when it seemed the air was not as cold as it should have been. We have the air con on all the time - in winter the dehumidified air helps demist the car. So air con service not needed unless there is something wrong. Fuel treatment not needed. An aerosol can of air con sanitizer/freshener can be bought from Amazon, Halfords, etc, from around £5-12 if desired, and simple to use yourself.

It'll balance out - Quick, buy a lottery ticket!!

Just over a week ago a Highways Maintenance lorry arrived in the road and, two doors below us, they placed four yellow cones in the gutter and drove away. Nothing happened. And a day later the cones disappeared. Last Friday, the four cones reappeared in the same position, but this time a further two in the gutter on the opposite side of the road. This morning May 7, without anything happening, the cones have disappeared again. The only explanation I can think of, is that the cones are undergoing tests to check that they are working satisfactorily.

Thought I'd just post a quick thank you and goodbye. My 3 year lease is ending, and a new RAV was beyond my budget; strangely, a Lexus NX 450h+, is just within my budget, so that's what I'm getting. Since getting my RAV4, 3 years ago, I've had a lot of help and useful info from the site, so thanks to all who contributed. Cheers Eddie

After a 7.5 month wait our Premiere Edition has finally arrived , affectionately named “Tony” by the CEO (someone will work it out why she came up with that) and has gone straight to a local company for a paint correction and full Gtechniq Ceramic coating. I requested the car be unmolested other than the few bits of plastic transit film removing to avoid the detailer having to remove scratches imparted by the “highly skilled” car cleaners dealers employ. Having spent an afternoon on the drive getting used to things I got our iPhones , Apple Car play , Waze and Spotify all sorted in a few minutes. The amount of customisation on combimeter will take time to decide which layout we prefer. The short drive to the detailer was a total vindication on going all in with the PE. The looks are marmite , but we love them including the bi-tone paint, the Sulphur really pops in sunlight and the panoramic roof lifts the interior. The JBL sound system is great , infotainment screen big and clear and the whole car feels much more refined than our old 2.0 Excel, the extra bit of width in the cabin now makes it feel “just right” for us. The Head Up Display is very useful and the digital rear view mirror a vast improvement, but you do need to recalibrate your brain to a totally different rear view perspective. I’ll admit to not having much idea yet on all of the “Driver Assistance” systems , despite having read the manual, time will tell what I like / dislike. After being without a CHR for nearly 9 months it’s a pleasure to back in the new model and initial impressions are that it was well worth holding out for what will hopefully be a long term keeper. The new CHR is now a lot more expensive than the outgoing model , but deals are there to be had on CarWow, and IMO it does feel like a significant improvement over the outgoing model, which it ought to.

auto windows can all be set with techstream, not sure if the old method works still - wind the window down all the way, hold the switch for 10 sec's - all the way up, and hold the switch up for 10 seconds

I did a jigsaw the other day it said 3 to 6 months on the box, did it in three days…quite proud of myself…

I've been so busy road testing penny farthings all week, my feet haven't touched the ground.😂

All those features are still available, it called a pushbike

Ideally, I would like an electric car but as I live in a flat it makes ownership a bit more problematic compared to having a self charging hybrid. I do have genuine concerns about pollution and protection of the environment and that is one of the reasons that I moved away from ICE cars. Technology is ever evolving and my humble opinion is that ICE cars will eventually be phased out. When it happens some people might look back with nostalgia but I prefer to look forward. How many of us would still like to see cross-ply tyres, no ABS brakes, no seat belts, no air bags, no air conditioning, no ECVT gears, no LCD lights and last but not least - starting handles. Mind you a starting handle might come in handy for the unlucky Yaris/Yaris Cross owners who’ve had 12v battery problems.

Hi Jacko, as a recent convert to the 23 Corolla TS I can strongly recommend, my views are very much as has been said above, Major positives:- Reliable and well built running costs (55 real world mpg and lower road tax bracket, no cam belt or clutch or expensive dsg servicing) very smooth to drive and relaxing nice driving position and good controls. Minor negatives to me :- not as enjoyable to thrash around country roads, handling is good enough but transmission not suited to this manner of driving. a little bit noisy on rough roads compared to cars like A3, golf but still fine. towing limited to a trailer (750kg) Boot is 10% smaller than some rivals (Octavia) but bigger than an Audi A6 or BMW 5 series touring. not many cubbyholes for internal storage. Overall a great car and as Wharcar decided best in class in 2024.

@Big_D I always pay the asking price because I find haggling rather distasteful and I also make sure I give the ladies who make me a cup of coffee, the delivery driver and the salesman a good tip. Makes the whole thing much more agreeable, I brighten a few peoples lives and within a couple of months I cant remember how much I paid anyway. Jobs a good un

The MK4 is the best small automatic car in the world, your one is mk 4.5 shall we call it. Am very satisfied with the normal 116 hp.

I've stopped to count the times that happened to me 😇. I park, get down from te car, press the keyfob and.... nothing. Open the door and a big READY label explains why !!!!!! 😉

The user manual states 3.2 litre without filter and 3.5 litre with filter. There is no mention of sump plug torque. Normally it's about 25-35 Nm - not a lot. Not an opportunity to show off the gorilla muscles.

Phone the dealer up and tell them you are going to buy 5 litres of 0W/8 and a filter and bring it back while they change it. Tell them you are going to let Mazda GB know and that you want all your costs back. You are running round with completely the wrong oil in and it needs to come out. The engine relies on 0W for cold weather when it could starve parts of the engine of oil. Ignore daft videos about thin oil, that’s because somebody is ignorant about fluid dynamics. You can’t compress a fluid (within normal reason) and in an engine with very fine tolerances, you need low viscosity oil in cold weather to get it round fast. Get it out and get the correct oil in.

When I picked ours up the pressures were so over inflated it had Goodyear written on the side and had two blokes holding it down with ropes…

Would love to echo your thoughts, but can't get near the other half's new premiere 🤪 But first impressions from her she really likes the updated Yaris - she was set not to as she couldn't get in black and wasnt keen on the blue (whic I really like). She went for silver metallic bitone. Agreed, quieter, smoother, nice power/torque increase, much improved dash and HUD with now everything she wants displayed. Dark interior, ambient lighting, wireless charging and cloud sat nav all plus points and she kept BSM, JBL, HUD, dipping rear mirror. Seems better put together and no rattles yet and MPG looking healthy (don't have a figure but she's not mentioned it being lower). No negatives to speak of - generally great update and as noted the software seems better all round - she says it genuinely feels like driver assistance now. I will drive it at some point, but from a passenger and pensive partner perspective, I'm very happy too!

Cars usually arrive with transportation tyre pressures (often 40-50 odd psi. Dealer should drop them during the PDI stage but they often don’t.

It's difficult to know where to start really. I think my overall assessment is that it is better than my initial one but the downsides are too great with too many basic design faults for me to consider re-buying. So I'll start with the shorter good points:- It is an easy to drive car which handles very well which makes it feel smaller and more nippy than it is. Considering the 18" wheels (see later) it is better over speed humps and pot holes than I had expected, compared to my Captur for example on 18" wheels. This is more likely due to the decent suspension. Still pretty big thump with potholes but this says more about he deterioraton in British roads than it does about the car and I doubt any car could deal well with them. The seats are reasonably comfortable but a tad short on thigh support for a six footer like me (see later). The gadgets are good in general and bleeps not too intrusive. The rear cross thing has saved me when reversing a couple of times and I think blind spot monitoring is one of the best safety back up features you can have in my opinion. In the earlier cold weather I liked the heated steering wheel a lot, the seats ok for a short initial period and being able to get rid of the one frost we had remotely was great. To just go out in the cold and drive straight off was wonderful. Generally the controls are pretty good although the touch screen could be more sensitive. I like the hydraulic boot system but think it could be a bit dangerous if you are not well clear. The kick start opener usually works and has been helpful a few times. Fuel consumption is coming out at about 62mpg but have rarely had a chance to drive it in tempertures over 15C. The worst thing for me has always been the noise levels. I have to turn the radio up sometimes depending on the road surface. It is mainly road noise although when you accelerate and the petrol engine kicks in you get a throaty sound like the old days when your exhaust manifold was blown. Of course young people might like it but i doubt many young people are buying this. Sound proofing the entirely bare steel in the boot floor has helped a bit and I have started to get used to it. If the engine is started from cold the petrol engine tick over sounds like a 1970's clattering diesel. The car generally feels cheap. The rear doors sometimes don't shut without a distinct slam and some important levers like the seat recliner is very flimsy plastic. The body panels are very thin and flexy and the paint seems a bit thin as I got a distinct scratch along the side from a fairly lightweight hedge twig. (It has polished out with some effort though). As a moderately tall person that likes to sit quite high I need the seat back to its maximum. This a major issue because if you want to put down the back seats, (and you will have to if you want to put say golf clubs in the boot) they won't go flat unless you move the front seat forward, then you have to slide it back again after they are down.The front doors don't open to anywhere near 90 degrees which makes getting in and out awkward without scraping mud off your shoes on to the door frame. Fuel consumption so far is slightly disappointing. Best average is probably about 62 mpg, about the same as my Captur hybrid was but it doesn't like motorways. At a constant 70mph when you will struggle to get 60mpg and more like 56. This may improve in the hotter weather but using higher octane fuel made absolutely no difference to the economy on an identical 60 mile round trip. My Audi A3 1.0 Tsi petrol auto could do over 60 mpg on motorways. Lots of these views are specific to me and I can see why other people may really like it or have different experiences becuse it is a decent enough car - or could have been. I've not read about it but the sales rep at my Toyota dealership phoned to ask me how I was getting on and after I told him about my gripes said there was a Yaris Cross size all electric vehicle coming out later this year.... but then what do sales reps know!

That is absolutely shocking! Mindless morons who should get a job instead of doing crime like that!!

Careful, we've derailleured this topic enough already!

They know Chris but there are a lot of cars with no problems and the floodgates will open on those too. Have a read through the thread and you’ll find many a noble crusader that wants to tell Toyota a thing or two. You’ll end up going to a lot of effort for nothing and you might eventually get a new battery but at this stage, probably the same as the one you’ve got. It is actually in hand and they are working on it but the best thing you can do is spend £75 and 20 minutes sticking a new Yuasa battery under the back seat and be done with it. Your faith will be restored in what is actually a very good car.

EV mode then power is circa 230hp max but Toyota curtail the power delivery above 50mph. My experience from testing. Hybrid mode then the 306hp DIN is available. Motors plus ICE working together. Battery does not need to be charged to get the full power in hybrid mode. There's a reserve in the traction battery which is near on impossible to deplete. I've tried especially hard and I've got it to almost zero but failed to get it to zero. The second you aren't accelerating that reserve is topped up from the generator on the ICE. This happens pretty quick. I'd say the only risk of totally flattening the reserve is by caning it at 90mph with frequent acceleration bursts towing a caravan up hill. Note that hybrid mode does not give you full 306hp if the engine is cold. Takes 3 to 8 minutes to warm up (depending on outside temperature) before full power is made available. Until then you are looking at 230hp. Again, I've tested this. Personally, I manually select between EV and Hybrid mode rather than use Auto. I know where I'm going and can maximise use of the traction battery to ensure I empty it rather than using petrol. So if I'm on the motorway I'll switch to EV mode when in a jam or it's the average 50mph speed limit thing and when off the motorway I'll use EV mode. Eventually I've got good at deciding when to switch. Whether the above is as good as the Auto mode is another matter. Eco, Normal and Sport modes change the throttle response (sensitivity of the accelerator pedal), steering weight (I think), and the Aircon performance. I usually run the car in sport mode.

The e in the eCVT is the way the computer works to vary the ratio of the epicyclic geartrain. In other transmissions they would have servos and clutches to lock fixed ratios but in an eCVT they use the speed of MG1 to vary the input or sun gear. It’s very clever and all the competitors would love to mimic it but it’s locked down with patents. So! They can spin that sun gear anywhere from faster than the output (vehicle speed) which gives low ratios to the same speed which gives 1:1 to actually turning it backwards to give overdrive ratios. This is all in an attempt to keep the engine in its most efficient range which is between 1500 to 2000rpm. If you’re on the motorway and you floor it you are loading it in the overdrive ratio and as you correctly surmise, at lower speeds you use lower ratios. You can understand why that damper wants to breakaway because that’s when there’s most load on it. The ultra simple epicyclic geartrain is the star of the show for me. This clever little device is about the diameter of a saucer and the thickness of a pork pie and by locking it to MG2 via an outer cog, it forms the power split device that when working a bit like a diff’ becomes the power split device. It’s absolutely ingenious.

It's because it's so runny it gets up the dipstick tube when you pull the dipstick, but although it's runny, it still clings to the metal surface and gets transferred back onto the upper parts of the dipstick. Incidentally, that's one way to see if oil is still good - Good oil will cling to a surface and stick to it, forming a thin lubricating film, but when it's broken down it will run off that surface much more easily and the film it leaves behind will be much weaker and will rub off more easily instead of leaving a film. He didn't say that, he said 5w30 is better than 10w30 - The essence is that while both are not ideal, 5w30 is 'less wrong' than 10w30. At the end of the day, the oil HAS to be matched with the engine tolerances - You would NOT want to use 0w20 on an old engine where the tolerances are huge as it'd not have enough film strength for the parts and they'd flop about too much. On the other hand, using 10w30 on these modern engines with their tiny tolerances will mean lots of metal-on-metal contact as the oil can't flow properly through the narrow gaps; ESPECIALLY on hybrids where the engine is constantly stopping and starting - That's where the most wear occurs in an engine, in that brief moment where the oil pressure has to be built up.

0w8 or 0w16 and at very bottom 0w20 , these are only oil viscosity types that you can use safely in your hybrid Toyota. Anything else is out of spec. Those 10w30 aren’t even so popular oils used in Europe, these are mostly USA and some Asian regions , perhaps difficult to find easily in shops either. Opieoils have them but they aren’t suitable for your engine. The problem is not only cold starts during cold weather, but any starts of the engine, since it’s a hybrid the engine starts and spins immediately at very high rpm so you need the right oil type and viscosity to have the required lubrication and protection.

Situation is now resolved. Swapping the car for a 24 plate on Saturday, which we are happy with.

mk2 pay the extra and get the more up-to-date safety features like side and curtain airbags - It is a lot easier to upgrade things like the radio, all but the basic cars have reverse cameras too, plenty of aygo's about so shop around not an issue on later cars 06-07 cars did have issues, 1kr's don't burn oil unless severely neglected, on the other hand rattling timing chains are common, if you don't do regular oil changes with quality oil

No way would I buy any used car this way without seeing it first and giving it a thorough look over and a test drive 🤷‍♂️