What Have You Done To Your PHEV Today?

[Hypermiler]

Thanks Mark - that'll upset the wife, she doesn't like heaters and drives with the window open in mid-winter at 70 mph :evil: I hope she doesn't work out how to turn the climate control off or I'll freeze to death

she can't reverse, :roll: so after many back and forths trying to get it straight in carport she gave up when the car started talking, asking her if she needed help! Rather a surprise as we don't have the MMCS (Gx3h)

At that speed, perhaps your car will ask her very nicely to "shut the ******* window". You seem to have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - or maybe that should be Kit from Knightrider! :lol:
H

 

[endeavour]

I took delivery of my Atlantic Grey PHEV gh4h on Friday and am hugely pleased with it.
On Monday I unscrewed the top of a new bottle of sparkling water before I drove off so that I could drink and drive safely (water) without having to unscrew the bottle top on the road, but I forgot about it and left the bottle in the console. Then yesterday I parked at a train station and put my laptop under the front passenger seat out of sight.

So today I drove to work and put a bag on the front seat. When I parked I went to the passenger side and grabbed the bag, the handle of which wrapped itself around the said water bottle which toppled onto the passenger seat and glugged itself out all over it. The black leather is surprisingly absorbent! I grabbed some paper towels returning to find the water had run off and through the seat and been collected by my laptop underneath.

Seems to be a karma kind of thing: Thou shall not drive am awesome car without totally effing it up shortly after you get it.

 

[aitchjaybee]

......Seems to be a karma kind of thing: Thou shall not drive am awesome car without totally effing it up shortly after you get it.

Mate, that's an awesome connected set of events. If you are looking for a silver lining, at least it wasn't milk, or worse still, a bottle of aftershave that leaked out of your bag and soaked into your velour seats. Oh yes, that was a bad one, 1992. Still remember the troubled look on a girl's face as she climbed into my car and being hit with smell of 300ml of cheap aftershave soaked seat. I tried to pretend nothing was wrong during the 3 hour drive to Devon!

 

[greendwarf]

Thanks Mark - that'll upset the wife, she doesn't like heaters and drives with the window open in mid-winter at 70 mph :evil: I hope she doesn't work out how to turn the climate control off or I'll freeze to death

she can't reverse, :roll: so after many back and forths trying to get it straight in carport she gave up when the car started talking, asking her if she needed help! Rather a surprise as we don't have the MMCS (Gx3h)

At that speed, perhaps your car will ask her very nicely to "shut the ******* window". You seem to have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - or maybe that should be Kit from Knightrider! :lol:
H

I think I've found out what the mystery voice is. Went to Ikea in Croydon yesterday to buy a £5 seat cover, which I wouldn't have bothered with if I had been paying for petrol, (didn't get the cover but wife spent £50 anyway Wife still can't park but whilst swapping over the car suddenly started asking about connecting to a mobile - so must be something to do with Bluetooth :roll:

Checked out the Ecotricity/Source London charging stations there - one bay with tethered AC/DC cables and another 2 either side of a newer Type 2 Fast Charger. Nice and near entrance and all three empty. Couldn't use them however, as I'm still waiting for my Source London card - especially as the charge itself is free
Question - if you can Fast Charge for free then does that make it worthwhile to do this frequently (despite warnings) :?:

Finally, tried to register for the Congestion Charge discount but I need the Certificate of Conformity - which my useless dealer DIDN'T give me :evil:

 

[maby]

...Finally, tried to register for the Congestion Charge discount but I need the Certificate of Conformity - which my useless dealer DIDN'T give me :evil:

I'm also waiting on a Certificate of Conformity - we had exactly the same problem with our Prius ten years ago!

Regarding "fast charging" - I just don't see that it is worth the reported risks to your battery life expectancy. A charge is worth just over a pound at most people's electricity tariff rate, possibly two pounds in petrol. We've just learned that a battery pack replacement is probably going to cost around £2000 - personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.

 

[greendwarf]

...Finally, tried to register for the Congestion Charge discount but I need the Certificate of Conformity - which my useless dealer DIDN'T give me :evil:

I'm also waiting on a Certificate of Conformity - we had exactly the same problem with our Prius ten years ago!

Regarding "fast charging" - I just don't see that it is worth the reported risks to your battery life expectancy. A charge is worth just over a pound at most people's electricity tariff rate, possibly two pounds in petrol. We've just learned that a battery pack replacement is probably going to cost around £2000 - personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.

As you know, I think the £2k figure is too low and more probably £8k but the real problem is how frequently is "frequently" - more than once a day/week/month :?: Until we get a better idea it's difficult to do a proper cost/benefit comparison :?

 

[maby]

Personally, I don't anticipate ever using fast charging and I would be uncomfortable with the idea of doing it more than a few times per year. I will charge at home and may charge in London car parks when I commute in for the day - but that will be a standard rate charge lasting several hours while I'm in the office.

 

[WattCar]

Finally, tried to register for the Congestion Charge discount but I need the Certificate of Conformity - which my useless dealer DIDN'T give me :evil:

Why do you need a Certificate of Conformity? After I got the logbook from DVLA I registered for the CCharge without further queries. in fact you can't register for the CCharge exemption without sending a copy of the logbook.

[/quote]

 

[maby]

Finally, tried to register for the Congestion Charge discount but I need the Certificate of Conformity - which my useless dealer DIDN'T give me :evil:

Why do you need a Certificate of Conformity? After I got the logbook from DVLA I registered for the CCharge without further queries. in fact you can't register for the CCharge exemption without sending a copy of the logbook.

The Congestion Charge Exemption application form explicitly says that for hybrid vehicles you need to supply a copy of the Conformity Certificate as well as the logbook. I certainly had to when I registered our Prius for exemption and it was a problem then too - it was not supplied with the car and I had to go to Toyota head office for it.

I agree that it should not be necessary - all the required information is at the DVLA.

 

[maby]

OK - follow-up on the certificate of conformity - I've just called the TfL contact centre and the agent there tells me that the application form on the web site is out of date - it is only necessary to send a copy of the logbook...

 

[maby]

And here's a follow-up to my follow-up - I think I understand it now...

The application form is not strictly wrong - but it is misleading. There used to be two separate criteria for exemption - the vehicle could either be hybrid, or if could be ultra-low emission. This rather got up the environmentalists noses since there were some big gas-guzzlers around that still qualified for exemption because they included a token hybrid system. More recently, the rules have been changed to remove the exemption for hybrids and make the qualification depend entirely on CO2 emissions. The trouble is that TfL have not bothered to change the application form - it still refers to the old rules for hybrids which required the submission of this certificate of conformity. The Outlander could have qualified for exemption on either grounds - it is both hybrid and ultra-low emissions - when filling in the application form, you have to ignore the fact that it is hybrid and just apply on the grounds of its CO2 emissions - going down that path, one only has to submit a copy of the V5C.

 

[Regulo]

What have I done to my PHEV today? Backed it into a stray supermarket trolley and put a nice little ding in the back of it.

Only had it 2 days! I'm used to reversing sensors and looking over my shoulders, not cameras. Never saw it!!!!! Never mind, paint not broken, and I know a man who can.

 

[maby]

What have I done to my PHEV today? Backed it into a stray supermarket trolley and put a nice little ding in the back of it.

Only had it 2 days! I'm used to reversing sensors and looking over my shoulders, not cameras. Never saw it!!!!! Never mind, paint not broken, and I know a man who can.

Ouch! I must say that I'm loving the reversing camera - never had one before...

 

[david1972]

Thought I'd share this with you from yesterday....

My wife took the PHEV to the Metrocentre for the first time yesterday evening. It has a good number of leccy points there, including a rapid charge jobby. She pulled up next to 2 Nissan Leaf's; both of who's owners were present. One of the guys was just unplugging from the rapid charge point before leaving; the other just arriving and finishing plugging in.

"Do you want the rapid charge point?" the guy leaving chirped up to his fellow leafer. "No thanks, I'm not going to be long" he replied.

So my wife chirps up to the guy leaving the rapid charge point "Are you leaving?"

"Yes" he replied - "can you use this"?

"Yes - we can charge anywhere" she replied :mrgreen:

Anyway, they helped he get plugged in and charging - she said they seemed to like the fact they were 'pheving' lol

After an hour or so's shopping she came back out to the car with our daughter to find a small gathering of people looking at and talking about the car.....reckons she felt like a celebrity hahahahha.

One bloke asked her how the car was, saying he'd just bought a Shogun and was getting 14 to the gallon......bless, think he was somewhat envious :lol:

These LEAF owners won't know whats hit them soon; having to fight all us PHEV owners for spaces now

 

[greendwarf]

OK - follow-up on the certificate of conformity - I've just called the TfL contact centre and the agent there tells me that the application form on the web site is out of date - it is only necessary to send a copy of the logbook...

The form I downloaded last night is marked 09/14 so is out of date after a month. I trust call centre workers as much as I trust my dealer Once I get the V5C back from DVLA (currently in melt-down?) with the correct address I have a go with just that, thanks.

 

[maby]

OK - follow-up on the certificate of conformity - I've just called the TfL contact centre and the agent there tells me that the application form on the web site is out of date - it is only necessary to send a copy of the logbook...

The form I downloaded last night is marked 09/14 so is out of date after a month. I trust call centre workers as much as I trust my dealer Once I get the V5C back from DVLA (currently in melt-down?) with the correct address I have a go with just that, thanks.

if the application form refers to "Hybrid", then it is out of date - the exemption for hybrids was removed well over a year ago.

 

[greendwarf]

OK - follow-up on the certificate of conformity - I've just called the TfL contact centre and the agent there tells me that the application form on the web site is out of date - it is only necessary to send a copy of the logbook...

The form I downloaded last night is marked 09/14 so is out of date after a month. I trust call centre workers as much as I trust my dealer Once I get the V5C back from DVLA (currently in melt-down?) with the correct address I have a go with just that, thanks.

if the application form refers to "Hybrid", then it is out of date - the exemption for hybrids was removed well over a year ago.

Nope this is the "Ultra Low Emission discount application form" - as you say there are no exemptions only 100% discount now (easy to change the % in future to start charging us )

 

[Snowball]

What I have done to the PHEV today?
After two weeks of ownership it needed a good wash and I managed to do this inbetween the rainshowers.......

BTW, It has rolled 420km so far, only used 4L of petrol and 10eur of electricity.
Everything works good and the pre-heat function is really great.

 

[I8Binners]

If anyone is bothered here is my 20 day update of ownership.

I have amassed 1634 miles on this car averaging a massive 45.46 mpg which is less than the 47mpg I averaged on my Civic....however, it is far far more comfortable on long distance journeys!

Also, working out my BIK per month I will save over £100 a month and the cost in fuel so far is only £10 more than what I would have paid for the diesel.

So, not your typical driver but on a 42 mile journey I average 94mpg, just had alot of long journeys so quick.

Cheers

 

[user 422]

After an hour or so's shopping she came back out to the car with our daughter to find a small gathering of people looking at and talking about the car.....reckons she felt like a celebrity hahahahha.

Try to return to the car when it's going to finish charging otherwise she is blocking the rapid charge bay for other users... Don't want to get tarred with the hogging brush