SonnyA85

I've had to do some minor repairs but now I am getting it serviced by an indy for buttons compared to dealer and he will also be able to do repairs for buttons too. Also the warranty only covers 10 years or younger vehicles and below 100k miles I thought. The car is just a fancy Prius at the end of the day. Fantastic car but the Prius has been around for several decades now and ironed out majority of issues over that time and refined the car. There are people who have done crazy miles in a Prius and now in this car too. It's a very well made car and a good price too. I plan on keeping this car until either it's uneconomical to repair or uneconomical to run because petrol is now £3+ a litre and electric cars are cheap. I normally upgrade every 4 years but I plan on keeping this and my BMW until they die or I'm forced to give them up.

It's an American company and you would need to go on American forums and ask people who have bought it. At one point your hybrid battery will die. You will then have options. Do you just run the car inefficiently using just petrol and get poor mpg. Get a new battery. New or refurbished. Repair your current or refurbish your current battery. Plenty of people have been in this situation in America and some decided to upgrade to lithium. I don't see anything that's too good to be true we all know lithium is much better than other older battery methods.

Try £2000 https://projectlithium.com/products/prius-lithium-replacement-pack 1. 1/2 of the weight of the original battery pack Stock NiMH battery weights 80 lbs! Dr. Prius lithium pack weight less than 35 lbs. 2. 4 times more power Nexcell lithium pack delivers 260Amp peak power compared to 100Amp peak power from stock NiMH battery. 3. Better fuel economy with improved EV range Nexcell lithium pack maintain at an optimal voltage range to trick the computer in running more on electric power. Resulting in better fuel economy. 4. Highest Level of safety Nexcell LiFePO4 lithium solution is proven to be safe and has been tested in extreme conditions around the world (sub-zero temperature, extreme humidity, extreme desert heat) with more than half million miles logged, checkout all testing video on YouTube keyword "dr. prius lithium test". 5. Toxic free No more hazardous chemical from a NiMH chemistry pack. 5. Affordability Nexcell Lithium Upgrade Battery replacement costs less than stock Toyota replacement! We searched and purchased large quantities of the highest quality LiFePO4 cells and translate the saving onto customers.

I'm not sure why you ever need more than one key. We have two keys for both our cars and we only every use the one which also has the house keys attached the other two just stay at home. The only time it comes in handy is if we are giving control of the car over to someone else like a mechanic, tyre fitter, etc.

If you really want efficient the. You should be buying lithium batteries. They will weigh many KG lighter, hold more power, can be discharged much lower and give out better power overall. You can upgrade both the hybrid and the 12v battery to lithium. They aren't cheap but upgrading the hybrid means it can work up to 3 times the distance the normal battery does. It can effectively pay for itself if you do a lot of miles.

Interesting about efficiency. How more efficient are they? Also what makes them longer lasting the fact that they don't let the water evaporate? I'd say wet batteries are longer lasting because they can be refurbished and brought back to full capacity quite easily.

Yeah he's a one man business but he also has the use of a premises 2 days per week for jobs that require a ramp, MOT's, etc. So he can do practically everything. The good thing is that he actually does the work. Leave your car at a garage and walk away and I've heard stories from plenty of mechanics that they do little as possible when they worked for Arnold Clark they were told to do that and also for every car you need to add x,y and z to the bill regardless. Even when they challenged what if it's an old lady they said everyone. He walked away after hearing that. An oil change was just an oil top up. They spent the majority of the time on the car valeting it so it gave the customer the impression it had been well looked after. That's directly from an Arnold Clark mechanic who is a family friend. Heard loads of other stories from BMW forums too similar to mine where I've paid good money and even provided parts and nothing was done. You have to ask. Who would even check? Would any of you check spark plugs, filters or oil after a service?

That's expensive. I suppose it depends on how expensive rent and rates are as well so will vary massively by area. I actually think it's a misprice possibly on the Petronas oil. As that oil should be at least £10-£15 dearer IMO per 5l container. It's a very very good price. I might get some and another oil filter now for next year's oil change because it will only go up.

https://www.opieoils.co.uk/p-218908-petronas-syntium-7000-hybrid-0w-20-fully-synthetic-car-engine-oil.aspx Here's a link to the oil. There is a discount code from some youtube channel that gets you 10% off too. So I use that on every order. Can't recall but a google will help you find it. Specifications: Meets or exceeds the requirements of: API SP ILSAC GF-6A Dexos1 Gen 2 FCA 955535SCR-1 Perf MS 6395 Perf. If you are paying £100 for oil then you are paying 5 times the going rate. The Ct200H only uses 4 litres. I also throw in some castrol gtx engine shampoo to flush the old oil out before draining. That stuff is really good at flushing all the sludge and old oil out. I noticed my BMW took 2 full litres more than a normal change after using it but my BMW does use circa 6 litres normally and this time took nearly 8 maybe 7.5 after using the engine shampoo so it got rid of everything.

Good synthetic is £20 see my post above. 5 litres of premium is £28 and it doesn't take 5 litres nowhere near it. Spark plugs again are cheap as chips. https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/denso-spark-plug-408540010 £12.50 each and it only takes 4 so £50. Unlike my BMW which takes 6. Luckily these only really need changed every 6 years or so it's only £50 every 6 years. If you break down lexus services. The profit margin must be enormous. Labour shouldn't be any more than £60 an hour, you can bet the mechanic is only being paid £20 of that. Independent Labour shouldn't be more than £40 an hour. Some places charge stupid money though I once had a garage try and tell me a rocker cover gasket which is a £40 part and maximum half an hour labour would be £500. I told them I wouldn't bring my car here again if they were the last garage in the country and told all my family to do the same.

Thanks. I do agree the warranty is decent but those parts hardly ever fail on an up to 10 year old Lexus. It's the exhaust, EGR, heat shields, calipers, etc. All the stuff that isn't covered that will usually fail but it's nice to have for peace of mind, that is essentially what you are paying for now with their service plans. It's why I bought the car several years ago. Lexus and Toyota 9 times out of 10 are bulletproof. Especially the petrol engines and their hybrid system is now what 20+ years old and been refined and finely tuned. I love Lexus and Toyota. I won't always use OEM parts but I will use quality parts. I won't ever use cheap parts on a vehicle my family sits in. Safety is the number 1 priority. I will always buy good tyres, etc. I use goodyear eagle F1 on all my cars. The wife wants an SUV so I have been looking at the RAV 4, C-HR and the Lexus range too but they aren't cheap. Money isn't the issue but it's a depreciating asset it's not a priority at this moment in time. The CT200H does everything really well the only negatives I can say about it are; F Sport lower ride height gives a terrible ride especially given this isn't a hot hatch there was no need for this apart from aesthetics but I already drive a sports convertible as well I didn't need another low car albeit the sports convertible is much much lower. The CVT is extremely noisy. I think they improved this from the facelift but mine is a 2013. There is no need for it to be that noisy but it gives the impression the engine is under a lot of strain. When my other car has 6 cylinders and a sports mode also you don't really want to hear this type of soundtrack in a luxury hatchback especially if it doesn't have minimum 180+ bhp to match. Large rims making the ride harsh. It's not a hot hatch. Large rims do look nice but I would ideally like to go down a size. But now I have 4 new'ish Eagle F1's on the car there is no point in me downsizing. I would have liked them to focus on ride quality given it's more of a city car and not really for taking on the track. That's all I can say negative about the car. Everything else I think it does amazingly well for the money. I love all the gadgets and toys you get with an F Sport. I think F Sport is the must have model albeit it also then has the worse ride too. I'll need to look at my receipt. I used a Meyle Pollen, activated carbon filter insert with NOx absorbing filter and particulate filter PM2.5 for my cabin filter this year it was £25 (there were normal pollen filters available for half the price or less I opted for the best. Mann Air filter - £13. Mann Oil filter - £6. The oil I got from opie oils. PETRONAS Syntium 7000 Hybrid 0W-20 Fully Synthetic Car Engine Oil - 5 Litres was only £28. This is the same company that makes oil for Mercedes F1 Team (Lewis Hamilton), granted it's not the same oil as going into his F1 car but it's not a cheap option this is a premium oil and I was shocked at how cheap it was. Cheaper than the oil I use in the BMW by quite some margin probably half the price or less as the BMW uses significantly more oil. I'd say oil for the BMW costs me £75 easy per oil change so £28 and plenty left over is nothing for the little Ct200h engine. I don't think it's worth it getting it serviced there any more. My lexus had a full dealer history until this year. Albeit we got the service plan when we initially bought it until I was more clued up with the car then got the last 2 done just to keep it in warranty. Now I'll be getting it serviced elsewhere using quality parts and quality fluids and it's going to save a lot of money in the long run. I just don't think £400+ is great value for money unless something breaks and is fixed under warranty. Then you will be glad you have it. Next year my car will cost less than £100 to service as an example because everything has been done on it. I will probably however need to change the shocks as the car will be 10 years old and nearly 100K miles. I think the shocks will benefit from being changed but I'll see what the mechanic says as he has to do the rear shocks on my BMW next month. He's worked on all types of cars and hopefully he's done a few prius or another ct200h so will know how long they tend to last. I'll leave the springs until they snap but I'll probably get new mounts, bushes and anti roll bushes / links. I plan on keeping this car now until I'm forced into electric. If the hybrid battery dies or has issues there are now cheap options available in terms of repair and replacement. Last time I checked it was £800 for a refurb battery. So I think repairing the one you have should cost £300-£400 tops. I have seen there was a guy who specialises in these in Dublin but I'll need to find someone a bit more local to me and across the pond.

Thanks. I don't do the work myself as above got a mechanic. I forgot to say Brake Caliper Specialist give a lifetime warranty on brakes. However you need to remove from car and post to them. Their service isn't cheap cost me around £600 for my BMW but that's with their top lifetime paint job as well. I'd be hoping for around £400 to do the Lexus £100 a corner for their lifetime warranty refurb and paint job. The paint job also has lifetime warranty. They do work for McLaren HyperCars a £1m car. Their warranty also covers collection and delivery costs if the paint or caliper fails in future they are so confident of the quality of parts and paint used. I'm pretty sure my ct200h says brake fluid every 40k miles which would be 5 years for us. Or 4 years I'm pretty confident of that. The Lexus service plan imo is a joke. A visual check of the hybrid battery system is just them inspecting the fan intake and plugging a obd reader in and doing a quick check on voltages. I can do that at home myself as could anyone. Dealers honestly don't provide a great service. I had my BMW inspection 2 done at a main dealer as well as transmission fluid it was a £850 service and that was 6 years ago probably £1200 now at today's prices. I changed the spark plugs myself this year. Guess what. Main dealer never changed them 6 years ago. They weren't the ones I provided to them. When you leave your car at a garage and walk away you donyknow what they actually do or don't do. I spoke with several BMW enthusiasts and they said the same thing. A friend of mine owns an M car as well their top end which services cost double of their normal cars extortionate. He took it to 3 other places who were specialists across the country trying to solve a problem the dealer couldn't. One of them checked and plugs were old they were supposed to have been replaced 3 months prior and he showed him them and there is no way they could be that bad after 3 months. Unless you sit in the garage and watch them service your car you have no idea how good they actually are. You are basing off the marketing and public relations. Basically the customer service from the nice receptionist usually a sexy female and the free coffee and leather seats. Perception matters more than quality of service in their field. Mechanics at the back will take shortcuts wherever they can at the end of the day it's not their car.

I buy all my parts from autodoc and I wait for them to have a sale on. Usually 30-40% off and they are already miles cheaper than anywhere in the UK. I will also compare them directly with Opie oils that offers free delivery Vs the £8 autodoc charge as it comes from Germany. Also I use an independent mechanic who is mobile. He comes to your home and does the work. All for £40 per hour. Used to be £30 per hour but increase in fuel prices meant he had to jack up his price as he comes to you and he's using a large heavy van. He has 30 years experience and trained at Nissan. He has experience with hybrid systems. He done the Nissan training on them. He also works on my BMW. He's worked on my dad's jaguar. The guy is a true professional and I'm lucky to know him. He recently cleaned out the full egr system, changed the pcv valve and I asked him to take pics of it all before and after which he agreed to no bother. I don't think egr issues are as bad in the UK we use much better fuel than America however this new E10 stuff potentially could ruin that. I would say in the UK you only need to do an EGR clean every 150k miles. I done mine at 90k miles and it was still pretty clean. I probably won't ever hit 250k miles in it so I won't bother getting it done again. If I was buying from eBay I'd make sure it was an OEM supplier like a Toyota dealer or BMW dealer. I did have the warranty and service plan with lexus to begin with but the stuff that goes wrong with these cars is never covered by the warranty. Heat shields underneath the car is a common issue every few years. Brake calipers seizing. That's it apart from EGR valve the car is bulletproof if the oil is changed yearly. The £400 per year. I'll be saving £200 of that across the average of 10 years that's £2000. Enough to pay for minor repairs here and there. What's the suspension like on these? I've had to change mine on the BMW and the rear twice in my ownership. I have the f sport. It's going to be a decade old next year so I'm thinking I should do a full suspension refresh. The shocks will likely need replacing at bare minimum as well as top mounts and bushes and possibly anti roll bars. This kind of stuff would cost a fortune at a dealer. With my mechanic 25% of the price.

I must live in a different world if you think oil changes are worth £408 a year. Majority of what is on the "service" plan is checks not actually doing anything but looking at stuff. I do the following which is a much better service plan than whatever lexus does and much cheaper too and I use much better fluids. Brake fluid for instance is only done once every 4 years by lexus I'll do it once every 2 years. That's why you get calipers that seize on a lot of lexus cars. Oil and 3 filters is £100. Labour - £40 Thats a normal service for me. £140 Every second year add on brake fluid -£20 and another £40 labour. So £200 service every second year. Every fourth year add on new spark plugs. £40 plus another £40 labour so £280 service every 4 years. Every 6th year add on new transmission fluid, new engine coolant and new inverter coolant. £350 service every 6 years. Spending £400+ per year for their service plan you may as well be setting fire to money.

It's a hatchback not a luxury sedan.