A Few Questions

[ian103]

The car was delivered last week and we took it for a quick drive out on Sunday, can anybody answer

1/ whats the B slot for on the CVT and does anyone use it?

2/ is there any way to get a digital speed displayed as well as the speedo? On the audi you could get the on board computer to give a digital speed reading which was very useful.

3/ does the cruise control hold the speed going down hill?

4/ we have tried the hill hold assist a few times - its good but could be better as we get a small amount of roll back - are we setting it properly? we start car with foot on brake, release parking brake, press the main brake harder and nothing happens, very gently come off the brake and let the car roll back a fraction and then depress the brake pedal hard and the hill hold assist works.

[reecey]

Hi, hope you are enjoying the car.

The British is electronic brake, can be used to slow the car down and charge the Battery. Yes I do use it.

Not aware of the facility for digital speedo.

Use the cruise control but never thought about what happens going downhill so I suppose it must.

Never used the hill hold assist. Managed for fifteen months without.

Hope this helps

[Wass]

I can only answer your questions 1 and 3 since I have an early car and specifications seem to have changed over the short life of the CT. ( blame Kylie) I also never use the hill start facility since I use the foot operated parking brake for hill starts.The foot operated parking brake has been very common in american vehicles for decades and i learnt how to use one many years ago whilst working abroad.

B brings in engine braking in a lower gear. Without the B you would apply the brake which could charge up the Battery until it was fully charged and then would use your conventional brakes instead. Using B helps keep the load off the braking system and instead of the car coasting with minor resistance as it would do normally, the valve gear operates without letting in fuel and you coast against the compression of the engine instead.

If you are travelling down a long steep hill in cruise control, the car can gain speed over the set speed since it doesnt apply the brakes ( electrical or conventional) in cruise control. I try to anticipate the speed to be gained on the descent of a hill by checking that there is no-one following me and cancel the cruise control a long way before the hill and lose speed through coasting before building up speed on the hill.The trick is to judge the hill just right so that I dont need to use the brakes at all whilst arriving at the bottom of the hill within the speed limit. This will not work at all if there is anyone following you since you will not show any brake lights to indicate that you are slowing down and they will find your lack of speed and sudden increase in speed somewhat unexpected and infuriating.

[MarkShelley]

The B setting increases the regenerative braking effect i.e. puts more charge back into your Battery whilst slowing you down more quickly. If you are anal about max mpg you will love it. I can only be bothered to use it on a long decline. My wife never uses it!

[ian103]

Thanks for the responses-

think I'll give the B operation a miss.

shame that theres no option for a digital speedo - it was a very clear way of knowing your speed so it was a nice to have feature.

have to watch the speed when on cruise control as theres one long hill round here that pc plod loves to monitor and catch a few speeders.

hill start assist - more practice should sort.

[DanD]

Think of the "B" as an artificial engine break. It is quite handy when going down a long hill and you can use it instead of keeping your foot on the brakes.

[ian103]

Ah I think I understand what the B setting does now. Maybe it will get some use after all.

One thing I missed when picking the car is how small the fuel tank is, what sort of range is acheivable on a tank full (also is there a low fuel warning light?) If so when does it activate (we had a range of less than 70 miles but the lamp still hadn't activated).

[reecey]

Hi

I usually get around 350 miles per fill up. If you look at the MPG thread there is an explanation about how much fuel is left in the tank when the light comes on and why.

Cheers

[ian103]

thanks, just read the thread, this is something I should have checked better, last car was 600+ miles between fill, better start finding some none motorway service stations for our trips up north (m5/m6) as this could prove to be expensive

[reecey]

Sorry 350 should read 380. Still not much help for your marathon trips!

[GJD]

I regularly get 430 - 450 miles per tank with my 2011 SE-Premier.

Also noticed that if you fill up pretty much as soon as low fuel light comes on you still have about 10L of fuel left! What I tend to do now is reset the trip B once cruising range gets to zero and the allow 2 x the tank MPG average before filling up (typically another 80 - 100 miles).

Yes, I know risky, but have never run out yet! Never filled up with more than 42L of fuel and it is a 45L tank........

[ian103]

Cheers - with that sort of range it should be OK. 350-400 is what I was sort of looking for / hoping for.

[reecey]

Never had the bottle to go much more than 10 miles or so after the range reads zero, even though I know that there should be about 8 - 10 litres left.

Obviously a bit of a wimp, will try it in future though.

Thanks

[Sethyhead]

As for the hill assist: you need to push heavily on the break pedal until the orange (or is it yellow) traction light flashes then you have a little time to use the throttle. I did it by mistake while turning around at lights and wondered what the #%#% was going on

I now uses it quite often

[ian103]

Just got back from the first long trip in the CT, still not convinced by the colour - looks stunning in bright light but not so nice when its dull. Well impressed with the comfort of the car, its very easy to drive, but the performance is quite sluggish after a diesel and its not very economical at all - 46mpg on a long steady motorway run. Just need to sort the memory seats out and a few other gadgets / settings

[Wass]

Just got back from the first long trip in the CT, still not convinced by the colour - looks stunning in bright light but not so nice when its dull. Well impressed with the comfort of the car, its very easy to drive, but the performance is quite sluggish after a diesel and its not very economical at all - 46mpg on a long steady motorway run. Just need to sort the memory seats out and a few other gadgets / settings

Hybrids are generally suited to the things which diesels aren't and vice versa. A diesel will sit quite happily all day long at 70 mph on the motorway and you will get very good fuel consumption from your long motorway journey. The typical hybrid will have very little opportunity to run on its electric motor and so will be unable to recycle hardly any of the energy gained on the throttle over-run or light braking. Therefore your 46mpg represents the fuel consumption of your petrol engine with very little of the hybrid system input. In town driving, however, the diesel fuel consumption will rise dramatically whilst all of the hybrids electronics will be happily running you car on harvested electrical charge from the last braking phase or downhill coasting and the electronics will bring the engine online just for short burst acceleration or Battery augmentation. Hence, around town the hybrid fuel consumption improves on your motorway figures whilst your diesel seems to use fuel like there's a hole in the tank. The hybrid performance comes into play very low down the rev range and therefore at very low speeds such as pulling away from traffic lights or away from junctions.. The diesel has a lot of torque but it is mostly towards the lower middle of the rev range and therefore gives the diesel engine car a lot more punch at motorway speeds.

My fuel consumption always drops away on fast A roads and motorways. I could easily outperform my 11 plate 1.8 Lexus CT with my 1999 T plated Volvo S80 2.5 litre diesel on both power and fuel consumption on the motorways. However, the old Volvo would be left standing at the traffic lights by the CT. The CT would be gone in an instance whilst the S80 would still be mulling it over as to whether to spin up its turbo-charger.

[ian103]

Cheers, we'll see how the economy improves in our normal use of the car as that will involve more city / low speed road driving.

[ian103]

Just checked the mpg again and its actually dropping - now at 44mpg - not that impressive. Have to keep an eye on it and if it carrys on dropping it may need to go back to the dealer (this could be an interesting experience after the appalling service form the supplying dealer so fairly apprehensive at present)

The car is proving easy to drive and comfortable, still can't work out how the seat memory works (now sorted - great feature if theres two or more regular drivers). Still getting to grips with the gear shift - it seems really odd that you push forwards to reverse.

The sat nav is very complicated (way to difficult really) but is proving pretty good and accurate even down here (found a very out of the way visitor attraction with ot yesterday).

Just fitted the rubber mats that come as part of the protection pack - they fit like a dream so highly recommended - just hope they stop the sand etc getting ingrained into the carpet. Just need to find a way to stop the drivers / passenger door panels getting marked / dirty when getting in / out of the car.