Steven Lockey

No, got it in 2020. Actually paid £1700, but they refunded £700 cos the hybrid battery was on it's way out and I told them they would have to refund me and come collect the car from 200 miles away otherwise 🤣 Instead of doing the repairs, I replace the battery for £2k, then all 4 shocks for £2k and had the exhaust replaced for just under £1k total. Also had it repainted which was another £2k, so spend £8k total but its not far off 'as new' now. Had a mechanic give it a major inspection and he said it was in really good condition mechanically despite hitting nearly 200k miles. Could of done all of that cheaper by scrimping and using 3rd party parts but decided to stick with OEM. Given any luck it should be good for another 4-5 years now without anything major needing doing (according to my mechanic) since all the common failure points have been replaced already.

These thread often amuse me since I got mine for £1k 🤣 Ok, it was 15 years old when I got it but its still running perfectly other than minor issues with the exhaust and shocks needing replacing.

The above tag price is probably the "dealer tax". I'd carefully check some things before purchase. 1> Its under 15 years so check its had its hybrid checks and the hybrid system is under warranty. Remember to get this renewed every year and you've got some peace of mind over the hybrid system. 2> Shocks - Its a heavy car and the shocks tend to go. Check they are solid. 3> Exhaust - The pipes seem a bit vulnerable to corrosion If those are good the 450h is a very reliable car so you shouldn't have many worries.

Sorry, might have been back 2 he didn't check not back 4. Was a while ago. I remember it was just the back ones that were difficult to get to. Sure he said he checked the front 4. Maybe I just assumed there were another 4 😉

What my garage did was take out the front 4 which are easy to access and checked those. If all 4 were fine he didn't do the back 4. If there was any wear on the front 4, he'd take all 8 out and replace them all. Seemed like a fair compromise and first thing he did when I went in was apologise for not checking all 8 but he wouldn't of had the car ready in time otherwise.

Yeah, what you've posted suggests either a issue with the computer or the wiring. Computer should boot up regardless of the state of the hybrid system. It runs happily off the 12V. That sounds like a fun one to try and fix. Good luck!

Hmmm, odd. The high voltage circuit shouldn't even try and power on if you just press the power button without pressing the brake. That suggests the issue isn't with the hybrid system. Even if that is completely dead, you should be able to turn the car on, just not actually start the engine or get it into ready mode. Kinda suggests you might have a computer or wiring issue.

Yep, strongly recommend Richard, extremely professional and a nice guy. My hybrid battery went at 170k and he replaced it for £2.2k, must be nearly 4 years ago and I've not had a single issue single. There was a cheaper option at just under £2k and you could get it reconditioned for around £700.

Yeah I was thinking more planes since the other major factor, the explosiveness of the hydrogen tanks is less important when they aren't driving round city centres.

Yep and if we move to electric cars, we have to drill a lot less oil. Also unlike oil, lithium and cobalt can be recovered when the battery is dead and made into new batteries. All in all, its a net gain. Over 95% with little pollution currently. They have literally said the only thing that is stopping them at the moment is there aren't enough old EV batteries at the moment to build a factory that would benefit from economies of scale. EVs aren't a perfect solution, but at the moment they are the best one for most cars. If you need extreme long range or are extremely weight sensitive, hydrogen is currently a better answer.

Sorry, missed that bit. Americans always talk like the US is the whole world so thought they were world figures. Even so, cutting emissions by even 5% by going electric would be a huge step in the right direction. Do you have ANY CHOICE but to walk next to the road in any town or city? Other two you have a choice, that's the difference. Cars are everywhere and that's not likely to change. No, my solution was the sensible one to cut kerbside pollution as much as possible. Also the follow up study showed EV particle production to be a lot lower the same as other cars as while it produced more tyre particulates, it used regenerative braking more so produced less brake dust.

The mining is 100% an issue. This does need to be balanced against the damage averted from reduced oil drilling however. Recycling less so, they already know how to recycle 95%+ of li-ion batteries, they are currently upscaling facilities in multiple places. With the increasing cost of lithium/cobalt its economical to do it. Money to be made and all.

Yes exactly. 41% of carbon pollution caused by transportation comes from cars. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1185535/transport-carbon-dioxide-emissions-breakdown/ Transport overall is around 27%, so we are talking just over 10% total emissions are from cars alone. https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate-change/carbon-pollution-transportation#:~:text=Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,contributor of U.S. GHG emissions. And even if that doesn't float your boat, I kinda like the idea of cars not emitting toxic fumes right next to where I walk 😉

You mean the areas that will be most affected by global warming since they can't afford to do things the richer countries can like coastal defences, irrigation works e.t.c. Also which regions do you think will be hit first by interruptions to food supply.... yep.... Just passenger cars ALONE emit 41% of all transport carbon. Even forgetting that... have you been to London or even worse some US and Chinese cities on a smoggy day? Cars are a massive part of that. Other than your dodgy conspiracy theory, do you have anything to backup your claims?

Nothing but you keep raising it like its some big gotcha.... its not.... 100% agree here. The infrastructure needs a lot of work, not to mention bolstering the electrical grid. I said several times that EVs are really only good at the moment if you can charge at home. You said that charging the battery faster causes it to degrade. I said that isn't true so long as you keep it below the threshold. The battery management is NOTHING to do with this. All the battery management does is ensure the battery stays at ideal conditions because under non-ideal conditions that threshold is lowered. The battery threshold is an intrinsic part of the cell design It's not a theory, this is what the professional who actually work on batteries say happens in real life. Your lack of understanding doesn't make it any more or less true. The only time fast charging causes noticeable degradation of the battery is if its done repeatedly in high ambient temperatures, basically cos the battery management can't deal with the heat properly, that is from real-world studies of EVs on the road currently. Unless your ambient temperature is above 35' C, fast charging will be below the battery threshold. Any difference otherwise is so small as to be completely unnoticable. Well yes... this is because the term fast charging literally only applies at the battery level. So your statement is completely nonsensical. Again false. The EV will limit charge to their warranted capacity. There is also spare capacity but that is seperate. If you start charging them over their threshold, you also get other consequences not just increased degradation, like increased fire risk. Again, incorrect. I've never mentioned the spare capacity because its irrelevant to this discussion. I'm not talking about the perceived degradation, I'm talking about ACTUAL battery degradation. And real-world studies have shown that batteries in cars that are constantly fast charged suffered no noticeable degradation over trickle/slow charged EVs. It's a different thing, but fine, if you don't want to try and understand, that is up to you. I'm not calling you out cos I disagree with you, I'm calling you out because what you are saying has been proven false by studies and experiments. And btw, that is the same thing flat earthers and intelligent design proponents say. You've already been proven wrong, but you've decided that you know it all already so don't need to listen when people are telling you things or even look it up yourself from reputable sources. (and I don't mean car mags trying to get clicks online, I mean actual research sources)

Again, splitting hairs. Are you disagreeing that investment in R&D has risen dramatically? If not then you are literally looking for an argument here. Yeah, same for most people. I mean it's mainly the charge time that is the limiting factor as the longer range cars at the moment can do 200 miles on a full charge in the worst conditions. Otherwise if you can charge at home, most people's needs are met by current EVs as most people very rarely take trips longer than the range of their EV. The degradation is at cell level, the battery architecture is irrelevant as is the cooling/heating. So long as they keep the cells charging at the correct level and within temperature bounds they have no effect on the properties other than the maximum charge rate (aka more cooling, you can probably charge faster as thermal expansion encourages dendrite growth) Dendrites are a bit different. Material transfer was mostly eliminated quite a while back using semi-permeable membranes. Numbers vary from battery to battery. The EV computer knows the current state of the battery and limits charging to stop increased degradation. Simply not true for the simple fact that manufacturers have to limit degradation or they are liable for replacing the batteries for free. If the car allows 55KW thats because it's battery is 55KW rated. It's actually far smarter than that and even if the battery is 55KW rated, it may charge at below that level due to cell charge levels, temperature e.t.c. to prevent exactly what you are talking about from happening. Nope, just calling out where you are wrong. The fact you seem unable to read doesn't help. I specifically called out in my last post I was saying you were wrong about existing tech, the stuff about future inventions was entirely separate. So either you have a reading issue or you are trying to deliberately twist what I said.

Your splitting hairs now. The R&D funding has been increasing for some time. Exactly when you define them throwing big money at it is kinda arbitrary. Of course other companies were funding research before but with so many companies wanting it now including the military, energy companies, car companies e.t.c. that funding has spiked in recent years. Solid state batteries should go into full mass-production in 2030 according to the company that is currently building the factories to produce them. Graphene is the same were we have to develop entirely new production processes for it and maybe entirely new techs to enable those processes. You've literally picked the two with the biggest walls in the way and ignored the others. Because it expands when charging, which causes membrane issues. They think they have a way to solve it but its not exactly simply and again requires a new production process. There are multiple big advantages if we can get sulphur batteries working but that is likely to take longer, such are tripling the energy density when combined with lithium or these much cheaper non-lithium batteries. Don't expect to see these pre-2040 however. They are several years behind solid state batteries and require basically the same steps. Conversation is about EVs which currently use Li-ion batteries. When we get EVs using other battery types they will become more relevant. That's why charge cycles is generally only used alone when talking about a specific chemistry or at least those with similar properties. Two ways of saying the same thing. Again all batteries have a threshold which charging above that threshold increases degradation. All EVs force charging below this threshold. If a battery has a threshold of 100KW, then you won't notice any difference in degradation if you charge at 1KW, 20KW or 100KW. I can describe the physics why this is the case if you'd like 😉 But basically its due to the electrical field allowing the dendrites to grow more forcefully once it reaches a certain level, below that point, dendrite growth is basically linear with amount of charge passed, regardless of how quickly it is charged. The electrical field generated simply isn't powerful enough to overcome the material's resistance. That things you presented as fact were simply wrong. That statement was nothing to do with future techs. And yes I may be slightly optimistic, but I actually look at the technologies and see what the professionals are saying about them. Much like when they found salting graphene cathodes with silicon increased energy density with no charge degradation, since it was simple to implement, it was in mass production in under a year. I never expected solid state batteries before 2028 at earliest because it is an entirely now production chain. If a new discovery only involves things we already know how to do at scale however, these are generally much quicker to implement. Different techs are very likely to have vastly different time-scales.

No, but it seems your reading comprehension might need some work.... Different techs take different amounts of time to put into practical mass production. This process tends to get accelerated rapidly when large companies start throwing large amounts of money into R&D, which is exactly what they have been doing for the past few years. Some techs have gone into mass productions as quickly as a few months after been discovered. Lots of factors involved. The lithophobic plating however is extremely promising as it requires very little changes to existing production lines. Things like solid state batteries which require entirely new equipment to be invented to mass produce them will however take longer. Thing is, you tend not to hear much about these after the initial discovery, but there is a reason that modern li-ion batteries have around double the energy storage of those produced in 2010. Its because these discoveries were implemented. It's just all you ever heard about it was "And your new more power hungry phone/laptop will still run all day" I don't know? Do you have a problem reading english? Its not simply "charging faster damages the battery more", at lower charge rates, the damage from charging is practically negligible. It's only when you go beyond a certain threshold that charging faster causes more damage. Electric cars always, even on superchargers are under that threshold. This is only true if 350KW is over the battery's threshold. Otherwise both will degrade the battery equally or at least so close it's practically impossible to measure. EVs will literally prevent this from happening by cutting off the recharge if needed, either entirely or to certain cells. Your scenario is made up and simply doesn't apply to EVs. I don't disagree that EVs are far far more practical if you can charge at home however or at least very locally, simply for the fact its a pain having to go and wait somewhere for over an hour for a recharge. As someone said, supermarkets would be a great place for this. Since we are specifically talking about Li-ion which doesn't suffer from this and behaves consistently... charge cycles is a useful metric. I agree it would be a less useful metric if we were comparing li-ion with a different type of battery but we aren't....

I really wish you would actually do some basic research before typing. No, there is no reason batteries can not be made to never lose capacity. The "chemistry" is perfectly happy to allow that. Fortunately scientists have already found a couple of ways round this, like plating the surface with a lithophobic substance. Its one thing they are looking at implementing commercially in the next few years which vastly increases the life-span of batteries. Fast charging car batteries shouldn't cause any extra degradation, what you consider a fast charge is actually putting very little power into each cell because of how many there are. They could charge a lot faster if they weren't worried about battery damage. Topping it up isn't a full charge cycle. It's about % of total battery capacity. So if you phone uses its entire battery in a day and has to be fully recharged in a day, thats 1 full charge cycle. If you drive 60 miles in your EV and recharge the battery the missing 20%, that 0.2 charge cycles.

Sure. Mike Stokes in Bournemouth. Hes not the cheapest but does good work with lifetime warranty.

I just took it to the local exhaust specialist. Really not a problem for any of them to replace the exhaust. Its just a few pipes, a resonator and two silencers after all. Its generally only the exhaust specialists who have the welding equipment on hand.

3 main issues: Traction battery - 700 repair or 2000 replacement Shocks - 2k repair. Exhaust - Tends to rust and needs replacing. Can get a stainless steel replacement for £600. Don't go OEM, they only sell it with Cats included which takes it to over £2k. Parts haven't been a problem at all, for all but the shocks I went non-oem anyway. I'd keep these in mind when budgeting but honestly 80k miles isn't a lot for this car, if it has been well serviced, you could do another 70k on it before these problems happen. Depends on too many factors like how it was driven, how rough the roads it was on were, how it was stored e.t.c.

The GS Hybrid gearbox is pretty much rock solid as far as I understand. Worth considering if you can find one in your price range as the mpg gain makes up for a lot. I get just under 40 mpg going down the motorway which is impressive for a car this size. Suspension can be an issue on all the GSs as they get older, particularly if no mercy is given on rough roads/speed bumps. It's just due to the weight of the car. I don't think most warranties will touch it either as it kinda falls under wear and tear. 450h hasn't got the biggest boot in the world.... but not fitting a suitcase in? Yeah that's nonsense. Unless the later models have a vastly reduced boot size ofc.... but think about it, the spare is in the boot, same size as your other wheels. The spare if bigger than a suitcase so if you couldn't fit in the suitcase, it'd be impossible to get the spare out 😉 Have fit two full trollies from the supermarket in mine with zero issues.

Sounds like the shocks are starting to go. The GSs are quite heavy cars, so the shocks can go early if driven a lot on rough roads. I had to have the shocks replaced on mine although at higher mileage (150k) which costs around £2k OEM. The 300h ones may be a bit cheaper.

£100 from halfords. AGMs are overkill. If its just cos the light was left on overnight, well probably means its on it's way out soon, that wouldn't kill a fresh battery I don't think. Before mine finally died, if I left it running on battery with just electronics running, it would turn off after about 30mins.