Thread: Hybrid cars what to look for.

Originally Posted by No.3

On the subject of used hybrids - most (if not all) of the people I know with hybrids with the plug-in feature started out with a hiss and a roar plugging the things in religiously. Soon gave that up as too much hassle for zero gain as we are semi-rural and everyone around here found the long drag at open road speeds basically meant there was no point plugging in as the requirement to do open road speeds meant they needed to be on dual-power (ICE+battery) anyway and the things just self charged.

They are as much as 50% heavier than the equivalent ICE-only version, so wear things like suspension, joints, tyres, and depending on the driver style brakes much faster than the equivalent ICE version with the same human-fitted load (i.e. if you put the same sh1te in your hybrid that you carried in your ICE version, it will be up to 50% heavier).

It's worth checking as well, if you get the claimed advantages off the hybrid system over pure ICE. Driving an ICE and minimising the load and lead foot on it, will give you say 7.0L/100Km - if you take the same vehicle's hybrid option and return 5.5L/100Km but it costs you a extra $10K to buy it even at todays prices $10K buys you several years of fuel and it gets you most of the way if not all the way to the break-even point where the hybrid starts saving you $$$.

Mandatory check on a used EV or Hybrid is battery health, and thats a real world check by someone that doesn't fall for the tricks like fully resetting the onboard ECU from scratch so that it thinks the battery is newer than it is so gives you a 90% health check on a battery that's actually only 60% of the capacity of a brand new battery (i.e. the ECU check assumes that the battery hasn't done near as much work as it actually has and it rates the battery closer to 100% health that it actually is). Note most of the external checks now should not fall for that, it's some of the system's on-board battery health that this can happen to.

Toyota tend to have less higher-performance hybrid batteries, but they are easier to work on and there is an ability if you have access to the gear to split battery packs out of the entire module and test/replace individual packs or simply replace the entire battery module on a core/exchange basis. A few of the other brands and even models in brands have no such support in NZ, and it's not cost effective to import or ship batteries as they are Dangerous Goods and the shipping line tax is brutal.

I looked into buying a hybrid recently but as I really wanted a station wagon the only really option was a Toyota Feilder hybrid which didn't claim to have the best fuel economy, at least not compared to a Aqua or Prius. I ended up buying a VW Golf wagon which saved probably $8-$10k on the purchase price and I get around 6L/100km which is probably only 1L/100km worse that the Toyota options.

When looking into Hybrids you have to remember there are different types of hybrid.
The Toyota system does appear to be the most relaible system and offers the best fuel economy, outside of a PHEV (provided you make use of the plug in sytem). From the reasearch I did the hybrid battery are probably the most likely part to fail (some last 10 years, others fail in 4-5 years) but this battery is a lot smaller than a full EV battery so isn't too expensive, not like the $20 - $30k you see quoted for a full EV.

There are tonnes of forums out ther for Prius's and other Toyota hybrids, a lot of them seem to discuss the minute difference between the Gen 1, 2, 3 and 4 Prius, with some being better than others.
But for the most part the Toyotas are the way to go.

I would definietly look into the real life fuel consumption though as if you don't do many KMs in a year and the purchase price is a reasonable bit higher it might not be worth it to go hybrid.