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Car advice (Read 109154 times)

dave

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#400 Re: Car advice
July 10, 2017, 07:37:17 pm
Leaf update: boot will just take my large-pod-with-a-moon-launchpad-inside, but not laid flat. Bags etc would fit behind. Will try and test with a moon warrior this week.


tomtom

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#401 Re: Car advice
July 10, 2017, 08:10:13 pm
That's pretty big for a hatchback boot...

dave

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#402 Re: Car advice
July 10, 2017, 10:18:02 pm
Will also take a smaller mat like an old small pod flat in the bottom.



Also fitted Scouse's purple warrior just fine. And his bouldering mat.

What is clear that the main impediment to getting stuff in isn't the size of the boot but the narrow opening, as if often the case on smaller cars.

Gone out to Stanage and back tonight. Drives easily, and corners pretty flat too. Decent stereo, coped with the heavy bass on Still D.R.E. just fine, and didn't even flinch at Bitch Niggaz. Going to put it through its Wu Tang paces tomorrow.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2017, 10:36:59 pm by dave »

Fultonius

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#403 Re: Car advice
July 10, 2017, 11:01:46 pm
RE Ev's - its worth looking at the actual costs of the 'fuel' - in this case electricity.

I read quite an interesting breakdown of one of those Outlander PHEV's - and it reconed that on a medium/pricey electricity tarrif it worked out at 60mpg (when converted via petrol costs)..

Also - the ecotricity points (in petrol stations) are not cheap... they have to make their installation costs (c.50k per point I heard) back somehow... Though some places like IKEA give you ££ off your bill if you charge there...

If your work has the infrastructure then great... for me, my 'commute' is 110 miles to Hull and back once and occasionally twice a week. There are 3 public charging points in Hull. 250000 people. Maybe when range is reliably 250 miles (I too looked at a Tesla pre-order) a full EV would be a runner for me.

Additional anecdote - in a car forum I contribute to, one of the posters there - at his work they installed free charge points. He ditched his diesel, bought an i3 and now has a 100% FOC commute...

I don't think we're at a tipping point, but its getting close.....

I crunched some numbers on the Zoe and the annual cost per mile of the battery lease was surprisingly close to the fuel cost of a 50+mpg vehicle.

Assume 1000 miles per month, comparing only monthly running costs:

Zoe = £30 in electricity (home charge) plus £110 battery lease = £140/month (zero tonnes CO2 if you charge of your own wind turbine/solar panels etc.)
Generic Cheap diesel small turbo petrol (Polo 1.2 TSI 45MPG) = £147/month petrol  (3 Tonnes C02)

You *can* buy the battery outright for an extra £6k.

I'm still keen! Just the charging issue for me to solve...

tommytwotone

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#404 Re: Car advice
July 16, 2017, 11:23:01 pm
The Park and Ride in Leeds I use has a bunch of charging points, if we did take the plunge we'd be paying zero to charge up.

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andy_e

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#405 Re: Car advice
July 17, 2017, 09:19:40 am
(zero tonnes CO2 if you charge of your own wind turbine/solar panels etc.)

Another option would be to use an energy supplier who provide a renewables-only tariff...

tomtom

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#406 Re: Car advice
July 17, 2017, 10:26:56 am
The Park and Ride in Leeds I use has a bunch of charging points, if we did take the plunge we'd be paying zero to charge up.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Bet they're not free... (be pleasantly surprised if so!).

dave

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#407 Re: Car advice
July 17, 2017, 11:04:53 am
We've taken decision that we're probably gonna get a few-yea-old Leaf later this summer when the new regs come out and people start to trade in, hopefully plenty of chance for a deal. Apparently Nissan dealers are offering 0% finance on used and £1k of the deposit, and free home charger installed.

Also, and it's no use to me, but if you've got a Leaf then you can rock up at any Nissan dealership and charge for fuck-all. Might be handy if anyone works near one. Might even extend to other makes/other dealerships, as mutually they benefit each other if life is made easier for all EV owners.

tommytwotone

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#408 Re: Car advice
July 17, 2017, 03:41:28 pm
The Park and Ride in Leeds I use has a bunch of charging points, if we did take the plunge we'd be paying zero to charge up.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Bet they're not free... (be pleasantly surprised if so!).
Looks like they are...

http://www.wymetro.com/parkandride



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andy_e

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#409 Re: Car advice
July 18, 2017, 08:48:40 am
Back to the gas guzzlers... Does anyone have a Skoda Rapid estate? Are they a Fabia replacement?

sdm

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#410 Re: Car advice
July 18, 2017, 12:11:28 pm
(zero tonnes CO2 if you charge of your own wind turbine/solar panels etc.)

Another option would be to use an energy supplier who provide a renewables-only tariff...

As long as you're drawing electricity from the grid, these tariffs are nothing but marketing BS used to make people feel better about themselves.

Until the whole grid is all renewables, every user drawing from the grid is using their share of wind, solar, gas, coal and nuclear.

Depending on the provider, these tariffs may lead to a slight increase in the renewables contribution to the grid but there can be no such thing as a fossil fuel free tariff as long as you are drawing electricity from the grid.

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#411 Re: Car advice
July 18, 2017, 03:03:09 pm
Though - its interesting to note that for July (so far) Coal stations have only been running at 10% of load - and at 20% for the year to date... (OK - Oil and Gas will be more than that but....)

Duma

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#412 Re: Car advice
July 18, 2017, 03:32:21 pm
Oil won't, it'll be pretty much zero. Gas is the biggest chunk of our grid though

Duma

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#413 Re: Car advice
July 18, 2017, 03:34:47 pm
Yesterday was the third highest ever for PV generation in the UK too. (8.3GW peak)

Jim

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#414 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 09:57:53 am
 Going back to fossil fuelled powered cars, we're looking to upgrade to a 7 seat (5+2) mpv type car. Referring back to earlier discussion 're diesel vs petrol engines, I was of the thinking that the general consensus was that petrol isn't quite as bad as diesel despite the better mpgs of diesel the lower NO2 output of petrol outweighs this. Also with rumours of cities banning diesel engines in cars and diesel car scrappage schemes i find it odd that all the cars i look at are predominately diesel powered?

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#415 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 12:54:25 pm
My understanding is NOx is bad for people, CO2 is bad for the planet.

Petrol are better re NOx, diesel better re CO2.

[speculation] If you do lots of miles out of town diesel probably better and cheaper, if less miles and more in town balance probably tips to petrol to minimize air pollution for the kids [/speculation]
« Last Edit: July 20, 2017, 01:07:17 pm by Duma »

andy_e

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#416 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 12:58:06 pm
That was also the conclusion of my relatively uninformed speculation too.

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#417 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 02:05:46 pm
Also with rumours of cities banning diesel engines in cars and diesel car scrappage schemes i find it odd that all the cars i look at are predominately diesel powered?
Was in and out of car giant (massive car supermarket) in London last week. The vast majority of cars were diesel, I'd say 1/3 to1/4 of cars were petrol. Make of it what you will, but my feeling has been over the last 10-15 yrs diesels were promoted as being efficient in terms of running costs. Over the last last couple of years diesels have gotten some deservedly bad press, due to immisions and testing. People have cottoned on to this and simply dumping diesel for petrol.
On the cars fucking cars thread last week I mentioned that city driving in a diesel can break flywheel plus clutch, when I phoned garage last week it would cost between £700-1500 to fix, this was BMW 118d, 5yrs old 50,000 miles.  :( Apparently common problem with diesels driven in cities. So from now on I am going to stay clear of diesels.

dave

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#418 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 02:14:10 pm
The impression I got from looking at family cars the last few weeks, and what people in the trade have been saving is that there's been a lot of folks dumping diesels. Literally almost all the bigish VWs on the VWcars used website are diesel.

tomtom

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#419 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 02:52:49 pm
It's all about the warming up (of the engine - not the planet)

Modern diesels perform best when they are really really warmed up... if you diesel owners have watched the mpg over a really long journey - after 50-60 miles you get significantly better mpg than the first 50-60. Also the particulate filtering systems on the exhausts work at their best when hot/fully warmed up. All emissions tests are carried out on hot engines...

Petrol engines give much better emissions - when cold and iirc importantly also warm up faster. Also I think the cat convertor/emissions control is less temp dependant than diesel.

So - if most of your journeys are <20 miles buy a petrol. If >20 get a diesel.

The large number of 2nd had diesels may represent some dumping - but it also represents the huge number sold.. when I bought my Volvo 2 years ago (before all the shit hit the fan) there were 10:1 diesel to petrol...

It's also staggering the efficiency that modern petrol engines can operate at. The F1 cars are getting 50+% efficiency from their engine/hybrid/energy reclamation systems - 5 years ago it was 25-30.... there's some interesting soapbox science on whether a f1 car is more thermally efficient than a tesla...

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#420 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 02:55:43 pm
I'm rambling... my view for what it's worth is that hybrid(with without plugin) is right for the next 3-5 years then full electrics will he come feasibly mainstream (range - charging network etc..).

andy_e

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#421 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 04:12:36 pm
Just had a quick look out of interest at the price of the Mitsu Outlander. Other than being twice my budget, it would appear they're all automatic? Is this the case with all hybrids?

dave

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#422 Re: Car advice
July 20, 2017, 04:30:37 pm
I think virtually all hybrids are automatics yeah.

Jim

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#423 Re: Car advice
July 21, 2017, 09:50:52 am
Interesting with the perceived shift away from diesel that new cars are predominately still diesel powered?

tomtom

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#424 Re: Car advice
July 21, 2017, 10:38:39 am
Interesting with the perceived shift away from diesel that new cars are predominately still diesel powered?

Manufacturers will (I presume) still be geared up for 50/50 Diesel/Petrol sales of a year ago... I know they have pretty tight supply lines now (just in time stock control blah blah) but probably have bulk orders for the engines (which are made by fewer manufacturers). I'm guessing though....

The 3 cylinder petrol lumps are pretty decent nowadays - used to be awful but now seem fine (from the 2-3 I've driven..)..

 

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