I had a BMW 323, about 10yrs old but excellent running condition. It sprung a leak in the radiator and when I took it to the local BMW dealership they recommended I SCRAP IT! I had it repaired at a local garage for £400 and it lasted me another 5yrs before I sold it on to a new owner. What next THROW AWAY HOUSES?
throw away houses? If we let politicians go through with their ideas, we are already there. The "energetic upgrades" they want you to have make most older (20 years +) homes worthless...
Involved in re-cladding jobs and the quality of materials and build is dreadful, lots of lightweight materials with high insulation performance, timber cladding due to being renewable etc ironically partly driven by the green agenda again
Its not just cars. The springs on my garage door snapped. A local company came out look at it charging £15 call out fee that they said would be taken off any repairs etc. The fitter took one look sucked air in and said " cant repair that, its too old and cant get parts . We can fit a new door sir ..... cost £4080 " ! . So did some research found new springs on the internet ..... cost £34 complete with fitting tools. Delivered in two days and took 2hrs to fit . It seems nearly all businesses are not interested in mending anything.
Funnily enough, the steel cable on one side of my garage door snapped and someone came out and said the parts were no longer available, and he could 'try' and fix it for 255 quid, but it wouldn't be safe. Then he started quoting for a new garage door. I told him to get tf out of my house, bought the parts on Ebay for 15 quid and watched a UA-cam tutorial how to fix it. Half an hour later, garage door fixed!
Last year I bought a manufacturer approved used Mazda 6. Earlier this year when its MOT and service was due I took it to my local Mazda dealer, mostly so that if they found any major problems arguing about the warranty would either be easier or not necessary. The MOT came back with advisories for the brake discs and they quoted me about £900 for discs and pads. (I don't remember the exact prices but it was £300+ for the rear and £500+ for the front. I suspect he quoted it like that to make it sound cheaper.) I took it to a trusted local mechanic who quoted me less than £450. When he got started on the work he called me to ask why I wanted the discs and pads changed because there was nothing wrong with them. He charged me £30 + VAT for half an hour labour. I won't be taking it back to the main dealer. Love the car, hate the dealer.
Yes MOST main dealers are sharks, my local MB dealer wants over £250+VAT for a simple oil change that he said would take about 45 minutes, I asked how he would extract the engine oil, he said via the oil filler pipe!!!!!!!!!!. I took the car to my local garage who did the job correctly with me supplying MB approved parts. Cost less than £100.
I run a 2004 tdci mondeo. Had it 12 years now. Still runs drives fine. Owes me nothing. It’s been really reliable in all these years. It had a clutch about 8 years ago. I have only just replaced the rear shocks. You can keep the new cars
Totally agree. Had a Honda Accord for 13 years, no problems at all. Just got rid of a 15 year old Mondeo again no big issues. EV will just be the next big scam that people have suffered.
@laz820 similar to you, I bought a Honda crv 11 years ago. 150,000+ miles on the clock now. New alternator, new glow plugs apart from that only service and brake pads and discs. Owes me nothing and still returns 46mpg. £30 road tax. Owes me nothing and I am loathe to change it.
Tuning in from Sweden here... where most likely more Volvo hybrids are sold than anywhere else (mostly V60). We currently own a 2019 V60 T8 (twin engine) 392hp which we bought second hand last year. A few things to note... plug in hybrids charge very slowly. This is the best way to extend battery life and prevent battery degradation. BMW 330e would be the same. There are very few cases of even the earlier V50 hybrids failing, and while not many V60s have surpassed 160,000km. Before purchasing, we asked our insurance what happens if the battery pack fails after the 8 years/160K km. Insurance actually covers a fair % of the replacement, so it would be our excess plus some contribution to a new battery. Low enough to instil confidence that the T8 is a good choice. And we have been informed that Volvo in their end of warranty check on battery health will replace the battery under warranty prior to expiring if there is any sign of cell errors and/or degradation of approx 55% or more. As for economy... if we charge as much as we can, and only use the petrol engine for hard acceleration, cabin heating under electric power, and small times between charges, we returned 2.8l/100km over 1300km. On longer drives or approx 200km with a full charge to start, I averaged 5.6l/100km.
Yes great drive line the T8, I have good experience with it as well. When you drive normal and plug in often the fuel consumption is indeed pretty good.
I bought an old but tidy Rover 75 diesel estate for £180, The guy I bought it off told me it had a cutting out problem which a garage had diagnosed that the whole fuel system needed flushing through etc for the sum of around £500 but could be more depending on parts, I drove it home without issue but could smell diesel, lifted up the bonnet to find the electric diesel pump leaking, so straight up the breakers I went & fixed it for a tenner, 9 years on & it's still running sweet & doesn't use a drop of oil even at 246,000 on the clock.
In a way this was the funniest video ive seen in a while, dealers screwing their own consumers so hard that they brought back private garages from the brink- absolutely brilliant stuff by them lmao
Yeah , we do the same who to those who Insist on speaking English only or has trouble speaking the local language in our country's as well . The nerve of them forcing ENGLISH on everyone else . Learn to speak the LOCAL language or get out hay?
@@zahkam7322 well if you live in the UK and demand people speak durka durka its high time to understand that you ARE the problem.....BTW you need to understand also what a LINGUA FRANCA is which ENGLISH is at the moment.....
Great show , lots of interesting stuff. My answer to all your woes is.................A 1958 Austin Cambridge !!. Fabulous 5 seater , all leather upholstery, column change , 0-60 in 29 seconds , dirt cheap spares and maintenance costs , £60 for a battery , 30 mpg , fabulous relaxation, oh ! I could go on and on £ 150 insurance............fantastic.
I have owned a BMW 330e for 4 years and I have found it fantastic for the milage I do. I mainly do short journeys, 2 to 10 miles so I rarely have to use the petrol engine. I don't get anywhere near the advertised electric range of 36 miles, I get around 24 but it is sufficient for me. From my calculations using electric is equivalent cost to 55MPG on short journeys, cold starts with petrol or diesel you would be lucky to get 20MPG. Also short journeys are bad for ICE cars. The DPF clogs up on diesels and the exhaust rusts on petrol cars, even stainless steel exhausts have steel inside to hold the cat, the cat then rattles around. For longer journeys I do not get range anxiety and get around 50MPG, I am a slow, steady driver, not your typical BMW driver with a lead right foot. Older 330es have a 9 year battery warranty new ones only have 6 years.
I get 36 miles on the battery in mine but it has to be over 10 degrees outside and i have to drive it carefully. going up hills or over 40 and its better to use the engine. If you put it in hybrid mode you can switch between elec and petrol by moving gear stick left-right
Surely you have to drive a decent mileage to justify the additional spend on an electric car? Cannot understand the economics of paying additional thousands when you are not getting a decent return coupled with poor resale value it's surely financial suicide?
Was in the dealership last week and discussed ordering my new car, they hinted at a hybrid and I cut them off, “Don’t even go there, I have nowhere to charge at home so I would be lugging a heavy battery around with no benefit, and if you suggest an EV I’m walking out the door” They laughed … so it’s the diesel the same as last time then.
Not even tempted by a mild hybrid the battery isn't big enough to make a weight difference. It takes in some charge with hills. And the motor really helps the engine in the lower rpm range.
I mentioned to a guy yesterday that my car does nearly 60mpg average and he said “what kind of an engine has that got?” Looking very surprised. “Oh, it’s a 20 year old Mitsubishi with a 1.9 Renault engine and 140k miles on the clock which cost me 500 quid plus a few repairs.” He was speechless. 😂
@@Jacob-yb6bv Space Star, nothing to look at but with that 1.9D, fantastic. 200k plus, failed MOT on rust by the rear radius arms, too difficult to get at.
The last time I dealt with a dealer was at Audi. The mechanism on our cabriolet was failing. After charging me about £1k to replace various parts to "fix" it, it was still failing. In the end they had to sit in the boot whilst operating the mechanism and found fault in one sensor. I dared them to charge me another penny to fix it! I'll never visit a main dealer again.
Replacing parts at random without first doing a proper investigation to find the root cause is nothing short of incompetence. Sadly, that isn't what garages do these days, either because they are incompetent, they just want your money, or both. The fact that you end up paying for their mistakes anyway, makes it little short of criminal.
My other half has been saying this, "drive an old car save the planet ", ever since I have known him (11 years), and now after watching several of your videos i finally believe it. 😀
I'm a company car driver and was effectively forced into a hybrid. just done 50,000 miles in 3 years in a 330e Tourer. Averaged 44mpg with about 75% motorway, 15% town and 10% cross-country. Gets a full plug-in charge about once a month on average. Cold weather has more effect than on my previous cars (all ICE), during the winter i average about 38mpg and summer about 48mpg. Fuel consumption around town is horrendous when there is no charge - 10mpg in stop-start traffic starting from cold. Maybe 19mpg if there is some 30mph running between queues. Getting it to self-charge improves the town consumption enormously. I went to Liverpool and back today and ran on pure electic from leaving the motorway to arriving at my destination, then again to the motorway on the way back. So no fuel used on that 3 mile part. A big however though.... while self-charging on the motorway it's doing 29mpg at 70mph (26mpg the winter). To get 1 mile of electric range takes 1.5miles in the warm/mild weather and 2 miles in cold weather. Another issue is that cold mornings kill the electric range. Let's say I arrive home with 5miles Electric range, having charged the battery up a bit on the motorway on the the way home. Next morning the 5 miles will probably have changed to 4 miles on switch-on just because the battery is now cold. Travel 1 mile and it gulps down 2-3 miles of your electric range... Idealy you plug it in at home, but I live in a flat with allocated parking that means plugging-in is impossible for me. Also I can't claim the cost of charging on expenses due to stupid tax rules. If you can plug it in then it makes a huge difference on cold mornings, starting warm the electric change drops in line with what you expect, 1 mile distance travelled reduces the range by 1 mile. So nearly every 330e you see is probabably a company car and none of them get charged, or very rarely anyway. My pevious car was a Mazda 6 2.2 diesel and i averaged 51mpg with that and it was almost impossible to get it to be less than 40mpg even in town on a cold day, Sometimes would get 70mpg on a cross-country journey on single carriageway A-roads. Also it had a range of 600-700miles whereas the 330e is about 330 in summer and 280 miles in winter... feels like I'm forever filling the blighter up lol
@@truxton1000 I didn't buy it - my company leases it for me. I pay low tax on it so it's much cheaper than an ICE engine would be to me. Just crazy the tax rules encourages the use of of PHEVs without charging them...worse for the envionment not better
Why buy a car with TWO engines that is very heavy and the complication adds to failures and thus maintenance costs. Add to this TWO FUEL sources to contend with of which one is likely to self ignite and explode the other.
@carholic-sz3qv The problem is the unnecessary additional weight and complexity. Very few plug in their "plug in" hybrid and even then, the "fuel" is not the stored electricity. So you are carting around an additional weight penalty for no benefit. It would seem too few are aware of some simple physics concepts, particularly those in power.
The real answer is is to force you into something new with new technology because the claim is that your old car is killing the planet and that two engined car is dolphin friendly. It doesn't matter whether that's true or not but forcing you to buy new stuff with built in obsolescence supports the economy and helps fill the government coffers - so that they can waste it on vanity projects and the other stuff that they like to spend it on that's best not mentioned.
Too many electrical systems, too many unnecessary ‘features’, too many computers for the needless technology. Obsolescence (and cost) is built in. Me? I’ll smugly stick to my old cars and actually enjoy DRIVING them 😊, repairing them, driving them again.
Hat's off. I remember driving my Dad's Marina with rusted foot wells that you could see the ground. We used to joke that if the brakes failed, we could always 'Fred Flintstone' it!
Yes... Sadly the prices of old cars is skyrocketing here... In 2001 I bought a Opel Ascona B 1,9SR for 550 $€£, now a car like that cost 20.000 to 40.000 $£€ :( So now I plan to buy a older Porsche Cayman and keep it forever (the model I look at has old hydraulic servo and less electronics, but it is a 30.000 £$€ engine repair time bomb).
Same as me, always driving cars 20 years old, got Bluetooth installed in the original head units and money in my pocket to tip for a well served coffee
@@grahamwalpolemy dad had one and I sadly hit a fully grown Rottweiler in it and I swear it almost wrote it off. It was quite fast though with the 1.7 engine in it.
@@roybatty2030 Apparently there are stories of Hybrid Range Rovers having battery packs changed under warranty. So imagine, they struggle to last 2 or 3 years. So what is going to happen to people who purchased a 2020 Range Rover, thinking their car is nearly new!!
If only they spent more money on design and engineering and less on fancy marketing. Eventually they will run out of suckers to sell their fwd fashion statements to.They'll all be driving land cruisers and audi suv's, as waiting on the side of the road for recovery or having your car stuck in the driveway isn't a cool look.
The big issue with main dealer prices is labour rate which even at Kia is £125 plus per hour. Our friend got quoted two hours labour plus new windscreen washer bottle on a Kia Sportage with possible additional cost of new pump. I fixed it by removing and cleaning the small filter which was blocked by old solidified washer fluid and took 30 minutes having never worked on one before. My daughters Fiat 500 alternator replacement was quoted at £600 to £800 plus because of the bad design as the alternator sits under the AC compressor and above a drive shaft. It took me half a day due to a silly hidden top bolt you can't see but saved over £400. Cars are designed to allow garages to charge hundreds to fix and always need "diagnostic" at £100 to £300 before they will quote. Kia quoted my sister in law eye watering cost to replace a clutch on a Sportage but a local garage fitted exactly the same clutch for less in half the labour time. New cars are designed to fail but last the warranty period. 7 year warranty by many manufacturers are hard to claim against so buyer beware.
I have a BMW 330e from new since 2020 and with regular plug in, I get mpg in the high 60’s. With battery depleted I get close to 40 mpg. It has been ultra reliable. My previous car was an Audi A3 Etron (still used by my family). It’s almost 10 years old and still get 20 electric miles (28 brand new). Both cars are well looked after by the dealer network and fault free. I know it’s only personal experience but I will definitely get another plug in hybrid.
It is fast especially when moving off in electric mode due to the instant torque available. Also fast when in sport mode ( combining electric and full boost petrol power).
you cant compare that. "premium" sedan with a shoebox. nike shoes vs walmart shoes etc. ofc it will cost more but you will get more. dont fool yourself. who looks for comfort and emotions will pay for it.
You can get an old Honda Accord for a few grand; luxury and cheap to fix at a good independent garage. 35mpg if you drive reasonably. I know, had one 8 years, 155K miles on the clock, just keeps going, oh and it's ULEZ too. And no-one nicks the steering wheel or any other bits!
I'm using my late uncle Ronnie's 44 year old fridge, my car's a 27 year old turbo diesel Peugeot and I have a 20 year old motorbike. I have no TV, ripped armchairs and am, unsurprisingly, anathema to women weighing under 20 stone.
@@Luke-PlanesTrainsDogsnCars I have no frontage to my house but a wrought iron gate over the front door, a sad reflection on times of antisocial behaviour, evidenced by a torn off doorbell and the old analog aerial cabling. My Dobermann and ginger cat have long since passed away.
You could take those cars to Poland for 200 pounds and fix it for a small % of cost in uk. Uk labour cost is a joke making us as to think is a royal service provide to us.
I was about to say that. In the UK they don't fix they just replace. In Poland you would easily get that battery refurbished for a fraction of the cost.
Thanks for the information. A few years ago I had an error message for the 2004 Volvo V50 T5 with automatic gearbox "gearbox maintenance required". Gears 2, 4, R worked but not 1, 3, 5. Checked out detailed error message - Shift Solenoid S5. (Signal Missing) - sent detailed information to 4 different official Volvo garages in 2 countries. Reply by all of them: need to replace gear box, part alone some 6'000 Euro. Sent exactly the same information to a garage specialised in gearboxes. Reply: access to S5 possible for that model without removing gear box, but we are booked out for 10 days. Repair was connecting again cable to S5, expensive part was replacing gearbox fluid. Have not used an official Volvo garage since.
My good lady has a BMW 330e (company car, obviously). She drives like Miss Daisy up and down the country and barely exceeds 40 mpg with a fully charged battery. The car has a tiny fuel tank so well under 400 miles to a tank (including the full charge), and the thing chews through tyres for fun - glad we don’t need to pay for them. Nice car to drive and it goes well but we’d never buy one as a personal car. She easily managed over 700 miles per tank in her old company Focus Diesel and that didn’t chew tyres……. Progress eh!!
my m140i gets over 40mpg on long journeys. if driven "normally" will get almost 30mpg in town! also has an extended warranty just in case, even though they are known to be very reliable. old golf r engine valve spring broke and destroyed piston, cost vw 8k as happened under warranty xD
I was 17 cars in with banger nomics. I have a 13 year old car now and had it from 2 years old it basically always been garaged. Previously bought a 6month old car it lasted 16 years.
It was in the mid 90's through to the early 2010's, buying a 10 or 15 year old car around that time was a terrible idea. But,if you bought new or pre registered at that time you could still be driving the same car today if you looked after it. You could get a lot of car for £10k-£20K around then and if you bought a £20k car in 2000 that's around £800 quid a year plus servicing.
@@strongandco 2010 to present is about 15 years? If it has been looked after, like you say, a 2010 reg must now still be a good car - at the right price - on the secondhand market?
Banger-nomics is fine for people who don't mind driving around in a slow, scruffy, old banger and fixing it yourself. What about the millions of owners who actually enjoy driving and want something which gives them the pleasure that comes with a fast, great handling car, and one which they enjoy looking after, waxing and polishing it ? You're not going to find anything in shed money that will meet those requirements. If you're happy driving around in an unreliable shitbox, then good for you, crack on.
Less than 10 years ago I did a few gearbox swaps and bought low mileage used boxes from a local breaker yard for £80-£120, I noticed the gaffer there had a nice 5 year old beemer 530d. I've since retired but a friend recently asked me if I could source a replacement manual box for her 1 series (2016) I called at the scrap yard and was quoted £900, I started laughing as I thought they were joking, needless to say I didn't buy it and as I was leaving I saw the owner pulling up in a brand new Bentley! We are being robbed in broad daylight!
Yes, I have given up baying parts for junkyards, they take only slightly less for used parts then baying new and often baying non brand name new can be cheaper.
Worst bit is they get these cars for a few 100 quid and general public can't buy the cars due to loopy laws about disposing of fluids even tho all I want is a few parts then I'd sell it to scrap yard anyway
Geoff, I love your honest, down to earth presentation style. No pretence. You say what you think, don't mince words and even tell us when you're going on holiday...! Like chatting to a mate. Your style is very similar to the talk radio; I'm speaking to you directly listener. It's an almost unnerving direct one way conversation. Don't change your presentation style at all. This channel will grow. Well I guess that it has already (a LOT) over the last year since I subbed.
Hi Jeoff another great video 👍. My clutch slave cylinder failed on my Volvo V40 D4, common fault, apparently. I sauced the parts via Volvo. This was about £50.00 for a moded slave cylinder with a total of £680 for the clutch parts, Including a 10% discount due to late delivery. After speaking to both parts manager and a random mechanic when collecting the parts, they asked me how old my car was? 2015, 88k miles. They both recommended getting someone else to do the job as Volvo would charge me £170 per hour. 8-9 hours of labour. Plus, they had a couple of other cars in with the same issue, including 1 police car. Great car, 50 + MPG everywhere, no add blue. 2.0 D4 2015 is Tax free but I think that'll change soon 😢.
I looked at a 5 series hybrid the battery was over 200kg, the boot was shrunk by over 100 ltrs and the fuel tank was downsized by 28 ltrs to 40 ltrs (same size as a polo). so I went for a 3ltr 6 cylinder diesel and feel terribly everyday polluting the atmosphere but filling the tank once a month
Fun fact #1: a Euro 6 diesel engine pollutes 90% less than a Euro 1. Less CO2 emissions than gasoline, the only problem is particulate but every car makes it since a lot of particulate is from tyres and brake pads. So you did the right thing, it’s almost impossible to pollute less than an Euro 6 diesel. Fun fact #2: the 218 cruise ships around Europe pollute FOUR TIMES MORE than all European cars. But the problem is Euro 6 diesel cars. 😂
There is no brand new car I would want to buy. If I had that sort of money I would get the best Morris Minor I could find. No electronics to go wrong, no silly plastic manifolds or wet belts, no heavy, fire hazard EV battery, proper steel bumpers instead of brittle plastic, doors and windows that still open after a crash, no big garage bills because I could repair it myself.
I would probably get a MK2 granada. I do love a Morris Minor though. I'm 44 years old and remember teachers at school having Morris Minors was common. Also marina's and hillman avengers were very popular still.
@@chrishart8548 I've got a Mk 1 Granada that I bought from it;s 1st owner 25 years ago near Munich , it sits beside my 1975 BMW sedan , I love them both and wouldn't drive a ' new ' car even if it was free
You should consider the consequences of a crash in such a vehicle; no designed crumple zones, air-bags, ABS are for me too big a compromise. (I exceed value of any car) Geoff Volvos with their robustly designed engines are a good pragmatic compromise and maybe the future lies in plastics replacement with 3D printed parts as that tech is advancing rapidly. Old ICE with oil and filter changes every 5K can last very long time and can be economically reupholstered and repainted if shiny new is important. Should your old volvo be an insurance write off buy back off insurance and break for parts usually exceeds the buy back cost significantly.
Why is nobody suing these dealers. That are making spurious claims about the performance. And quoting vast amounts of money for repairs or maintenance costs. ????
It seems that the customer base is not interested in holding the providers to account. It’s as if the ‘message’ is the important thing, such that the message must not be muddled by lawsuits. And the Governments around the world are of the same mind, it seems. What’s crazy is we still make fun of the Pinto today and yet the Pinto is no more dangerous than any Tesla. There have been a handful of exceptions…that all settled, avoiding discovery. All while our Govt turns a blind eye.
It's difficult to give a good accounting of mpg in a plugin hybrid. I have one, andy mpg is essentially infinity, since I hardly ever use the engine. I'm still on the first full tank of fuel a year after buying it. But then I can charge it every night, and commute just slightly less than the electric range.
I've been driving my 330e since 2016. I still love it. Last year, I drove to Bristol and back circa 320 miles, less than 2/3rd of a tank - fill up to fill up worked at out at 60 mph. Yes, I was being a bit conservative - and it didn't involve any charging until I got back home. I've done 60k miles and still on original brakes, changed tyres once but just passed MOT with no advisory's. I've just had it tuned and I'm driving more erratically, and fast due to new job (can't afford to be late!) and getting 45mph based on 60 mile round trip between charging but none of that is dual carriageway but poor B-roads and very narrow country lanes. I doubt my wife's 320d efficient dynamics could compete in economy - and certain;y not on performance. Could the batteries fail? - yes, fixable...yes, but expensive. But that is the same with any turbo or gearbox. Not that I want to test fate but if my battery pack fails completely, I can still drive the car - not so with a broken gearbox or blown turbo.....
If the battery fails you can go to an independant ev specialist for repair. I run a Tesla, new battery pack is 15-20k from Tesla.. however an independant can repair/replace the faulty module for 3-5k. Having said that I have come across many owners who have covered 150k + with the original battery and drivetrain.
I have a 2016 330e MSport Performance with 65k miles. Been completely reliable, I replaced both 12v batteries and coded them for less than £150 still get 15miles in pure EV mode and mpg is currently shows an average of 123mpg.
Thanks for posting.Your example is far more typical than the scenario laid out by the UA-camr. He says he’s not anti EV but every statement made in the video says otherwise. Loads of inaccurate and misleading information
I have a 330e and I’m getting 45 mpg… just on the engine, your friend is prob in a mode that’s charging (sport or battery hold), the 2Ltr engine is great! Also, try and get a quote from a 3rd party ev specialist. They can usually swap out individual cells
Mine cost £8K 9 years ago, as an 8 year old car (V70 D5), same money as stoopid BMW you are talking about now. I don't anticipate any major issues re-engine - these can last 3-400K, and mine uses zero oil between annual oil changes - or gearbox (manual, never buy an auto!), and recent jobs eg engine mounts, a brake calliper, front discs 2 years ago, are par for the course with any 160K mile car (first front disc swap in 17 years). The car owes me nothing, should last till he's 25 years old. He still does between 40 and 60 mpg, and never less than the former. I am saving the planet single handed!
At 17 years old I bet it owe's nothing. I've got a 13 year old mondeo I hope it lasts another 4 years and I will be very happy if it last 25 years. The same volvo V70 would have been at least 6-7years older to be the same price.
I bought a 2010 60k Volvo V50 1.6D Drive SE Lux in 2016. £20 road tax. From a dealer, and it was £8k with the gold level warranty. I have only ever changed the oil and filters (myself), cheap tyres, ripped off by an MOT centre for front suspension arms that it didn't need, but they were cheap, and the clutch went at about 75k. Cost best part of £1k at a Volvo dealer. It does 52-55 mpg, never failed to start first touch of the key, no rust at all, and it still gleams. Never burns oil. I keep thinking about buying something else, but the horror stories about newish cars make me keep it. It owes me nothing at all.
Nowt wrong with autos.⚠️ Problem with autos is owners and garages don't service them. Manufacturers claim they are sealed for life which is total nonsense. The oil soon gets contaminated with friction material from the 100's of internal clutch plates. Change the auto trans oil and filter every 30k and it will last the life of the car. I've never had a fault with an auto
A friend of mine was an accountant specialising in the automotive industry. When she received a promotion she and her husband went along to a BMW Dealer to buy the car of her dreams. She knew exactly what she wanted. The salesman insisted on ignoring her and speaking to her husband! She walked out in disgust and bought a Volkswagen!
@@wrigzzx I dont give a toss about a particular car salesman .They are all creeps thats a given .I go purely on the technical merits of the particular car .
The same thing happened to a female friend who wanted to buy a house, even though we made it clear from the beginning that it was her not me who was the customer. This happened with multiple estate agents.
Cars past 2005 have been made with crap plastic parts that are designed to fail. Cylinder head covers made of plastic Intake manifolds made of plastic Above are exalples of things I have had to replace in the past because the part has cracked or warped in some way, which wouldn't or less likely to happen if they were still made of metal/aluminium. The industry is being pushed towards using plastics and becoming more 'sustainable', with no balance on keeping the vehicle servicable and with a focus on part quality and reliability. The EU is heavily involved with these mad schemes.
How is plastic more sustainable when it's used for the wrong purpose, the only reason it's used is because it's lighter and cheaper than metal. Metal can be re-used where most plastics cannot.
Got a Peugeot with a plastic manifold, coolant housing and other things. Zero issues in 250k miles and 15 years old.... It's fine when engineered properly.
Really thoughtful and helpful video. I have a BMW plugin and I have been worrying about this, though I never thought about it at the time I bought it. I just hope the battery doesn’t deteriorate. I’ve had the car 3 years and I haven’t recorded any fall-off yet, but, as you point out, it could fail and I would not want to fork out 10 grand for a replacement. So, it’s fingers crossed! On the point about not understanding people on the phone because they don’t have English as a first language….quite simply, they should not employ people to answer calls about complex issues which they cannot understand. But they do!
Well done on this issue, so many people do not realise the cost of replacing some parts on these new cars, thanks for making this clear on your video, the issue you had with BMW is across the board now, I spoke to someone the other day about buying a new mattress topper and had to hang up as could not understand a word and went to a well known online store instead! Those newer BMWs with the humungous grilles look awful by the way, and I have owned and loved BMWs since 1980. Still driving one now.
I've had through my working life many different company cars including Mercedes, BMW's and a top range Lexus. Now semi retired I have a fiat 500s. Cheap as chips on everything. Happy days
Happiness is a ciga...nope,... sorry, it's knowing the game and not playing it. If you can get a smile without undue concern or worry - you've cracked it. Happiness is a smugness that you haven't been conned by some snotty-nosed salesman trying to sell you gold that turns to shite in 48hrs.
Hahaha exactly what I have now, superb little cars you can do all the work needed yourself it's so cheap and easy, never going back to stupid expensive cars again.
And yes, dealers 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦 And don't even get me started on the RAC woman who asked if my van was manual or automatic when the clutch pedal snapped on a vivaro People have not been trained to the levels they need to be at before they are out to work in jobs they are ill suited to be in Just look at the current government 🤦
The woman RAF officer who got one million compo because someone called her ballsy. I hate to think how much she would have expected if an enemy shot at her. Obviously joined up for the power trip and pretty uniform
@@hamshackleton i did fleet for over a decade and nothing was as bad as the vivaros for overall just rubbish biuld quality the insides would fall apart, we had drivers breaking seats, the padding wore away in several, rear brakes would last a service, every single door handle on every single of our 200+ vans had to be fixed even changing a lightbulb was torture and attempting to fill the washer fluid? not a chance plus they were smaller inside than the transits they replaced
Back in the day, people broke in to steal the Blaupunkt radio or steal the pepper pot alloys off the XR2 Not there breaking in to steal everything from idrive, seats, stearing wheels as modern ev - hybrid- electic cars & electronics are so so expensive.
It could well be that by stealing a part that is easy to yank off but costs a fortune new, creates it's own second hand market. A steering wheel for example, .it's expensive, it doesn't ever go wrong so there wont be many spares stocked anywhere, so when 20 get nicked in one week the only way to get a replacement is to buy someone else's stolen one !
Great video Geoff, this is a world wide phenonema. Here in Tasmania our local VW franchise are now charging $200 (one hundred pounds) an hour labour, with a ratio of one qualified mechanic to three apprentices, they no longer stock any spare parts of course, which all have to be accessed from mainland australia and in many cases from Germany. I have a friend in his sixties who is a proper mechanic and often gets visits from the GM franchise staff across the road to diagnose faults. A couple of weeks ago he went to have a look at a Captiva which had no compression. They had already burnt through $5000 in parts and labour without any success. He took the oil filler cap off and said its your timing chain (not belt) on investigation it turned out the timing chain was in the sump!!
I went to the BMW dealer in Bury St Edmunds in the summer, looking at a 530e, and I asked them what would happen if there was a battery problem after the 6 year warranty expired. They said that BMW would probably replace it "as a goodwill gesture". I told them unless they could put that in writing I wasn't interested. Bought a 530d instead - so far I've managed 650-700 miles range on a tank and I'm not lugging around heavy uncharged batteries on a long run. This has replaced my 17 year old 318d which easily achieved 700 miles from a smaller capacity tank.
The other side of the coin is that main dealers know that if they make a car uneconomic to repair, the owner will scrap it, and buy a new one. If they proceed with the repairs then the dealer makes a tidy sum. It's a win win for them.
@@UA-cam_deleted_my_favourites also, many of their technicians know eff all about actual mechanics and diagnosing problems without the aid of plugging in their diagnostic machine. Spoke to an indy mechanic a few weeks back when I was having the 205 MOTd and we got talking about modern cars. He said he can't tell new cars apart these days as they all look the same and young mechanics know next to nothing about actually diagnosing problems, they just throw parts at the car till the problem goes away on their machine. The indy had a 90s Astra GTE 👍
@@_dude..It’s been like that for the past umpteen years. My local Peugeot dealership had one fellow who was the expert on the computer diagnosis and most of the rest were fitters (remove a part and replace with new). Not many proper mechanics who could repair a part.
@@_dude.. |I've got a 205 as my daily driver and the young mechanics at the garage I use love it. One of them drives a 106, the other an early Freelander.
@@VisorView Agreed, main dealers are only concerned about new car turnover aka sales targets from the manufacturer. There main dilema is to sell new cars whilst not trying to infer that their cars are crap and you NEED a warranty. Not true of course, until the service centre has a look and states everything needs replacing....all flash and scare-mongery whilst they get 30%+ discount on RRP cashback
This is only the case in the UK. In central Europe, the country where I'm from, it's full with older cars. 18 year old, new drivers drive the old Audi A4 estate what is close to 20yrs old. Talking about 20year old items, a family member of mine just had her washing machine replaced, it was over 20years old and was still working fine, but had a water leak. She got a new Bosch unit; let's see if that will last 20yrs. In the UK, everyone is getting cars on finance, here people have the impression, the moment you have 30.000 miles on the odometer, that is a lot. I never got the mindset, I earn really good, I know people earning less having brand new (on finance) cars where i drive around in a 2010 Lexus and/or a 2002 SUV - but both are mine. When I spoke to one of my colleagues he was shocked when I told him, my SUV cost me £410 / year in tax and he was quick to tell me that his new car cost him £20 / year. Then I asked him what insurance and monthly payments his car is, and he pays £320/month just for the finance and insurance is 650/year. I bought my car for under £1000 with only 110.000mls on the clock. My monthly outgoings are less, even if I calculate the fuel in. But hey, everyone wants the newest and shinyest car... I'm a petrol head, but car on finance is just not something i would do. In my view, a car should maximum cost up to 3 monthly wages, so you can easy save for one if you need one. and, because I like cars, a cheap contemporary used 1.0 Corsa for £90/month on a 5 years finance deal is not for me. I rather spend 2010 slightly over 10k for an Lexus ISF, or just a few hundred for an old Honda SUV and I'm happy as they both cover my needs.
I’ve got a 2003 mk4 golf diesel as my daily driver, best little car I’ve had but I’m quite happy to do a lot of my own maintenance which might be the problem for less capable people.
Really good points; maybe the road tax on some older cars is high, but the overall running costs if you get a reliable brand such as Honda, or Volvo, or Lexus, are much lower than some flashy overpriced debt-ridden giant SUV which just clogs up the roads and which you are worried might get a small parking ding.
Geoff glad I caught your video was getting interested in a second hand 330e after your video I will stay with my Citroen DS5 11 years old and has never failed a MOT and gives me 45 mpg,I agree with you it is scary just what car makers and main dealers are doing to the car market
Car buying conversation; "Hey can I get a car with a tiny engine for early failure, and a lot of extra weight, making it useless and very expensive to operate, while impossible for me to service?" Thanks Geoff, enjoy your vacation, great job as always. Cheers!
MK8 GTE driver here. If you don't plug the thing in then that MPG figure is in the ball park. I drive to Birmingham regularly (100 mile journey) on a full charger and it'll give me mid 60mpg with the majority of that done on motorways. Yes they are more economical around town (also depends what your paying for electricity) but this hybrid technology is very much spend £50 to save £10.
GTE has 8 years warranty on battery, BMW only 3. And my MK7.5 battery cost 3k instead of 8 for BMW. Without charging mine all every time, averaging 50mpg combined. My hybrid Toyota and 320D was better, but I like the silence when stuck at M25 ;)
@@Flynth17 thanks for the reply and wasn't aware of that fact. To be honest it's a company car so they are replaced every four years so won't be my problem as to were but is useful information to know as more of these hybrid vehicles enter the secondhand market.
As an Englishman living in Canada for over 45 years, I purchased a 1984 mini 15+ years ago. I use it for my local commute and errands. Parts prices are ridiculously cheap and it was designed for the same congested problems we face today. The best second car on the planet....and of course, it puts a smile on your face
Here in Norway old cars like that is now INNSANELY expensive !!! I bought a Opel Ascona B1,9SR in 2001 for 550 €$£ and now a car like that cost 20.000 to 40.000 $€£ and a Mini is similar priced... So I am baying a Porsche Cayman used, same price range.
@@dmimcgPre 2000 minis are not BMW and have most parts still being made. If you think $57 for a set of front pads AND brake rotors are expensive.......
I went to Dacia and bought a brand new Jogger. There was no pressure in buying the car. They said sit in any car and gave me the key card to the car I wanted to test drive. They didn't even want to come with me on the test drive as the salesman didn't want to interfere with the test but said he will ask any questions afterwards. I bought 2. Had one problem that was sorted whilst I waited but other they have been Ok. The motto is if you can't afford a new car for cash or buy a service plan don't bother. Get a older car. Also the quote for a new battery on my Jogger would be £7600.00! As the car cost £25k I would just about be worth fixing it but it would be worth 50p in five years time. Trouble is there are just too many brand snobs and squiff their noses at cheap brands like Dacia. Trust me, I went from a Jag to an Aston Martin to Peugeot and now Dacia. A car is a car is a car. Get over it!
Main dealerships are a rip off , last weekend I replaced the 7 pin lighting socket on the towbar and moved it to the normal position by the 50mm ball hitch (previously well under the rear bumper) to find more cable I removed the trim in the boot to find some spare cable and found the sloppy installation of the wires for the towbar done by the MAIN DEALER when I bought the KIA new , I had a towbar fitted by a mitsubishi main dealer years before on a new mitsubishi and it caused the tail lights to go off if I drove over a bump in the road , I had towbars fitted by family and trailer suppliers and they worked perfectly. Both dealerships are no longer trading .
My large dog scratched both my rear door cards on my 8 year old F-Pace. Out of curiosity I enquired at dealers for a price for 2 replacements (they are basically stiff cardboard with plastic and leather? plus a little carbon fibre?). They quoted £1400 each + labour, and a 6 month lead time so over 3 grand for both inc fitting, an outrageous rip-off for some fancy cardboard trim. Something is really wrong with the new spares markets. Why would manufacturers charge ridiculous prices which no one in their right mind will be pay. Probably use a mobile car upholsterer or use the car breakers network if I intend to sell, which won't be for sometime!
They're hoping to get you to trade in at a discount. They get the parts 'at cost' (£100), fit for free, stick on the forecourt with a 20% above market price. They make thousands, you loose many thousands....any way you look at it, they regard you as a gullible cash cow. If they can rinse and repeat with a pretty smile there laughing more than an 80's yuppie with coke addiction - same breed probably...
My subaru legacy estate is currently at 387,000kms. Bit it's done waaaaay more than that, as the speedo stops working when I have less than ¼ of a tank of petrol, which I usually have because I hate paying $2.90 a liter in new Zealand for 91. I reckon it's done closer to 410,000kms. Still runs sweet as a nut.
My 2006 Honda Civic is still ticking along nicely. No intention of replacing it. That’s the thing with old Hondas. Service them once a year & they last for ever.
I had a 330e (briefly) a year ago. Lovely car to drive, bought it from Evans Halshaw in Gateshead. They'd not done any of the presales preparation they'd promised, neither had they repaired a couple of faults it had before sale (steering rack ball joint and fuel filler cap not opening - a common 330e fault, easy fix, a sensor that fails). They agreed to take it back in to do the work, but then told me they were going to refund me the price of the car as it was uneconomical to repair. The reason for this was main dealers don't repair, they just replace, then there's the hourly rate on top of the part cost, so thousands of pounds for a new fuel tank and steering rack, rather than replace the ball joint and sensor. I toyed with the idea of doing the work myself but there was also this other problem which I wasn't sure it had, never had the car long enough to find out, and it was the 330e's biggest problem, no, not the battery (which is a tiny thing under the boot floor, not a massive one), but the electric motor drives the car via the gearbox, in 6th or 8th gear, not sure which, and the gearbox was never designed for this, so gives up. The car was £14,500, I got that back, but lost hundreds on lost insurance and the contents of the car were never all returned. I noticed a while later, the car was back up for sale, at a much lower price, and it still had the lead for the lost dashcam hanging out the trim, and my puncture repair kit in the boot!
Going on about hybrid mog as long as you charge it enough and electric battery has say 40+miles it can do average high mpg compared to none hybrid. Had my volvo xc60 T6 plug in hybrid done 4k over the last few 4 months and it has done 150mpg. Recharging battery when it runs out over 45 miles using petrol engine (to 50% charge) on long journeys like 200 miles to get 56-76 mpg while sub 50 mile trips don't use any fuel. I charge it at night at 7p/kw so over last 4 months that cost me about £76 pounds in total and may be fully filled tank 3 times 65 ltr tank.
You made a great point with the engine replacement cost of an ICE. I'm one of the unfortunate owners of a Citroen C3 III with the 1.2 Puretech engine. Bought it BEFORE the wet belt problems were known (at that time, the engine received a few awards for its performance even), and I thought about selling the car due to the high oil consumption after the belt was replaced. It's currently sitting at 84 000kms, 6 years old and I've been told to get rid of it. Turns out, besides selling the car, I would need to spend an extra 15 000€ for a used Yaris Cross Hybrid or Corolla Hybrid. Now, I wouldn't mind doing it, if chances of failures with the hybrid system were zero, and I know Toyota is great when it comes to reliability...but replacing the hybrid's battery costs more than 3000€ and let's hope the electrical engine doesn't fail, otherwise that's more than 7000€ to fix. So, with the price of the battery alone, I can replace the C3's engine, which will be what I'll be doing since everything else with the car has been perfect. All in all to say to everyone, please spend some time investigating repair costs of these new cars, specially hybrids and electrics. They might not fail as often as ICE's or have as many parts to replace, but when they do need to replace something, it's insanely expensive.
The Toyota Prius has been a massive success story. They will do hundreds of thousands of miles and still hold their money!! As for the rest of EV's, well, complete car crash!!
@@DavidMartin-ym2te no they arent ugly and also toyota prius isnt the only model, toyota has tons and tons of hybrids with the same tech on the corolla, yaris, aygo, rav4..... i´ve been seeing more and more of the camry from america in europe also as hybrid.
@@carholic-sz3qv Matter of opinion...but knowing the cost of loss of life around lithium mining...I am going to disagree. Research African lithium mining and now they want to do land grabs in America for these ores. Imagine that.
@@MusicLovingFool1you should probably check what oil companies get up to in Africa etc. The only positive is that lithium needs to only be mined once and sodium batteries are quickly gaining traction.
I daily drive a 1987 Oldsmobile cutlass ciera. A big Ol' American sedan made by a company that doesn't exist any more. I get 28mpg. It has never left me stranded. The most expensive part it has ever needed was a $150 alternator. It took 20 minutes to replace it.
I've never paid more than £2k for a car, I run it as long as I can to reasonable cost, but with a simple strategy that if something too costly goes wrong, just trade it in for another, my current car I've had 8 years, never cost more than £600 to repair
I do the same, I buy a car for under £1,000 with the idea that I'm the last owner. Sometimes I only get six months, then I get six years, and I usually get £200- in scrap at the end. I can use it for work if the vans in, fill it with tools, bags of cement, rubbish, and I don't have to worry more than a dust sheet. I've had some nice vehicles, too.
@michaelchallen my limit used to be £1,000, but it's more difficult to get something nice nowadays so I upped it to £2k, but cheaper the better, I also tend to try and buy less popular cars, something older people might drive, they tend to look after cars better, something less popular tends to be cheaper to insure, old Volvos and Hondas were good, and as long as there's service history and long mot, and the condition is good, my S60, 52 plate paid £2 8 years ago, it was owned from new by a doctor, had 4 matching Continental tyres, unusual on a car 14 years old, great condition and lots of old service invoices, still going strong
A very interesting video thank you, I had a four-year-old VW Polo bought from New, and the hedge unit from the entertainment system developed a fault where it would not switch off, I had it back in the main dealer three times and they failed to fix it, in fact they made it worse. They wanted to replace the entire unit at a cost approaching £2000! I was quite friendly with the salesman having water number of cars from him and he recommended a backstreet specialist who would do the job for around £700with a reconditioned unit, but quite ridiculous prices.
I live in Australia and I got myself a brand new BMW 330e Plug In Hybrid in August 2023. I’ve done 12,000 km and I have to say that I am extremely happy and impressed by this vehicle. On a full charge I get about 46 to 50 km of driving. And my average fuel economy is around 3.5l / 100 km which is impressive. However unfortunately BMW Australia has decided to discontinue this vehicle and I am now considering selling it. I am also worried about the hybrid battery replacement cost once the new car warranty expires in about 3.5 years.
Food for thought…similarly to DPF removal some years ago and remapping to bypass ADBLU more recently, I can see there being a thriving market of people buying hybrids for the cheap tax and insurance and having the battery/hybrid system removed.
£544 to replace a 12V battery? that's 2.5x what it would cost to replace the one in my 18yo Mazda3 at the main dealership! And that battery costs about £150 (incl. VAT to buy). Either the BMW battery takes 5 hrs to fit (unlikely), or it has solid gold fittings. No way would would I ever accept such a ridiculous price.
BMW cars are an unnecessary complicated electronic machine. To replace a 12v battery, the car has to be recalibrated using their exclusive diagnostic computer to reprogramme all the modules throughout the vehicle. They can charge extortionate prices because only they have the ability to complete what should be a simple operation. Attempting DIY on a BMW, you also find that normal tools aren't compatible and so many " special tools " are needed and can only be purchased from dealerships. All are designed to discourage home repairs.
@@richardbell9656 Nothing required to change a BMW 12V battery apart from the battery itself. The only service function that BMW would carry out extra is resetting alternator/charging mode to account for a new battery vs dying battery but given time the car will adapt on it's own. And outside of timing not many BMW specific tools are required anywhere on the car.
@@AlexConnor_ Not the case even with older BMW X5. Deal has to be involved. I was looking forward to the new Toyota Supra until I realised it was just a Burn More Wealth and had to go to the dealer for a new battery.
@@stephenw2992 I see. You got charged an hour labour and the service advisor gave you some line about needing to code control modules. Service advisors don't know squat. Only thing a BMW dealer does different from for example Halfords is plug the car into a computer and run a service function called register battery replacement. Registers the battery in BMW's warranty system and resets the alternator adaptions (different modes for dying vs good battery). Nothing gets coded or programmed. Halfords can fit a battery roadside with no BMW tools and everything will work fine. Even the alternator adaptions will reset on their own in a couple of days driving.
What would really help the EV market would be if all the manufacturers got together and came up with a standardised battery module. I'm not on about the cars whole battery, but the actual packs of cells inside that. If there was a handful of standardised modules that were, for example, something around 400x400x100mm, and they had standard voltages/connections, then manufacturers could design their cars around multiples of these without too much trouble. This would then allow third parties to manufacture replacement packs. If a pack failed, you could get the remaining packs tested for capacity and order a second-hand replacement that was degraded to a similar level to keep everything balanced. With mass production would come cost benefits. The problem is that at the minute, an EV may use battery cells that are manufactured ONLY for that model of that car, and that pushes the cost up. Think about it like portable device batteries. AA, AAA, C, and D cell batteries were cheap, available everywhere in a variety of brands, and the devices manufacturer didn't expect you to go back to them to get batteries whenever they needed replacing. This was down to the batteries being standardised........... Why wouldn't this same approach work with EV's?
We have two Toyota Prius in the family... no other cars. One is a 2002 (first gen) Prius with 224K miles on it. The First Gen had hybrid battery problems (seals on the cells), so at 208K miles I had to rebuild the battery with a kit Chris Fix had recommended in a video. It is a bit over 240K miles and has new spark plugs, as well as front and rear shocks / struts. The 12V battery was replaced about every 100K miles. The interior is pristine - no wear on the lettering, no cracking, no tears in the seats.... by far the most reliable car, year for year, that I have owned in 55 years of car ownership. Still, I do not recommend the first gen Prius to other than enthusiasts... too many quirks. Our 2014 third gen Prius is more maintainable, doing well at 220K miles. Original except for routine maintenance stuff.
Interesting vid as always Geoff. Out of interest what would the scrap value be of a 330e with one of these batteries in? Considerably more one might think???
Had a polestar 2 on lease for 50k miles, great drive BUT got stranded twice with charge port faults. Redundancy means that has now gone, what replaced it? A 150k 21 year old mini one d that was in the family already. No dpf, 58mpg and a fun drive. Did the polestar to experience a new car, but old stuff is cheaper to repair and can be more fun (also have a range of Saabs, ranging from 25 years to 50 years old!)
i know someone who was quoted £3.5k to replace the infotainment on a 10 year old Audi A3 by the main dealer. They found an independent electronics place to fix it for a couple of hundred pounds. The Becker Map Pilot unit on my SLK stopped working, I found someone on eBay who fixed it and upgraded it to 2023 maps for £80. I always use a good local Mercedes mechanic for my servicing. I do know a couple of people who always take cars to main dealers when things are wrong with the danger of being totally ripped off. Not all main dealers are bad but it seems far too many of them are.
Same thing here. I have a Mercedes C class and the infotainment system on that failed (sat nav, radio, CD etc.). The main dealer quoted £3,000. An independent company did it for £500. Prior to this car, I had two petrol BMW's. Both ended up having to be scrapped because one of the cylinders kept cutting out. Apparently, the engine management computer switches the cylinder off if it detects an imbalance. Unrepairable. According to the mechanic, this is a common problem.
Very interesting video, someone told me that electric car tax is going up next year also. I run a 8 year old Caddy maxi life mk4 and wouldn't sell it , its old tech now that works perfectly.
It's not only the batteries. My EME module in my 330e failed and BMW wanted £8,000 to replace it. I ended up selling my £17,500 car for parts to a breakers yard for £4,400 after 1 year and about 1,500 miles as it wasn't commercially viable. (For info, the EME module takes the hybrid battery charge and charges the 12v battery i.e. alternator - so the car dies after 20 miles) If you google EME modules you've seen loads have failed on i3's, i8's 330e's 530e's etc too.
Hi Geoff. I used to be one of those people who used to buy a new car every couple of years, and the money lost was incredible. About 12 years ago I bought a Camero 1978 for £2000, had it for many years sold it for £5000. I found the answer, buy older cars cheap. My wife now drives around in a nissan note over 10years old paid £1300 for it years ago she uses it daily and we could probably get our money back off it. FREE motoring. I have a 1999 Toyota land cruiser I could get more money for it than what I paid. Both are cheap as chips. My back street mechanic Steve is so reliable and affordable. Just doing my bit for the environment.
I accidentally left the window down on my 2010 Toyota Aygo whilst it was parked at the supermarket. Far from it being stolen, someone had left a £20 note on the seat......
A while ago I looked into getting a BMW ActiveHybrid 7, as there are loads of them cheap, with a dead battery. Then I found out that despite the battery being tiny and having almost no range, the used batteries are £5-6k. All this to get 3-4 extra mpg. They never ever repay the cost of the extra electrical junk in saved fuel. I don't want any form of EV or Hybrid, they all have the exact save problem, which is an expensive battery that makes the car disposable once the battery dies. It's sad that I can never own a car newer than the ones I already have
I have a Mercedes e300 hybrid, the hybrid battery new from Mercedes is £11k to get the original battery reconditioned is £800. Because it’s a mild hybrid the hybrid system can be disconnected aswell. I’ve no adblu or egr because it’s a 2014 and merc were having issues with the bluetec system at the time so it doesn’t have it. Great car I’ve had it 4 years and not done much other than standard service and tyres
Reconditioned just means they (should cycle each cell ) then replace the bad ones but your next charge still damage one of the older cells. So not worth the risk
I'm driving a VW beetle cabriolet 1.8t. 19 years old. Paid £1500 for it 3 years ago. It's a lovely car and a joy to drive. Exclusively looked after by trusted local garage. It's had various things- brakes, pads - an electric window stopped working. It's never cost more than £500 or £600 a year to maintain. I've also got a 23 year old Honda 600 motorcycle. Again local shop looks after. Completely reliable. Costs nothing to keep it on the road. A friend of ours keeps buying new Rover SUVs. She just spent £1800 on a new clutch.
I can remember back in the day when we needed an engine for our Mk4/5 Cortinas. We head off down the scrap yard to get a replacement engine for £50. Put in a shopping trolley and push it home and change in the street with a few spanners 😂😂😂
I have an Audi r8 and a 1993 Nissan sunny and honestly I enjoy the Nissan sunny more then the r8, reason being I don’t worry about any weird noises because it’s a cheap Nissan, parts are cheap and easily available and £128 to insure for the whole year, no brainer
Regarding dealerships - this was for a mate, not me. Long story short he used a dealership for his MOT because its where he bought the car on finance. Before hand he gets a couple of tyres replaced at a local tyre place and getting them to have a quick look and being told it should pass. Gets an email with a big red header saying "immediate attention" and a list of things the tyre place had said might be advisory but not failures. Next to each item was a box to be ticked. I said when one place makes no money telling you nothing needs doing and another place is trying to make money saying it does then challenge the one trying to make money - he phones up and after a couple of questions from him gets the response "oh it passed the MOT". The email is deliberately designed to make it look like work needs doing now to pass and allow people to click and order the repairs then and there. How many people have had work done to cars that have passed their MOT? The work that does need doing can be done much cheaper at a local independent garage but if I had not got him to phone up he would have thought he had no choice but to go with the dealership. Stay safe out there people.
The problem there is your friend and people like him need to stand up for themselves and educate themselves on these things. If you don't think outside the box on these things then you're going to be taken for a ride... no pun intended. You should always get your advisories fixed after an MOT though, by a good honest garage like the one that did his tyres obviously 😝
Politicians with their whacky ideas are forcing us down a very deep and expensive rabbit hole. To have personal mobility in the future is going to be a very expensive privelage!
My Kia XCeed PHEV gets great mpg. Around town I usually run it as an EV and on a trip to/from Scotland from southern England it returned 75-80mpg fully laden while towing a luggage trailer. Obviously best to charge it up whenever possible. This evening I did a 6 mile urban trip and needed the cabin heater, so the ICE came on initially for that, but overall 250mpg nonetheless.
Regarding Zafira you've mentioned: I was unfortunate to own a 2018 Zafira for just over a year. Build quality was abysmal. During one year of ownership, timing chain slipped and required change, which is behind the engine, so it was an engine out job. Local independent inexpensive shop did it for just over 2k, mostly using non-OEM parts. Didn't even bother asking dealer because it would have been closer to 10k: 5 days of work + OEM parts + massive dealer markup. It was a 1.6l diesel version. Got rid of it, purchased a used Subaru Forester that was exactly the same age and mileage. Quality difference is massive. Forester feels like expensive premium vehicle after Zafira. edit: that repair was done in autumn 2022, so just over 2 years ago. I bought Zafira used from a dealership in Germany.
But it will need coding to the car also and that costs them so much time to do............. I've heard if you replace a light fitting on bmws now they have to be coded too.......
Don’t forget BMW charge annual subscription renewals just to keep features working on the car. Absolutely outrageous. I was unaware of this then received an email from BMW that I thought was a scam. It wasn’t (well, it was, but being run by BMW!). I refused to pay an annual charge of over £300 just to keep the satnav, vehicle preheat and other “features” working. I sold the car and would never buy another car with subscription features.
Good Man ! . My old eclass e220 cdi 2012 had 350k miles on it when we exchanged it for a new one ( CHAUFFEUR ) . It was impossible to detect as the car ran perfectly . Also. No shiny buttons or defunct electrics to boot . Europe and the med is full of merc diesels . They are 10 a Penny for a reason .
@@FalseTeeth-o4y I’ve had it 20 years and it is absolutely hard as nails with reliability ! No rust which is remarkable ! Tax is high though ! But it’s a keeper 😃👍
So glad you’ve brought this up tbh. I’ve had 3 330e touring on hire for work, which I travelled 700 Mile round trips up and down the country weekly. I had a full load. I couldn’t work out who this car was aimed at, it was totally horrendous on fuel and battery, I had to fill it up twice to get from Carlisle to Falmouth. I had a 320i Touring on hire after these and it was far superior and I would pick this. Before I had the hybrids I was given a M135i that was still better than the 330e. I can only see the 330e aimed at folk that use it daily for local commute and maybe travel 100 miles at a weekend to go for a day trip.
You couldn’t work out who it was aimed at? It’s clearly aimed at the people who commute 30 miles each day, which is most people. Those people can charge every night and run the car entirely on its battery except for the odd roadtrip
@@ollyrukes Haha exactly. If you can't work this out then you're fucking stupid. My 330e is five years old and still gets 28-30 miles on a full charge in November at less than 10c, which covers my commute to work and back and motorway sitting between 50 and 70mpg in hybrid eco mode cruising at between 70 and 80 on the good flat stretches. I still have 90% of the full tank i put in towards the last week of October and thats only because i like to flick it into sports mode on my days off sometimes. @leeruffle6542 Stick with a fully diesel (or petrol if you prefer car). If you have a hybrid company car and you're doing hundreds of miles a week up and down the country then this car is aimed at everyone else on the road other than you, because the only benefit it has for you is the tax saving.
I live in France now. A 9 months ago I put my Mitsubishi Outlander in for the MOT equivalent. It came back requiring new rear suspension plus a long list of advisories. I took it around to the garage which owns the test centre. In France you get 8 weeks to get the work done. I was pissed around for 7½ weeks... I suspected I was going to be ripped off so I told them to forget it, I'll go to the main dealer 40 minutes away. They looked shocked. I took it to Mitsubishi, they booked it in for the next morning. I took it in, they had it for about 3 hours and when I went back they handed me a pass certificate...no work required and no advisories !
I don't believe hybrids are actually the answer either. Just like Geoff is showing if the battery fails it costs more than the car is worth replacing it. Gas or diesel still makes moe sense to me.
I personally won’t touch a modern BMW with a barge pole. The company I work for have a fleet of four 330es for our management team which have been nothing but trouble. To the point where our General manager made a comment to myself in car park while we were going home at the end of the day do you won’t to swop cars for the journey home as he could guaranty his car would throw up some warning lights on his trip home. By contrast I have a 2014 Honda civic which never miss’s a beat at 80000 miles which I wouldn’t get rid of if I won the lottery.
I have a 70 plate G20 330e company car and have done 85k in it do far. My average MPG over that whole period is 68mpg, which I would say is pretty impressive. It is an absolutely brilliant car all round and has been great for me personally.
But it’s not your car, so no repair risk. I actually think people would be better off getting a car allowance from their company & billing the company 45p/25p per mile. Especially when you consider how you would pay in company car tax. I’m happy to be proved wrong.
I remember noticing how ridiculous prices were getting around 14 years ago. I was selling a 1st gen BMW Mini Cooper S and it needed a new exhaust as it had a small hole in it. BMW dealer (in 2010) quoted £2,200 for a new exhaust - not the whole thing but the rear part. they also quoted £700 for new brake pads. Needless to say I went elsewhere, and discovered a fantastic independent BMW specialist within just a few hundred yards of where I live!
I had a BMW 323, about 10yrs old but excellent running condition. It sprung a leak in the radiator and when I took it to the local BMW dealership they recommended I SCRAP IT! I had it repaired at a local garage for £400 and it lasted me another 5yrs before I sold it on to a new owner. What next THROW AWAY HOUSES?
throw away houses? If we let politicians go through with their ideas, we are already there. The "energetic upgrades" they want you to have make most older (20 years +) homes worthless...
Actually look at the materials used in new build houses and the answer is yes !!
Have you seen new build houses, they are as throw away as it gets 😂
Whole housing estate's have had to be rebuilt because of the dreadful build quality. Bradley Stoke North of Bristol coming to mind
Involved in re-cladding jobs and the quality of materials and build is dreadful, lots of lightweight materials with high insulation performance, timber cladding due to being renewable etc ironically partly driven by the green agenda again
Its not just cars. The springs on my garage door snapped. A local company came out look at it charging £15 call out fee that they said would be taken off any repairs etc. The fitter took one look sucked air in and said " cant repair that, its too old and cant get parts . We can fit a new door sir ..... cost £4080 " ! . So did some research found new springs on the internet ..... cost £34 complete with fitting tools. Delivered in two days and took 2hrs to fit .
It seems nearly all businesses are not interested in mending anything.
That's the paradox..uneconomic for you, uneconomic for them. Dog chasing its own tail.
Funnily enough, the steel cable on one side of my garage door snapped and someone came out and said the parts were no longer available, and he could 'try' and fix it for 255 quid, but it wouldn't be safe. Then he started quoting for a new garage door. I told him to get tf out of my house, bought the parts on Ebay for 15 quid and watched a UA-cam tutorial how to fix it. Half an hour later, garage door fixed!
I had the same experience. Basically I paid myself at a rate of 400 pounds an hour
Not enougth profit in repairing a d they don't carry round spare parts for things 15 years old
I just use my garage door without springs. Works great!
Last year I bought a manufacturer approved used Mazda 6. Earlier this year when its MOT and service was due I took it to my local Mazda dealer, mostly so that if they found any major problems arguing about the warranty would either be easier or not necessary. The MOT came back with advisories for the brake discs and they quoted me about £900 for discs and pads. (I don't remember the exact prices but it was £300+ for the rear and £500+ for the front. I suspect he quoted it like that to make it sound cheaper.) I took it to a trusted local mechanic who quoted me less than £450. When he got started on the work he called me to ask why I wanted the discs and pads changed because there was nothing wrong with them. He charged me £30 + VAT for half an hour labour. I won't be taking it back to the main dealer.
Love the car, hate the dealer.
thats how the big dealerships make the big money, from parts and labour ar over £100 an hour. its crazy. the guy at arnold clark told me this.
Yes MOST main dealers are sharks, my local MB dealer wants over £250+VAT for a simple oil change that he said would take about 45 minutes, I asked how he would extract the engine oil, he said via the oil filler pipe!!!!!!!!!!.
I took the car to my local garage who did the job correctly with me supplying MB approved parts. Cost less than £100.
Did pads and discs myself on a ford mondeo total for both fronts was about £80 easy job a mechanic could do in an hour.
£900 is crazy
@@sebastianforbes1 It's called fraud!!
That's the scam most main dealers do. Brake fluid change is another scam. Not found a main dealer anyone can trust nowadays.
I run a 2004 tdci mondeo. Had it 12 years now. Still runs drives fine. Owes me nothing. It’s been really reliable in all these years. It had a clutch about 8 years ago. I have only just replaced the rear shocks. You can keep the new cars
Love my Monde 2011 x sport
Totally agree. Had a Honda Accord for 13 years, no problems at all. Just got rid of a 15 year old Mondeo again no big issues. EV will just be the next big scam that people have suffered.
@laz820 similar to you, I bought a Honda crv 11 years ago. 150,000+ miles on the clock now. New alternator, new glow plugs apart from that only service and brake pads and discs. Owes me nothing and still returns 46mpg. £30 road tax. Owes me nothing and I am loathe to change it.
Tuning in from Sweden here... where most likely more Volvo hybrids are sold than anywhere else (mostly V60). We currently own a 2019 V60 T8 (twin engine) 392hp which we bought second hand last year. A few things to note... plug in hybrids charge very slowly. This is the best way to extend battery life and prevent battery degradation. BMW 330e would be the same. There are very few cases of even the earlier V50 hybrids failing, and while not many V60s have surpassed 160,000km. Before purchasing, we asked our insurance what happens if the battery pack fails after the 8 years/160K km. Insurance actually covers a fair % of the replacement, so it would be our excess plus some contribution to a new battery. Low enough to instil confidence that the T8 is a good choice. And we have been informed that Volvo in their end of warranty check on battery health will replace the battery under warranty prior to expiring if there is any sign of cell errors and/or degradation of approx 55% or more. As for economy... if we charge as much as we can, and only use the petrol engine for hard acceleration, cabin heating under electric power, and small times between charges, we returned 2.8l/100km over 1300km. On longer drives or approx 200km with a full charge to start, I averaged 5.6l/100km.
Yes great drive line the T8, I have good experience with it as well. When you drive normal and plug in often the fuel consumption is indeed pretty good.
I bought an old but tidy Rover 75 diesel estate for £180, The guy I bought it off told me it had a cutting out problem which a garage had diagnosed that the whole fuel system needed flushing through etc for the sum of around £500 but could be more depending on parts, I drove it home without issue but could smell diesel, lifted up the bonnet to find the electric diesel pump leaking, so straight up the breakers I went & fixed it for a tenner, 9 years on & it's still running sweet & doesn't use a drop of oil even at 246,000 on the clock.
Yeah I love the 75's... utter warhorses
Sadly, the usual lack of workshop competence whenever it comes to fixing a car.
great cars.
Lovely and saving the planet 👍
I’m selling a rover 75 . Diesel . Auto . 98,000 miles . Scabby rear cills and an oil drip . Any interest ?
In a way this was the funniest video ive seen in a while, dealers screwing their own consumers so hard that they brought back private garages from the brink- absolutely brilliant stuff by them lmao
Boycott ANY company who's customer services staff have trouble with English and communication generally. And there are MANY.
Yeah , we do the same who to those who Insist on speaking English only or has trouble speaking the local language in our country's as well . The nerve of them forcing ENGLISH on everyone else . Learn to speak the LOCAL language or get out hay?
@@zahkam7322 well if you live in the UK and demand people speak durka durka its high time to understand that you ARE the problem.....BTW you need to understand also what a LINGUA FRANCA is which ENGLISH is at the moment.....
@@zahkam7322 Are you suggesting that UK Hyundai owners need to learn to speak Korean if they have any issues with their cars?
@@zahkam7322 it's "eh" not "hay", fella, unless you're a farmer or a gardener.
It's not like a competent English speaker is hard to find!
Great show , lots of interesting stuff. My answer to all your woes is.................A 1958 Austin Cambridge !!. Fabulous 5 seater , all leather upholstery, column change , 0-60 in 29 seconds , dirt cheap spares and maintenance costs , £60 for a battery , 30 mpg , fabulous relaxation, oh ! I could go on and on £ 150 insurance............fantastic.
I have owned a BMW 330e for 4 years and I have found it fantastic for the milage I do. I mainly do short journeys, 2 to 10 miles so I rarely have to use the petrol engine. I don't get anywhere near the advertised electric range of 36 miles, I get around 24 but it is sufficient for me. From my calculations using electric is equivalent cost to 55MPG on short journeys, cold starts with petrol or diesel you would be lucky to get 20MPG. Also short journeys are bad for ICE cars. The DPF clogs up on diesels and the exhaust rusts on petrol cars, even stainless steel exhausts have steel inside to hold the cat, the cat then rattles around. For longer journeys I do not get range anxiety and get around 50MPG, I am a slow, steady driver, not your typical BMW driver with a lead right foot. Older 330es have a 9 year battery warranty new ones only have 6 years.
I get 36 miles on the battery in mine but it has to be over 10 degrees outside and i have to drive it carefully. going up hills or over 40 and its better to use the engine. If you put it in hybrid mode you can switch between elec and petrol by moving gear stick left-right
Surely you have to drive a decent mileage to justify the additional spend on an electric car? Cannot understand the economics of paying additional thousands when you are not getting a decent return coupled with poor resale value it's surely financial suicide?
Was in the dealership last week and discussed ordering my new car, they hinted at a hybrid and I cut them off,
“Don’t even go there, I have nowhere to charge at home so I would be lugging a heavy battery around with no benefit, and if you suggest an EV I’m walking out the door”
They laughed … so it’s the diesel the same as last time then.
Excellent!!!
Most brands don't even sell diesels anymore since around 2020
Not even tempted by a mild hybrid the battery isn't big enough to make a weight difference. It takes in some charge with hills. And the motor really helps the engine in the lower rpm range.
What brand, it's getting harder to find manufacturers still making diesels.
I was looking into what is currently available and I've seen around a bmw 740d! Looks okay! I think I'll buy that second hand in a couple of years!
I mentioned to a guy yesterday that my car does nearly 60mpg average and he said “what kind of an engine has that got?” Looking very surprised.
“Oh, it’s a 20 year old Mitsubishi with a 1.9 Renault engine and 140k miles on the clock which cost me 500 quid plus a few repairs.”
He was speechless. 😂
Charisma?
@@smyffmawzzclose, same platform. Space Star, Volvo based mini mpv.
@@Jacob-yb6bv Same platform as S40 - really??
@@Jacob-yb6bv Space Star, nothing to look at but with that 1.9D, fantastic. 200k plus, failed MOT on rust by the rear radius arms, too difficult to get at.
I used to get 65mpg in my previous diesel Golf. 1.6 TDi DSG.
I’m not a very ‘exciting’ driver though 😉
The last time I dealt with a dealer was at Audi. The mechanism on our cabriolet was failing. After charging me about £1k to replace various parts to "fix" it, it was still failing. In the end they had to sit in the boot whilst operating the mechanism and found fault in one sensor. I dared them to charge me another penny to fix it! I'll never visit a main dealer again.
You spelt Stealer wrong
Replacing parts at random without first doing a proper investigation to find the root cause is nothing short of incompetence. Sadly, that isn't what garages do these days, either because they are incompetent, they just want your money, or both.
The fact that you end up paying for their mistakes anyway, makes it little short of criminal.
Would it be ok to beat down the price & drive only ICE & maybe take out the drive battery
@@archiefleming652 good idea.. but then you need to get to somebody who can code the car after removing the battery, but its very good Idea 🤔👍
@@archiefleming652 Sorry I've just made the same comment 4 days late!
My other half has been saying this, "drive an old car save the planet ", ever since I have known him (11 years), and now after watching several of your videos i finally believe it. 😀
Ride a bicycle or walk whenever you can and save the planet.
I'm a company car driver and was effectively forced into a hybrid. just done 50,000 miles in 3 years in a 330e Tourer. Averaged 44mpg with about 75% motorway, 15% town and 10% cross-country. Gets a full plug-in charge about once a month on average. Cold weather has more effect than on my previous cars (all ICE), during the winter i average about 38mpg and summer about 48mpg.
Fuel consumption around town is horrendous when there is no charge - 10mpg in stop-start traffic starting from cold. Maybe 19mpg if there is some 30mph running between queues.
Getting it to self-charge improves the town consumption enormously. I went to Liverpool and back today and ran on pure electic from leaving the motorway to arriving at my destination, then again to the motorway on the way back. So no fuel used on that 3 mile part. A big however though.... while self-charging on the motorway it's doing 29mpg at 70mph (26mpg the winter). To get 1 mile of electric range takes 1.5miles in the warm/mild weather and 2 miles in cold weather.
Another issue is that cold mornings kill the electric range. Let's say I arrive home with 5miles Electric range, having charged the battery up a bit on the motorway on the the way home. Next morning the 5 miles will probably have changed to 4 miles on switch-on just because the battery is now cold. Travel 1 mile and it gulps down 2-3 miles of your electric range...
Idealy you plug it in at home, but I live in a flat with allocated parking that means plugging-in is impossible for me. Also I can't claim the cost of charging on expenses due to stupid tax rules.
If you can plug it in then it makes a huge difference on cold mornings, starting warm the electric change drops in line with what you expect, 1 mile distance travelled reduces the range by 1 mile.
So nearly every 330e you see is probabably a company car and none of them get charged, or very rarely anyway.
My pevious car was a Mazda 6 2.2 diesel and i averaged 51mpg with that and it was almost impossible to get it to be less than 40mpg even in town on a cold day, Sometimes would get 70mpg on a cross-country journey on single carriageway A-roads. Also it had a range of 600-700miles whereas the 330e is about 330 in summer and 280 miles in winter... feels like I'm forever filling the blighter up lol
Lol I only get 400miles per tank max out of a 2.2 mazda 6 diesl
To get the best out of a hybrid you need to charge it, utterly pointless otherwise!
If you can’t charge it at home you did a huge mistake buying it!
@@truxton1000 I didn't buy it - my company leases it for me. I pay low tax on it so it's much cheaper than an ICE engine would be to me. Just crazy the tax rules encourages the use of of PHEVs without charging them...worse for the envionment not better
@@sgretireetvchannel3343 Paying less company car tax is defo not pointless!!
Why buy a car with TWO engines that is very heavy and the complication adds to failures and thus maintenance costs. Add to this TWO FUEL sources to contend with of which one is likely to self ignite and explode the other.
the problem is the battery not the motor, also toyota hybrids are very well made and proven, you can see uber and taxi using them everywhere.
@carholic-sz3qv The problem is the unnecessary additional weight and complexity. Very few plug in their "plug in" hybrid and even then, the "fuel" is not the stored electricity. So you are carting around an additional weight penalty for no benefit. It would seem too few are aware of some simple physics concepts, particularly those in power.
The real answer is is to force you into something new with new technology because the claim is that your old car is killing the planet and that two engined car is dolphin friendly. It doesn't matter whether that's true or not but forcing you to buy new stuff with built in obsolescence supports the economy and helps fill the government coffers - so that they can waste it on vanity projects and the other stuff that they like to spend it on that's best not mentioned.
I assume you mean that the fuel element will self-ignite and destroy the battery?
@@carleddison7479 Not only those in power. Joe Public are to blame as well. Too many believe what they are told or are brain-washed by youtube idiots.
Too many electrical systems, too many unnecessary ‘features’, too many computers for the needless technology. Obsolescence (and cost) is built in.
Me? I’ll smugly stick to my old cars and actually enjoy DRIVING them 😊, repairing them, driving them again.
Hat's off. I remember driving my Dad's Marina with rusted foot wells that you could see the ground. We used to joke that if the brakes failed, we could always 'Fred Flintstone' it!
Nothing like the soul some of those old cars had. True driving pleasure just listening to the engine.
Yes... Sadly the prices of old cars is skyrocketing here... In 2001 I bought a Opel Ascona B 1,9SR for 550 $€£, now a car like that cost 20.000 to 40.000 $£€ :( So now I plan to buy a older Porsche Cayman and keep it forever (the model I look at has old hydraulic servo and less electronics, but it is a 30.000 £$€ engine repair time bomb).
Same as me, always driving cars 20 years old, got Bluetooth installed in the original head units and money in my pocket to tip for a well served coffee
@@grahamwalpolemy dad had one and I sadly hit a fully grown Rottweiler in it and I swear it almost wrote it off. It was quite fast though with the 1.7 engine in it.
The hybrid Range Rover which has known issues with its battery pack, costs £22,000 to replace. Clearly these parts cost are pure insanity.
The car parts cost is a scam.
The defective Range Rover battery cost Luton airport a lot more, after burning down the car park and many cars.
@@roybatty2030 Apparently there are stories of Hybrid Range Rovers having battery packs changed under warranty. So imagine, they struggle to last 2 or 3 years. So what is going to happen to people who purchased a 2020 Range Rover, thinking their car is nearly new!!
If only they spent more money on design and engineering and less on fancy marketing. Eventually they will run out of suckers to sell their fwd fashion statements to.They'll all be driving land cruisers and audi suv's, as waiting on the side of the road for recovery or having your car stuck in the driveway isn't a cool look.
@@mikadavies660anyone stupid enough to buy a Range Rover is going to get exactly what they deserve.
I’m sticking with my 2001 Corolla with 230K trouble-free miles…!
one of the best ever produced
The big issue with main dealer prices is labour rate which even at Kia is £125 plus per hour. Our friend got quoted two hours labour plus new windscreen washer bottle on a Kia Sportage with possible additional cost of new pump. I fixed it by removing and cleaning the small filter which was blocked by old solidified washer fluid and took 30 minutes having never worked on one before. My daughters Fiat 500 alternator replacement was quoted at £600 to £800 plus because of the bad design as the alternator sits under the AC compressor and above a drive shaft. It took me half a day due to a silly hidden top bolt you can't see but saved over £400. Cars are designed to allow garages to charge hundreds to fix and always need "diagnostic" at £100 to £300 before they will quote. Kia quoted my sister in law eye watering cost to replace a clutch on a Sportage but a local garage fitted exactly the same clutch for less in half the labour time. New cars are designed to fail but last the warranty period. 7 year warranty by many manufacturers are hard to claim against so buyer beware.
I have a BMW 330e from new since 2020 and with regular plug in, I get mpg in the high 60’s. With battery depleted I get close to 40 mpg. It has been ultra reliable. My previous car was an Audi A3 Etron (still used by my family). It’s almost 10 years old and still get 20 electric miles (28 brand new). Both cars are well looked after by the dealer network and fault free. I know it’s only personal experience but I will definitely get another plug in hybrid.
Is it fast?
It is fast especially when moving off in electric mode due to the instant torque available. Also fast when in sport mode ( combining electric and full boost petrol power).
I got a 15 year old 1.4 petrol...52mpg. No needless complicated battery packs for me thanks. Enjoy your holiday.
VW polo ?
Fiesta
you cant compare that. "premium" sedan with a shoebox. nike shoes vs walmart shoes etc. ofc it will cost more but you will get more. dont fool yourself. who looks for comfort and emotions will pay for it.
You can get an old Honda Accord for a few grand; luxury and cheap to fix at a good independent garage. 35mpg if you drive reasonably. I know, had one 8 years, 155K miles on the clock, just keeps going, oh and it's ULEZ too. And no-one nicks the steering wheel or any other bits!
@@not_fresh6736 I can buy comfort from an LS460 for under £10k (more comfortable than anything short of a Bentley) and performance is dirt cheap.
I'm using my late uncle Ronnie's 44 year old fridge, my car's a 27 year old turbo diesel Peugeot and I have a 20 year old motorbike. I have no TV, ripped armchairs and am, unsurprisingly, anathema to women weighing under 20 stone.
😂😂
😂
Ha ha ha - sounds disturbingly similar to myself!
If I arrive at your door will there be long grass growing through a beat up Cortina in the front yard home to a large dog?
@@Luke-PlanesTrainsDogsnCars I have no frontage to my house but a wrought iron gate over the front door, a sad reflection on times of antisocial behaviour, evidenced by a torn off doorbell and the old analog aerial cabling. My Dobermann and ginger cat have long since passed away.
You could take those cars to Poland for 200 pounds and fix it for a small % of cost in uk. Uk labour cost is a joke making us as to think is a royal service provide to us.
I was about to say that. In the UK they don't fix they just replace. In Poland you would easily get that battery refurbished for a fraction of the cost.
@@gnewgnew2011 Any places to recommend? I'm just curious
Thanks for the information.
A few years ago I had an error message for the 2004 Volvo V50 T5 with automatic gearbox "gearbox maintenance required". Gears 2, 4, R worked but not 1, 3, 5.
Checked out detailed error message - Shift Solenoid S5. (Signal Missing) - sent detailed information to 4 different official Volvo garages in 2 countries. Reply by all of them: need to replace gear box, part alone some 6'000 Euro.
Sent exactly the same information to a garage specialised in gearboxes. Reply: access to S5 possible for that model without removing gear box, but we are booked out for 10 days.
Repair was connecting again cable to S5, expensive part was replacing gearbox fluid.
Have not used an official Volvo garage since.
My good lady has a BMW 330e (company car, obviously). She drives like Miss Daisy up and down the country and barely exceeds 40 mpg with a fully charged battery. The car has a tiny fuel tank so well under 400 miles to a tank (including the full charge), and the thing chews through tyres for fun - glad we don’t need to pay for them. Nice car to drive and it goes well but we’d never buy one as a personal car. She easily managed over 700 miles per tank in her old company Focus Diesel and that didn’t chew tyres……. Progress eh!!
I can get about 40mpg in my M2 ffs.
If I drive like a plodding dope.
My Z4 3.0SI will do 40+ mpg on the motorway at 70mph
@@GadgetMart very good car buddy. My 2019 Golf R managed 49 mpg back from Inverness (average speed cameras)
@@MiniBull-vq2yg I had a mk1 Octavia vrs 1.8 20vt best I got was 38-40mpg
Great car/engine though
my m140i gets over 40mpg on long journeys. if driven "normally" will get almost 30mpg in town! also has an extended warranty just in case, even though they are known to be very reliable. old golf r engine valve spring broke and destroyed piston, cost vw 8k as happened under warranty xD
Banger-nomics will never be beaten.
I was 17 cars in with banger nomics. I have a 13 year old car now and had it from 2 years old it basically always been garaged. Previously bought a 6month old car it lasted 16 years.
"Laws" are being changed to outlaw this, only the rich will have private transport.
It was in the mid 90's through to the early 2010's, buying a 10 or 15 year old car around that time was a terrible idea. But,if you bought new or pre registered at that time you could still be driving the same car today if you looked after it. You could get a lot of car for £10k-£20K around then and if you bought a £20k car in 2000 that's around £800 quid a year plus servicing.
@@strongandco 2010 to present is about 15 years? If it has been looked after, like you say, a 2010 reg must now still be a good car - at the right price - on the secondhand market?
Banger-nomics is fine for people who don't mind driving around in a slow, scruffy, old banger and fixing it yourself.
What about the millions of owners who actually enjoy driving and want something which gives them the pleasure that comes with a fast, great handling car, and one which they enjoy looking after, waxing and polishing it ?
You're not going to find anything in shed money that will meet those requirements.
If you're happy driving around in an unreliable shitbox, then good for you, crack on.
Less than 10 years ago I did a few gearbox swaps and bought low mileage used boxes from a local breaker yard for £80-£120, I noticed the gaffer there had a nice 5 year old beemer 530d.
I've since retired but a friend recently asked me if I could source a replacement manual box for her 1 series (2016)
I called at the scrap yard and was quoted £900, I started laughing as I thought they were joking, needless to say I didn't buy it and as I was leaving I saw the owner pulling up in a brand new Bentley!
We are being robbed in broad daylight!
When they refer to "cost increases" being passed on, it means their lifestyle has expanded 😂😂
@@kelseybelle2732well done! Great car,just think how much money you’ve saved!
A guy who lives in my parents road owns a scrappy, guess what he drives... A Bentley!
Yes, I have given up baying parts for junkyards, they take only slightly less for used parts then baying new and often baying non brand name new can be cheaper.
Worst bit is they get these cars for a few 100 quid and general public can't buy the cars due to loopy laws about disposing of fluids even tho all I want is a few parts then I'd sell it to scrap yard anyway
Geoff, I love your honest, down to earth presentation style. No pretence.
You say what you think, don't mince words and even tell us when you're going on holiday...! Like chatting to a mate.
Your style is very similar to the talk radio; I'm speaking to you directly listener. It's an almost unnerving direct one way conversation. Don't change your presentation style at all.
This channel will grow. Well I guess that it has already (a LOT) over the last year since I subbed.
Hi Jeoff another great video 👍. My clutch slave cylinder failed on my Volvo V40 D4, common fault, apparently. I sauced the parts via Volvo. This was about £50.00 for a moded slave cylinder with a total of £680 for the clutch parts, Including a 10% discount due to late delivery. After speaking to both parts manager and a random mechanic when collecting the parts, they asked me how old my car was? 2015, 88k miles. They both recommended getting someone else to do the job as Volvo would charge me £170 per hour. 8-9 hours of labour. Plus, they had a couple of other cars in with the same issue, including 1 police car. Great car, 50 + MPG everywhere, no add blue. 2.0 D4 2015 is Tax free but I think that'll change soon 😢.
I looked at a 5 series hybrid the battery was over 200kg, the boot was shrunk by over 100 ltrs and the fuel tank was downsized by 28 ltrs to 40 ltrs (same size as a polo). so I went for a 3ltr 6 cylinder diesel and feel terribly everyday polluting the atmosphere but filling the tank once a month
😂😂
You're not "poluting" anything but the Greta Thunberg's brain.
I'd love a BMW 3.0 v6 diesel before they become extinct - 3,5 or 7 I don't care.
Fun fact #1: a Euro 6 diesel engine pollutes 90% less than a Euro 1. Less CO2 emissions than gasoline, the only problem is particulate but every car makes it since a lot of particulate is from tyres and brake pads. So you did the right thing, it’s almost impossible to pollute less than an Euro 6 diesel.
Fun fact #2: the 218 cruise ships around Europe pollute FOUR TIMES MORE than all European cars. But the problem is Euro 6 diesel cars. 😂
@@grahamwalpolethere’s no such thing as a BMW V6 diesel.
There is no brand new car I would want to buy. If I had that sort of money I would get the best Morris Minor I could find. No electronics to go wrong, no silly plastic manifolds or wet belts, no heavy, fire hazard EV battery, proper steel bumpers instead of brittle plastic, doors and windows that still open after a crash, no big garage bills because I could repair it myself.
I would probably get a MK2 granada. I do love a Morris Minor though. I'm 44 years old and remember teachers at school having Morris Minors was common. Also marina's and hillman avengers were very popular still.
Always wanted a Traveller, but the prices are now through the roof.
@@chrishart8548 I've got a Mk 1 Granada that I bought from it;s 1st owner 25 years ago near Munich , it sits beside my 1975 BMW sedan , I love them both and wouldn't drive a ' new ' car even if it was free
You should consider the consequences of a crash in such a vehicle; no designed crumple zones, air-bags, ABS are for me too big a compromise. (I exceed value of any car)
Geoff Volvos with their robustly designed engines are a good pragmatic compromise and maybe the future lies in plastics replacement with 3D printed parts as that tech is advancing rapidly. Old ICE with oil and filter changes every 5K can last very long time and can be economically reupholstered and repainted if shiny new is important. Should your old volvo be an insurance write off buy back off insurance and break for parts usually exceeds the buy back cost significantly.
also no comfort ,but i see where you are coming from
Why is nobody suing these dealers. That are making spurious claims about the performance. And quoting vast amounts of money for repairs or maintenance costs. ????
It seems that the customer base is not interested in holding the providers to account. It’s as if the ‘message’ is the important thing, such that the message must not be muddled by lawsuits. And the Governments around the world are of the same mind, it seems. What’s crazy is we still make fun of the Pinto today and yet the Pinto is no more dangerous than any Tesla. There have been a handful of exceptions…that all settled, avoiding discovery. All while our Govt turns a blind eye.
It's difficult to give a good accounting of mpg in a plugin hybrid. I have one, andy mpg is essentially infinity, since I hardly ever use the engine. I'm still on the first full tank of fuel a year after buying it. But then I can charge it every night, and commute just slightly less than the electric range.
They'll be covered in the small print that no one reads.
I've been driving my 330e since 2016. I still love it. Last year, I drove to Bristol and back circa 320 miles, less than 2/3rd of a tank - fill up to fill up worked at out at 60 mph. Yes, I was being a bit conservative - and it didn't involve any charging until I got back home. I've done 60k miles and still on original brakes, changed tyres once but just passed MOT with no advisory's. I've just had it tuned and I'm driving more erratically, and fast due to new job (can't afford to be late!) and getting 45mph based on 60 mile round trip between charging but none of that is dual carriageway but poor B-roads and very narrow country lanes. I doubt my wife's 320d efficient dynamics could compete in economy - and certain;y not on performance. Could the batteries fail? - yes, fixable...yes, but expensive. But that is the same with any turbo or gearbox. Not that I want to test fate but if my battery pack fails completely, I can still drive the car - not so with a broken gearbox or blown turbo.....
If the battery fails you can go to an independant ev specialist for repair. I run a Tesla, new battery pack is 15-20k from Tesla.. however an independant can repair/replace the faulty module for 3-5k. Having said that I have come across many owners who have covered 150k + with the original battery and drivetrain.
I have a 2016 330e MSport Performance with 65k miles. Been completely reliable, I replaced both 12v batteries and coded them for less than £150 still get 15miles in pure EV mode and mpg is currently shows an average of 123mpg.
Thanks for posting.Your example is far more typical than the scenario laid out by the UA-camr. He says he’s not anti EV but every statement made in the video says otherwise. Loads of inaccurate and misleading information
You can still drive it if the hybrid battery fails, but it won't pass MOT.
Legislation is the main problem here.
@@grahamwalpole i also have a 330e 22plate. Struggles to get 27mpg .
I have a 330e and I’m getting 45 mpg… just on the engine, your friend is prob in a mode that’s charging (sport or battery hold), the 2Ltr engine is great! Also, try and get a quote from a 3rd party ev specialist. They can usually swap out individual cells
Mine cost £8K 9 years ago, as an 8 year old car (V70 D5), same money as stoopid BMW you are talking about now. I don't anticipate any major issues re-engine - these can last 3-400K, and mine uses zero oil between annual oil changes - or gearbox (manual, never buy an auto!), and recent jobs eg engine mounts, a brake calliper, front discs 2 years ago, are par for the course with any 160K mile car (first front disc swap in 17 years). The car owes me nothing, should last till he's 25 years old. He still does between 40 and 60 mpg, and never less than the former. I am saving the planet single handed!
At 17 years old I bet it owe's nothing. I've got a 13 year old mondeo I hope it lasts another 4 years and I will be very happy if it last 25 years. The same volvo V70 would have been at least 6-7years older to be the same price.
I bought a 2010 60k Volvo V50 1.6D Drive SE Lux in 2016. £20 road tax. From a dealer, and it was £8k with the gold level warranty. I have only ever changed the oil and filters (myself), cheap tyres, ripped off by an MOT centre for front suspension arms that it didn't need, but they were cheap, and the clutch went at about 75k. Cost best part of £1k at a Volvo dealer. It does 52-55 mpg, never failed to start first touch of the key, no rust at all, and it still gleams. Never burns oil. I keep thinking about buying something else, but the horror stories about newish cars make me keep it. It owes me nothing at all.
@@VisorView £8k for a 6 year old car that's a steal especially for a volvo
Nowt wrong with autos.⚠️
Problem with autos is owners and garages don't service them.
Manufacturers claim they are sealed for life which is total nonsense.
The oil soon gets contaminated with friction material from the 100's of internal clutch plates.
Change the auto trans oil and filter every 30k and it will last the life of the car.
I've never had a fault with an auto
A friend of mine was an accountant specialising in the automotive industry. When she received a promotion she and her husband went along to a BMW Dealer to buy the car of her dreams. She knew exactly what she wanted. The salesman insisted on ignoring her and speaking to her husband! She walked out in disgust and bought a Volkswagen!
Did she .A bit too sensitive i would say . I heard BMW are crying their eyes out still ,and will likely never recover lol.
@@anthonydowling3356you'd buy a car from someone who disrespects you. To me it's a reflection of the dealership and how you'll be treated long term.
@@wrigzzx I dont give a toss about a particular car salesman .They are all creeps thats a given .I go purely on the technical merits of the particular car .
The same thing happened to a female friend who wanted to buy a house, even though we made it clear from the beginning that it was her not me who was the customer.
This happened with multiple estate agents.
We know the type, we know it wasn’t the salesman😂
Cars past 2005 have been made with crap plastic parts that are designed to fail.
Cylinder head covers made of plastic
Intake manifolds made of plastic
Above are exalples of things I have had to replace in the past because the part has cracked or warped in some way, which wouldn't or less likely to happen if they were still made of metal/aluminium.
The industry is being pushed towards using plastics and becoming more 'sustainable', with no balance on keeping the vehicle servicable and with a focus on part quality and reliability. The EU is heavily involved with these mad schemes.
Yet they tell us plastic lasts forever in nature 😅
How is plastic more sustainable when it's used for the wrong purpose, the only reason it's used is because it's lighter and cheaper than metal. Metal can be re-used where most plastics cannot.
@@olivertaylor4779 The plastics industry has been scamming for decades.
Got a Peugeot with a plastic manifold, coolant housing and other things. Zero issues in 250k miles and 15 years old.... It's fine when engineered properly.
Why 2005? What happened in 2005?
Really thoughtful and helpful video. I have a BMW plugin and I have been worrying about this, though I never thought about it at the time I bought it. I just hope the battery doesn’t deteriorate. I’ve had the car 3 years and I haven’t recorded any fall-off yet, but, as you point out, it could fail and I would not want to fork out 10 grand for a replacement. So, it’s fingers crossed! On the point about not understanding people on the phone because they don’t have English as a first language….quite simply, they should not employ people to answer calls about complex issues which they cannot understand. But they do!
Well done on this issue, so many people do not realise the cost of replacing some parts on these new cars, thanks for making this clear on your video, the issue you had with BMW is across the board now, I spoke to someone the other day about buying a new mattress topper and had to hang up as could not understand a word and went to a well known online store instead! Those newer BMWs with the humungous grilles look awful by the way, and I have owned and loved BMWs since 1980. Still driving one now.
I've had through my working life many different company cars including Mercedes, BMW's and a top range Lexus. Now semi retired I have a fiat 500s. Cheap as chips on everything. Happy days
Happiness is a ciga...nope,... sorry, it's knowing the game and not playing it. If you can get a smile without undue concern or worry - you've cracked it. Happiness is a smugness that you haven't been conned by some snotty-nosed salesman trying to sell you gold that turns to shite in 48hrs.
Hahaha exactly what I have now, superb little cars you can do all the work needed yourself it's so cheap and easy, never going back to stupid expensive cars again.
And yes, dealers 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦
And don't even get me started on the RAC woman who asked if my van was manual or automatic when the clutch pedal snapped on a vivaro
People have not been trained to the levels they need to be at before they are out to work in jobs they are ill suited to be in
Just look at the current government 🤦
The woman RAF officer who got one million compo because someone called her ballsy. I hate to think how much she would have expected if an enemy shot at her. Obviously joined up for the power trip and pretty uniform
How did you manage to snap a pedal?
@@hamshackleton i take it you've never "experienced" the build quality of a vauxhall vivaro have you...🤣
@@therealdojj No, I've been driving a diesel Berlingo for the last 15 years. I did have a Viva, then a Chevette way back, they rotted away around me!
@@hamshackleton i did fleet for over a decade and nothing was as bad as the vivaros for overall just rubbish biuld quality
the insides would fall apart, we had drivers breaking seats, the padding wore away in several, rear brakes would last a service, every single door handle on every single of our 200+ vans had to be fixed
even changing a lightbulb was torture
and attempting to fill the washer fluid? not a chance
plus they were smaller inside than the transits they replaced
Back in the day, people broke in to steal the Blaupunkt radio or steal the pepper pot alloys off the XR2
Not there breaking in to steal everything from idrive, seats, stearing wheels as modern ev - hybrid- electic cars & electronics are so so expensive.
Blaupunkt Toronto or New York tape players, reccaro seats, the magnum wheels off a sweet capri. Quick £400 in the early 1980's
It could well be that by stealing a part that is easy to yank off but costs a fortune new, creates it's own second hand market.
A steering wheel for example, .it's expensive, it doesn't ever go wrong so there wont be many spares stocked anywhere, so when 20 get nicked in one week the only way to get a replacement is to buy someone else's stolen one !
@@jazztheglass6139 u know the dance👍🕺
What is so desirable about steering wheels?
TBH I wouldn't want to steal most of the junk off modern cars
Great video Geoff, this is a world wide phenonema. Here in Tasmania our local VW franchise are now charging $200 (one hundred pounds) an hour labour, with a ratio of one qualified mechanic to three apprentices, they no longer stock any spare parts of course, which all have to be accessed from mainland australia and in many cases from Germany. I have a friend in his sixties who is a proper mechanic and often gets visits from the GM franchise staff across the road to diagnose faults. A couple of weeks ago he went to have a look at a Captiva which had no compression. They had already burnt through $5000 in parts and labour without any success. He took the oil filler cap off and said its your timing chain (not belt) on investigation it turned out the timing chain was in the sump!!
I went to the BMW dealer in Bury St Edmunds in the summer, looking at a 530e, and I asked them what would happen if there was a battery problem after the 6 year warranty expired. They said that BMW would probably replace it "as a goodwill gesture". I told them unless they could put that in writing I wasn't interested. Bought a 530d instead - so far I've managed 650-700 miles range on a tank and I'm not lugging around heavy uncharged batteries on a long run. This has replaced my 17 year old 318d which easily achieved 700 miles from a smaller capacity tank.
330e is a great car! 69.5 mpg at the moment. had for 5 years no noticeable degradation of battery... Great Channel though!!!
Just about at the end of its useful life then...😆
Dealers are over-quoting because they don't want the work, vast amounts of labour tied up with a repair that will probably come back
The other side of the coin is that main dealers know that if they make a car uneconomic to repair, the owner will scrap it, and buy a new one. If they proceed with the repairs then the dealer makes a tidy sum. It's a win win for them.
@@UA-cam_deleted_my_favourites also, many of their technicians know eff all about actual mechanics and diagnosing problems without the aid of plugging in their diagnostic machine. Spoke to an indy mechanic a few weeks back when I was having the 205 MOTd and we got talking about modern cars. He said he can't tell new cars apart these days as they all look the same and young mechanics know next to nothing about actually diagnosing problems, they just throw parts at the car till the problem goes away on their machine.
The indy had a 90s Astra GTE 👍
@@_dude..It’s been like that for the past umpteen years. My local Peugeot dealership had one fellow who was the expert on the computer diagnosis and most of the rest were fitters (remove a part and replace with new). Not many proper mechanics who could repair a part.
@@_dude.. |I've got a 205 as my daily driver and the young mechanics at the garage I use love it.
One of them drives a 106, the other an early Freelander.
@@VisorView Agreed, main dealers are only concerned about new car turnover aka sales targets from the manufacturer. There main dilema is to sell new cars whilst not trying to infer that their cars are crap and you NEED a warranty. Not true of course, until the service centre has a look and states everything needs replacing....all flash and scare-mongery whilst they get 30%+ discount on RRP cashback
This is only the case in the UK.
In central Europe, the country where I'm from, it's full with older cars.
18 year old, new drivers drive the old Audi A4 estate what is close to 20yrs old.
Talking about 20year old items, a family member of mine just had her washing machine replaced, it was over 20years old and was still working fine, but had a water leak. She got a new Bosch unit; let's see if that will last 20yrs.
In the UK, everyone is getting cars on finance, here people have the impression, the moment you have 30.000 miles on the odometer, that is a lot.
I never got the mindset, I earn really good, I know people earning less having brand new (on finance) cars where i drive around in a 2010 Lexus and/or a 2002 SUV - but both are mine.
When I spoke to one of my colleagues he was shocked when I told him, my SUV cost me £410 / year in tax and he was quick to tell me that his new car cost him £20 / year.
Then I asked him what insurance and monthly payments his car is, and he pays £320/month just for the finance and insurance is 650/year.
I bought my car for under £1000 with only 110.000mls on the clock. My monthly outgoings are less, even if I calculate the fuel in.
But hey, everyone wants the newest and shinyest car...
I'm a petrol head, but car on finance is just not something i would do. In my view, a car should maximum cost up to 3 monthly wages, so you can easy save for one if you need one.
and, because I like cars, a cheap contemporary used 1.0 Corsa for £90/month on a 5 years finance deal is not for me.
I rather spend 2010 slightly over 10k for an Lexus ISF, or just a few hundred for an old Honda SUV and I'm happy as they both cover my needs.
Someone has to buy them new so you can buy them used though.
There are plenty of people here who will access as much credit as they can get for whatever purpose.
I’ve got a 2003 mk4 golf diesel as my daily driver, best little car I’ve had but I’m quite happy to do a lot of my own maintenance which might be the problem for less capable people.
💯
Really good points; maybe the road tax on some older cars is high, but the overall running costs if you get a reliable brand such as Honda, or Volvo, or Lexus, are much lower than some flashy overpriced debt-ridden giant SUV which just clogs up the roads and which you are worried might get a small parking ding.
Geoff glad I caught your video was getting interested in a second hand 330e after your video I will stay with my Citroen DS5 11 years old and has never failed a MOT and gives me 45 mpg,I agree with you it is scary just what car makers and main dealers are doing to the car market
Car buying conversation; "Hey can I get a car with a tiny engine for early failure, and a lot of extra weight, making it useless and very expensive to operate, while impossible for me to service?" Thanks Geoff, enjoy your vacation, great job as always. Cheers!
MK8 GTE driver here. If you don't plug the thing in then that MPG figure is in the ball park. I drive to Birmingham regularly (100 mile journey) on a full charger and it'll give me mid 60mpg with the majority of that done on motorways. Yes they are more economical around town (also depends what your paying for electricity) but this hybrid technology is very much spend £50 to save £10.
GTE has 8 years warranty on battery, BMW only 3. And my MK7.5 battery cost 3k instead of 8 for BMW.
Without charging mine all every time, averaging 50mpg combined. My hybrid Toyota and 320D was better, but I like the silence when stuck at M25 ;)
@@Flynth17 thanks for the reply and wasn't aware of that fact. To be honest it's a company car so they are replaced every four years so won't be my problem as to were but is useful information to know as more of these hybrid vehicles enter the secondhand market.
As an Englishman living in Canada for over 45 years, I purchased a 1984 mini 15+ years ago. I use it for my local commute and errands. Parts prices are ridiculously cheap and it was designed for the same congested problems we face today. The best second car on the planet....and of course, it puts a smile on your face
bmw parts are not cheap, rofl.
Here in Norway old cars like that is now INNSANELY expensive !!! I bought a Opel Ascona B1,9SR in 2001 for 550 €$£ and now a car like that cost 20.000 to 40.000 $€£ and a Mini is similar priced... So I am baying a Porsche Cayman used, same price range.
@@dmimcghe said 1984, he means a REAL mini, not that huge BMW piece of sh** 🤣
@@ralph007silver I just replied to them before seeing your comment. Yours is a lot shorter and to the point. Nice!
@@dmimcgPre 2000 minis are not BMW and have most parts still being made. If you think $57 for a set of front pads AND brake rotors are expensive.......
Matt from High Peak Autos recently had the entire idrive system stolen from one of his BMW 4 series while it was sitting on his forecourt
Poor matt that was lousy
umm
I went to Dacia and bought a brand new Jogger. There was no pressure in buying the car. They said sit in any car and gave me the key card to the car I wanted to test drive. They didn't even want to come with me on the test drive as the salesman didn't want to interfere with the test but said he will ask any questions afterwards. I bought 2. Had one problem that was sorted whilst I waited but other they have been Ok. The motto is if you can't afford a new car for cash or buy a service plan don't bother. Get a older car. Also the quote for a new battery on my Jogger would be £7600.00! As the car cost £25k I would just about be worth fixing it but it would be worth 50p in five years time. Trouble is there are just too many brand snobs and squiff their noses at cheap brands like Dacia. Trust me, I went from a Jag to an Aston Martin to Peugeot and now Dacia. A car is a car is a car. Get over it!
Haha, from a Aston to a Dacia. Is that the state of UK these days ? 😂
Not really. The older you get, the less you give a crap about cars.
Main dealerships are a rip off , last weekend I replaced the 7 pin lighting socket on the towbar and moved it to the normal position by the 50mm ball hitch (previously well under the rear bumper) to find more cable I removed the trim in the boot to find some spare cable and found the sloppy installation of the wires for the towbar done by the MAIN DEALER when I bought the KIA new , I had a towbar fitted by a mitsubishi main dealer years before on a new mitsubishi and it caused the tail lights to go off if I drove over a bump in the road , I had towbars fitted by family and trailer suppliers and they worked perfectly. Both dealerships are no longer trading .
My large dog scratched both my rear door cards on my 8 year old F-Pace. Out of curiosity I enquired at dealers for a price for 2 replacements (they are basically stiff cardboard with plastic and leather? plus a little carbon fibre?). They quoted £1400 each + labour, and a 6 month lead time so over 3 grand for both inc fitting, an outrageous rip-off for some fancy cardboard trim. Something is really wrong with the new spares markets. Why would manufacturers charge ridiculous prices which no one in their right mind will be pay. Probably use a mobile car upholsterer or use the car breakers network if I intend to sell, which won't be for sometime!
@@gazzer1468 eBay?
They're hoping to get you to trade in at a discount. They get the parts 'at cost' (£100), fit for free, stick on the forecourt with a 20% above market price. They make thousands, you loose many thousands....any way you look at it, they regard you as a gullible cash cow. If they can rinse and repeat with a pretty smile there laughing more than an 80's yuppie with coke addiction - same breed probably...
It is insurance scam, normally it is the insurance companies that pay it...
Both an insurance scam and also they are trying to encourage you to buy a new EV to meet their government mandated targets.
They want you to buy a new one off them
My kid here in Oz.. has 1998 Honda Civic. 190000KMs... still runs sweet as a nut.
My subaru legacy estate is currently at 387,000kms. Bit it's done waaaaay more than that, as the speedo stops working when I have less than ¼ of a tank of petrol, which I usually have because I hate paying $2.90 a liter in new Zealand for 91. I reckon it's done closer to 410,000kms. Still runs sweet as a nut.
I have a 98 Volvo with less than 100k on the clock, mint, runs lovely, but not ulez compliant.
My 2006 Honda Civic is still ticking along nicely. No intention of replacing it. That’s the thing with old Hondas. Service them once a year & they last for ever.
Love hearing about these type of vehicle. The true eco friendly models.
You know the Chinese EVs currently flooding Australia won't last that long.
I had a 330e (briefly) a year ago. Lovely car to drive, bought it from Evans Halshaw in Gateshead. They'd not done any of the presales preparation they'd promised, neither had they repaired a couple of faults it had before sale (steering rack ball joint and fuel filler cap not opening - a common 330e fault, easy fix, a sensor that fails). They agreed to take it back in to do the work, but then told me they were going to refund me the price of the car as it was uneconomical to repair. The reason for this was main dealers don't repair, they just replace, then there's the hourly rate on top of the part cost, so thousands of pounds for a new fuel tank and steering rack, rather than replace the ball joint and sensor. I toyed with the idea of doing the work myself but there was also this other problem which I wasn't sure it had, never had the car long enough to find out, and it was the 330e's biggest problem, no, not the battery (which is a tiny thing under the boot floor, not a massive one), but the electric motor drives the car via the gearbox, in 6th or 8th gear, not sure which, and the gearbox was never designed for this, so gives up. The car was £14,500, I got that back, but lost hundreds on lost insurance and the contents of the car were never all returned. I noticed a while later, the car was back up for sale, at a much lower price, and it still had the lead for the lost dashcam hanging out the trim, and my puncture repair kit in the boot!
Going on about hybrid mog as long as you charge it enough and electric battery has say 40+miles it can do average high mpg compared to none hybrid. Had my volvo xc60 T6 plug in hybrid done 4k over the last few 4 months and it has done 150mpg. Recharging battery when it runs out over 45 miles using petrol engine (to 50% charge) on long journeys like 200 miles to get 56-76 mpg while sub 50 mile trips don't use any fuel. I charge it at night at 7p/kw so over last 4 months that cost me about £76 pounds in total and may be fully filled tank 3 times 65 ltr tank.
You made a great point with the engine replacement cost of an ICE.
I'm one of the unfortunate owners of a Citroen C3 III with the 1.2 Puretech engine. Bought it BEFORE the wet belt problems were known (at that time, the engine received a few awards for its performance even), and I thought about selling the car due to the high oil consumption after the belt was replaced. It's currently sitting at 84 000kms, 6 years old and I've been told to get rid of it.
Turns out, besides selling the car, I would need to spend an extra 15 000€ for a used Yaris Cross Hybrid or Corolla Hybrid.
Now, I wouldn't mind doing it, if chances of failures with the hybrid system were zero, and I know Toyota is great when it comes to reliability...but replacing the hybrid's battery costs more than 3000€ and let's hope the electrical engine doesn't fail, otherwise that's more than 7000€ to fix.
So, with the price of the battery alone, I can replace the C3's engine, which will be what I'll be doing since everything else with the car has been perfect.
All in all to say to everyone, please spend some time investigating repair costs of these new cars, specially hybrids and electrics. They might not fail as often as ICE's or have as many parts to replace, but when they do need to replace something, it's insanely expensive.
The Toyota Prius has been a massive success story. They will do hundreds of thousands of miles and still hold their money!! As for the rest of EV's, well, complete car crash!!
You're right, but it's a shame they are so ugly.
@@DavidMartin-ym2te no they arent ugly and also toyota prius isnt the only model, toyota has tons and tons of hybrids with the same tech on the corolla, yaris, aygo, rav4..... i´ve been seeing more and more of the camry from america in europe also as hybrid.
Amount of Prius Ubers.
@@carholic-sz3qv Matter of opinion...but knowing the cost of loss of life around lithium mining...I am going to disagree. Research African lithium mining and now they want to do land grabs in America for these ores. Imagine that.
@@MusicLovingFool1you should probably check what oil companies get up to in Africa etc.
The only positive is that lithium needs to only be mined once and sodium batteries are quickly gaining traction.
I daily drive a 1987 Oldsmobile cutlass ciera. A big Ol' American sedan made by a company that doesn't exist any more. I get 28mpg. It has never left me stranded. The most expensive part it has ever needed was a $150 alternator. It took 20 minutes to replace it.
I've never paid more than £2k for a car, I run it as long as I can to reasonable cost, but with a simple strategy that if something too costly goes wrong, just trade it in for another, my current car I've had 8 years, never cost more than £600 to repair
I do the same, I buy a car for under £1,000 with the idea that I'm the last owner. Sometimes I only get six months, then I get six years, and I usually get £200- in scrap at the end. I can use it for work if the vans in, fill it with tools, bags of cement, rubbish, and I don't have to worry more than a dust sheet. I've had some nice vehicles, too.
@michaelchallen my limit used to be £1,000, but it's more difficult to get something nice nowadays so I upped it to £2k, but cheaper the better, I also tend to try and buy less popular cars, something older people might drive, they tend to look after cars better, something less popular tends to be cheaper to insure, old Volvos and Hondas were good, and as long as there's service history and long mot, and the condition is good, my S60, 52 plate paid £2 8 years ago, it was owned from new by a doctor, had 4 matching Continental tyres, unusual on a car 14 years old, great condition and lots of old service invoices, still going strong
A very interesting video thank you, I had a four-year-old VW Polo bought from New, and the hedge unit from the entertainment system developed a fault where it would not switch off, I had it back in the main dealer three times and they failed to fix it, in fact they made it worse. They wanted to replace the entire unit at a cost approaching £2000! I was quite friendly with the salesman having water number of cars from him and he recommended a backstreet specialist who would do the job for around £700with a reconditioned unit, but quite ridiculous prices.
I live in Australia and I got myself a brand new BMW 330e Plug In Hybrid in August 2023. I’ve done 12,000 km and I have to say that I am extremely happy and impressed by this vehicle. On a full charge I get about 46 to 50 km of driving. And my average fuel economy is around 3.5l / 100 km which is impressive. However unfortunately BMW Australia has decided to discontinue this vehicle and I am now considering selling it. I am also worried about the hybrid battery replacement cost once the new car warranty expires in about 3.5 years.
Food for thought…similarly to DPF removal some years ago and remapping to bypass ADBLU more recently, I can see there being a thriving market of people buying hybrids for the cheap tax and insurance and having the battery/hybrid system removed.
It will make them a lot lighter and a lot more mpg.
That was my thought also
£544 to replace a 12V battery? that's 2.5x what it would cost to replace the one in my 18yo Mazda3 at the main dealership! And that battery costs about £150 (incl. VAT to buy). Either the BMW battery takes 5 hrs to fit (unlikely), or it has solid gold fittings. No way would would I ever accept such a ridiculous price.
BMW cars are an unnecessary complicated electronic machine. To replace a 12v battery, the car has to be recalibrated using their exclusive diagnostic computer to reprogramme all the modules throughout the vehicle. They can charge extortionate prices because only they have the ability to complete what should be a simple operation. Attempting DIY on a BMW, you also find that normal tools aren't compatible and so many " special tools " are needed and can only be purchased from dealerships. All are designed to discourage home repairs.
@@richardbell9656 Nothing required to change a BMW 12V battery apart from the battery itself. The only service function that BMW would carry out extra is resetting alternator/charging mode to account for a new battery vs dying battery but given time the car will adapt on it's own.
And outside of timing not many BMW specific tools are required anywhere on the car.
@@AlexConnor_ Not the case even with older BMW X5. Deal has to be involved. I was looking forward to the new Toyota Supra until I realised it was just a Burn More Wealth and had to go to the dealer for a new battery.
@@stephenw2992 I see. You got charged an hour labour and the service advisor gave you some line about needing to code control modules.
Service advisors don't know squat. Only thing a BMW dealer does different from for example Halfords is plug the car into a computer and run a service function called register battery replacement. Registers the battery in BMW's warranty system and resets the alternator adaptions (different modes for dying vs good battery).
Nothing gets coded or programmed. Halfords can fit a battery roadside with no BMW tools and everything will work fine. Even the alternator adaptions will reset on their own in a couple of days driving.
What would really help the EV market would be if all the manufacturers got together and came up with a standardised battery module. I'm not on about the cars whole battery, but the actual packs of cells inside that.
If there was a handful of standardised modules that were, for example, something around 400x400x100mm, and they had standard voltages/connections, then manufacturers could design their cars around multiples of these without too much trouble. This would then allow third parties to manufacture replacement packs. If a pack failed, you could get the remaining packs tested for capacity and order a second-hand replacement that was degraded to a similar level to keep everything balanced. With mass production would come cost benefits. The problem is that at the minute, an EV may use battery cells that are manufactured ONLY for that model of that car, and that pushes the cost up.
Think about it like portable device batteries. AA, AAA, C, and D cell batteries were cheap, available everywhere in a variety of brands, and the devices manufacturer didn't expect you to go back to them to get batteries whenever they needed replacing. This was down to the batteries being standardised........... Why wouldn't this same approach work with EV's?
Yes same with the ICE cars all the same engine duh!
We have two Toyota Prius in the family... no other cars. One is a 2002 (first gen) Prius with 224K miles on it. The First Gen had hybrid battery problems (seals on the cells), so at 208K miles I had to rebuild the battery with a kit Chris Fix had recommended in a video. It is a bit over 240K miles and has new spark plugs, as well as front and rear shocks / struts. The 12V battery was replaced about every 100K miles. The interior is pristine - no wear on the lettering, no cracking, no tears in the seats.... by far the most reliable car, year for year, that I have owned in 55 years of car ownership. Still, I do not recommend the first gen Prius to other than enthusiasts... too many quirks. Our 2014 third gen Prius is more maintainable, doing well at 220K miles. Original except for routine maintenance stuff.
Interesting vid as always Geoff. Out of interest what would the scrap value be of a 330e with one of these batteries in? Considerably more one might think???
Had a polestar 2 on lease for 50k miles, great drive BUT got stranded twice with charge port faults. Redundancy means that has now gone, what replaced it? A 150k 21 year old mini one d that was in the family already. No dpf, 58mpg and a fun drive. Did the polestar to experience a new car, but old stuff is cheaper to repair and can be more fun (also have a range of Saabs, ranging from 25 years to 50 years old!)
i know someone who was quoted £3.5k to replace the infotainment on a 10 year old Audi A3 by the main dealer. They found an independent electronics place to fix it for a couple of hundred pounds. The Becker Map Pilot unit on my SLK stopped working, I found someone on eBay who fixed it and upgraded it to 2023 maps for £80. I always use a good local Mercedes mechanic for my servicing. I do know a couple of people who always take cars to main dealers when things are wrong with the danger of being totally ripped off. Not all main dealers are bad but it seems far too many of them are.
Same thing here. I have a Mercedes C class and the infotainment system on that failed (sat nav, radio, CD etc.). The main dealer quoted £3,000. An independent company did it for £500.
Prior to this car, I had two petrol BMW's. Both ended up having to be scrapped because one of the cylinders kept cutting out. Apparently, the engine management computer switches the cylinder off if it detects an imbalance. Unrepairable. According to the mechanic, this is a common problem.
Enjoy your time with your family!
Very interesting video, someone told me that electric car tax is going up next year also.
I run a 8 year old Caddy maxi life mk4 and wouldn't sell it , its old tech now that works perfectly.
It's not only the batteries. My EME module in my 330e failed and BMW wanted £8,000 to replace it. I ended up selling my £17,500 car for parts to a breakers yard for £4,400 after 1 year and about 1,500 miles as it wasn't commercially viable. (For info, the EME module takes the hybrid battery charge and charges the 12v battery i.e. alternator - so the car dies after 20 miles)
If you google EME modules you've seen loads have failed on i3's, i8's 330e's 530e's etc too.
Hi Geoff. I used to be one of those people who used to buy a new car every couple of years, and the money lost was incredible. About 12 years ago I bought a Camero 1978 for £2000, had it for many years sold it for £5000. I found the answer, buy older cars cheap. My wife now drives around in a nissan note over 10years old paid £1300 for it years ago she uses it daily and we could probably get our money back off it. FREE motoring. I have a 1999 Toyota land cruiser I could get more money for it than what I paid. Both are cheap as chips. My back street mechanic Steve is so reliable and affordable. Just doing my bit for the environment.
Don't watch crash test videos of old cars. Some things are more important than money.
@@73henny or don't crash
@@si1208 you going to tell that to all the idiots on the road? Be realistic.
I accidentally left the window down on my 2010 Toyota Aygo whilst it was parked at the supermarket. Far from it being stolen, someone had left a £20 note on the seat......
The Aygo is an absolute legend of a car.
A while ago I looked into getting a BMW ActiveHybrid 7, as there are loads of them cheap, with a dead battery.
Then I found out that despite the battery being tiny and having almost no range, the used batteries are £5-6k.
All this to get 3-4 extra mpg. They never ever repay the cost of the extra electrical junk in saved fuel.
I don't want any form of EV or Hybrid, they all have the exact save problem, which is an expensive battery that makes the car disposable once the battery dies. It's sad that I can never own a car newer than the ones I already have
I drive my mothers "old" 2008 Toyota Camry Sports Edition.
The past few years have made me appreciate it so much more.
I had a G20 330e company car and over the last 15k miles I did in it, just over 10k of those were on electric so my ave mpg was around 90.
When I was a kid, I had electric cars and I made engine noises. Do adults with electric cars make engine noises when they’re driving?
Vroom Vroom
BMW hired famous composer Hans Zimmer to make futuristic vroom vroom sounds for them.
One the Hyundai's does noise and fake gear changed. Amazingly it's quite fun
No😂 we don't like engine noises anymore we don't see the reason for the noise it's just not needed
@@chrishart8548 That's a bit sad, I drive a 5 pot volvo D5, and the soundtrack from the engine is part of the whole experience.
I have a Mercedes e300 hybrid, the hybrid battery new from Mercedes is £11k to get the original battery reconditioned is £800. Because it’s a mild hybrid the hybrid system can be disconnected aswell. I’ve no adblu or egr because it’s a 2014 and merc were having issues with the bluetec system at the time so it doesn’t have it. Great car I’ve had it 4 years and not done much other than standard service and tyres
Reconditioned just means they (should cycle each cell ) then replace the bad ones but your next charge still damage one of the older cells. So not worth the risk
Is it a diesel hybrid then ?
@@chrishart8548 yea it’s a diesel hybrid gets nearly 50 mpg when driven normally
@@turokforever007 I’ve had no issues since that was 3 years ago
I would suggest you try to at least get the model name of your car right.
My 2010 Toyota Yaris is very happy thank you
Mine too. Unbelievable little motor.
I'm driving a VW beetle cabriolet 1.8t. 19 years old. Paid £1500 for it 3 years ago. It's a lovely car and a joy to drive. Exclusively looked after by trusted local garage. It's had various things- brakes, pads - an electric window stopped working. It's never cost more than £500 or £600 a year to maintain. I've also got a 23 year old Honda 600 motorcycle. Again local shop looks after. Completely reliable. Costs nothing to keep it on the road. A friend of ours keeps buying new Rover SUVs. She just spent £1800 on a new clutch.
I can remember back in the day when we needed an engine for our Mk4/5 Cortinas. We head off down the scrap yard to get a replacement engine for £50. Put in a shopping trolley and push it home and change in the street with a few spanners 😂😂😂
I have an Audi r8 and a 1993 Nissan sunny and honestly I enjoy the Nissan sunny more then the r8, reason being I don’t worry about any weird noises because it’s a cheap Nissan, parts are cheap and easily available and £128 to insure for the whole year, no brainer
Regarding dealerships - this was for a mate, not me. Long story short he used a dealership for his MOT because its where he bought the car on finance. Before hand he gets a couple of tyres replaced at a local tyre place and getting them to have a quick look and being told it should pass. Gets an email with a big red header saying "immediate attention" and a list of things the tyre place had said might be advisory but not failures. Next to each item was a box to be ticked. I said when one place makes no money telling you nothing needs doing and another place is trying to make money saying it does then challenge the one trying to make money - he phones up and after a couple of questions from him gets the response "oh it passed the MOT". The email is deliberately designed to make it look like work needs doing now to pass and allow people to click and order the repairs then and there. How many people have had work done to cars that have passed their MOT? The work that does need doing can be done much cheaper at a local independent garage but if I had not got him to phone up he would have thought he had no choice but to go with the dealership.
Stay safe out there people.
The problem there is your friend and people like him need to stand up for themselves and educate themselves on these things. If you don't think outside the box on these things then you're going to be taken for a ride... no pun intended.
You should always get your advisories fixed after an MOT though, by a good honest garage like the one that did his tyres obviously 😝
Politicians with their whacky ideas are forcing us down a very deep and expensive rabbit hole. To have personal mobility in the future is going to be a very expensive privelage!
I wouldn't worry. You'll in in your 15 minute city.
It's not a privilege it's a necessity for most! certainly is for me 🤨
My Kia XCeed PHEV gets great mpg. Around town I usually run it as an EV and on a trip to/from Scotland from southern England it returned 75-80mpg fully laden while towing a luggage trailer. Obviously best to charge it up whenever possible. This evening I did a 6 mile urban trip and needed the cabin heater, so the ICE came on initially for that, but overall 250mpg nonetheless.
Regarding Zafira you've mentioned: I was unfortunate to own a 2018 Zafira for just over a year. Build quality was abysmal. During one year of ownership, timing chain slipped and required change, which is behind the engine, so it was an engine out job. Local independent inexpensive shop did it for just over 2k, mostly using non-OEM parts. Didn't even bother asking dealer because it would have been closer to 10k: 5 days of work + OEM parts + massive dealer markup. It was a 1.6l diesel version.
Got rid of it, purchased a used Subaru Forester that was exactly the same age and mileage. Quality difference is massive. Forester feels like expensive premium vehicle after Zafira.
edit: that repair was done in autumn 2022, so just over 2 years ago. I bought Zafira used from a dealership in Germany.
£ 544. To replace and fit a 12v battery ,that sounds a bit step...
But it will need coding to the car also and that costs them so much time to do............. I've heard if you replace a light fitting on bmws now they have to be coded too.......
It's probably made of gold 😂
Its called pricing them out ghe market and in to a tin can ,m bikes are falling fast aswell ,
Don’t forget BMW charge annual subscription renewals just to keep features working on the car. Absolutely outrageous. I was unaware of this then received an email from BMW that I thought was a scam. It wasn’t (well, it was, but being run by BMW!). I refused to pay an annual charge of over £300 just to keep the satnav, vehicle preheat and other “features” working. I sold the car and would never buy another car with subscription features.
I've been looking at getting one of these as they are so cheap, then I read into how long the batteries last, I'm getting a diesel Merc instead
Good Man ! . My old eclass e220 cdi 2012 had 350k miles on it when we exchanged it for a new one ( CHAUFFEUR ) . It was impossible to detect as the car ran perfectly . Also. No shiny buttons or defunct electrics to boot . Europe and the med is full of merc diesels . They are 10 a Penny for a reason .
That’s why I’m keeping my really good nick 1998 Honda Accord coupe 2.0 VTEC manual esi ! It’s fault free ! Everything works perfectly 😃👍
That's an epic car. Far better than any German junk.
@@FalseTeeth-o4y I’ve had it 20 years and it is absolutely hard as nails with reliability ! No rust which is remarkable !
Tax is high though ! But it’s a keeper 😃👍
So glad you’ve brought this up tbh. I’ve had 3 330e touring on hire for work, which I travelled 700 Mile round trips up and down the country weekly. I had a full load. I couldn’t work out who this car was aimed at, it was totally horrendous on fuel and battery, I had to fill it up twice to get from Carlisle to Falmouth. I had a 320i Touring on hire after these and it was far superior and I would pick this. Before I had the hybrids I was given a M135i that was still better than the 330e. I can only see the 330e aimed at folk that use it daily for local commute and maybe travel 100 miles at a weekend to go for a day trip.
You couldn’t work out who it was aimed at? It’s clearly aimed at the people who commute 30 miles each day, which is most people. Those people can charge every night and run the car entirely on its battery except for the odd roadtrip
@@ollyrukes Haha exactly. If you can't work this out then you're fucking stupid.
My 330e is five years old and still gets 28-30 miles on a full charge in November at less than 10c, which covers my commute to work and back and motorway sitting between 50 and 70mpg in hybrid eco mode cruising at between 70 and 80 on the good flat stretches. I still have 90% of the full tank i put in towards the last week of October and thats only because i like to flick it into sports mode on my days off sometimes.
@leeruffle6542 Stick with a fully diesel (or petrol if you prefer car). If you have a hybrid company car and you're doing hundreds of miles a week up and down the country then this car is aimed at everyone else on the road other than you, because the only benefit it has for you is the tax saving.
I live in France now.
A 9 months ago I put my Mitsubishi Outlander in for the MOT equivalent.
It came back requiring new rear suspension plus a long list of advisories. I took it around to the garage which owns the test centre.
In France you get 8 weeks to get the work done. I was pissed around for 7½ weeks... I suspected I was going to be ripped off so I told them to forget it, I'll go to the main dealer 40 minutes away.
They looked shocked.
I took it to Mitsubishi, they booked it in for the next morning. I took it in, they had it for about 3 hours and when I went back they handed me a pass certificate...no work required and no advisories !
I don't believe hybrids are actually the answer either. Just like Geoff is showing if the battery fails it costs more than the car is worth replacing it. Gas or diesel still makes moe sense to me.
I personally won’t touch a modern BMW with a barge pole. The company I work for have a fleet of four 330es for our management team which have been nothing but trouble. To the point where our General manager made a comment to myself in car park while we were going home at the end of the day do you won’t to swop cars for the journey home as he could guaranty his car would throw up some warning lights on his trip home. By contrast I have a 2014 Honda civic which never miss’s a beat at 80000 miles which I wouldn’t get rid of if I won the lottery.
I have a 70 plate G20 330e company car and have done 85k in it do far. My average MPG over that whole period is 68mpg, which I would say is pretty impressive. It is an absolutely brilliant car all round and has been great for me personally.
But how accurate is the in car computer or are they your figures?
Don't you realise that all the money saved on fuel ("68"mpg") is nonsense if it costs 10 grand to fesce hybrid battery?!!!
But it’s not your car, so no repair risk. I actually think people would be better off getting a car allowance from their company & billing the company 45p/25p per mile. Especially when you consider how you would pay in company car tax.
I’m happy to be proved wrong.
My average gas bill is zero as I have electric heating. Amazing fuel economy!
@@stevenvater8720 correct false economics
Enjoy your break, and keep up the good work. The truth (about modern cars, Including their liabilities) will set you free.
I remember noticing how ridiculous prices were getting around 14 years ago. I was selling a 1st gen BMW Mini Cooper S and it needed a new exhaust as it had a small hole in it. BMW dealer (in 2010) quoted £2,200 for a new exhaust - not the whole thing but the rear part. they also quoted £700 for new brake pads. Needless to say I went elsewhere, and discovered a fantastic independent BMW specialist within just a few hundred yards of where I live!