My experience of a petrol-electric hybrid

[Alex_Beckett]

In 2017 I had had enough of the VW Touran (diesel) I owned - the maintenance of it was between £750-£1000 per year and there were other issues. Don’t get me wrong - the fuel economy of the vehicle was still great but it had started releasing foul odours into the front of the vehicle whenever I started it on a cold day. That was probably due to the fact that it had faulty glow plugs that had seized into the engine. VW were offering £8000 to trade in selected old diesel cars for a new car. This caught my attention, but I found out that it would take 6 months for a plug-in hybrid VW Passat estate to reach me. I need a car with a fair amount of boot space for my children’s toys, pushchair, scooters etc (and to transport band equipment around to be honest!) and this hybrid looked ideal. It was still very expensive however, even with the £8000 for the Touran and a finance plan. It was the right time to move to a petrol-electric hybrid model as diesel was becoming more expensive and I knew that I’d have a less negative impact on the environment and human health [diesel vehicles produce a horrendous amount of airborne particulate matter (PM)]. I found that the Toyota Auris came in an estate version - Touring Sports - and that the vehicles were reasonably priced when bought second hand. Steven Eagell is an authorised Toyota dealership who had provided a great service when I bought a Toyota Auris previously. I’m now paying £200 a month on a five year finance deal for a car that had only done ~40,000 miles for one previous owner, gives me huge piece of mind [operating on EV mode when Driven at a steady rate (no excessive acceleration)] and has saved me a fortune on fuel. As it’s an automatic I also don’t get any repetitive strain injury from long journeys as I no longer have to use a clutch to operate the vehicle. I do lots of short journeys in the evenings

so I’m even thinking of getting a pure electric vehicle as the operating costs are that much cheaper.