Searching for a new car

daveyjp

If the Yaris Cross has the same hybrid set up as the Yaris I'd give it a good run, especially on motorways as it is great around town, but on motorways if you need to accelerate quickly it really doesn't like it.

Give it too much gas and the CVT can't keep up with the increase in engine revs.  With with no rev counter there is no indication the engine is close to red lining.  I had one occasion where I needed to accelerate to overtake a HGV which pulled into lane 2, I gave it gas, lots of engine noise, no acceleration, red line, engine dies and throws up malfunctions to hybrid system, cruise control, braking power and pre collision system.

Goudy

The Yaris Cross comes with the 130hp set up rather than the standard 115hp of the normal Yaris hatchback (but you can also get the 130hp in higher spec hatchbacks).

I found it has plenty for motorway driving but they do put their power down differently, it's no longer all about what the engine is doing.

You have to ignore what the engine is doing as most of the time it's has nothing to do with transmitting torque directly to the wheels. In fact, the ICE runs an Atkinson cycle which produces far less torque then a Otto cycle.

It's either stopped, idling to top the battery up or as mentioned, revving up to produce lots of electrical energy quickly, but yes it does occasionally work together with the electric motor when really provoked.

You soon get used to them though. It doesn't take long to ignore the what the engine doing and you then get a bit of a shock when it does fire up in anger as it's been doing sod all for so long.

These later gen Toyota Hybrids has a much better CVT gearbox arrangement.
All low speed drive is direct from the electric motor and the taller "gears" handled by a much smaller and lighter gearbox.
As it only has to handle the taller gearing it has much better ratio spread to suit.

I found the older gen Toyota hybrids could be made to suffered from battery exhaustion in certain circumstances, but that was quite rare and you would normally have to provoke that behaviour.
They could be made to use up the stored electrically energy quite quickly, like flogging it very hard up a long steep hill with your foot nailed to the floor and the power would tail off, but I've never yet had one of the later gen systems act like that. 

Desmond_Hume

The original requirement and list are confusing. Nissan Micra is too small but, a Fiesta and Polo are fine? Almost luxury feel, Vauxhall Mokka?

Mazda CX-3 is my suggestion. 

Stubod

Looking at your original list I would shorten it too:--

Honda Jazz

Kia Niro (level 3 if you want some more "toys"),

Any Toyota that takes your fancy

Ideally a self charge hybrid, this should gives you an auto box either DSG or CVT by default. 

Also adaptive cruise control is a real plus, and make sure they have been serviced to maintain the balance of the manufacturers 7 year warranty.... 

plumb1_2

moneysaver1978 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

From the use description from the OP, I was going to suggest the Honda Jazz and I noticed that is one of the options the OP has in their list.

I might be mistaken but Jazz didn't look that small which is why it is on the list.

We’ve had 2 Honda Jazz over ,14 yrs both kept until 10 yrs old. Only problem we had was new battery after 7 yrs. and strangely front near side tire everybody 2 yrs.
great versatile car I would no hesitation in recommending them. Just make sure it’s always serviced
we have swopped to a vw troc and I regret it🙁, 

Frozen_up_north

I like the idea of the Toyota warranty that gets extended to 10 years or 100,000 miles each service.
Given that cars are getting increasingly complex, and dealers/mechanics struggle with even the basics at times, having a manufacturer backed long term warranty seems sensible to me.
FWIW, a friend has a VW with a gearbox fault that has been quoted just under £5K to repair. The car is 6 years old…

born_again

Frozen_up_north said:

I like the idea of the Toyota warranty that gets extended to 10 years or 100,000 miles each service.
Given that cars are getting increasingly complex, and dealers/mechanics struggle with even the basics at times, having a manufacturer backed long term warranty seems sensible to me.
FWIW, a friend has a VW with a gearbox fault that has been quoted just under £5K to repair. The car is 6 years old…

Just remember that is main dealer servicing & a warranty is not a get out of Jail free card for a lot of things.

moneysaver1978

Stubod said:

Stubod said:

IMHO it's a no brainer to go Japanese / Korean, and self charge hybrid. I ended up with a (last model) Kia Niro and love it. Does everything I need and returns 65+mpg (average). Fully auto, and adaptice cruise control, also comes with a 7 year warranty. The only other car I would consider on your list is either a Toyota self charge hybride, or a Jazz....which seem to be really good.......

...good luck with your search, it took me 2 years of looking before I decided on a Niro, and when I (eventually) change it will either be another Kia, or a Toyota....

NB read lots of (bad) reports about Vauxhall, (and Ford) engine and gearbox problems...and avoid a wet belt if you can??)

We were in Japan and South Korea recently - the cars there look so much nicer! We do have Kia Niro already on our list! Which year did you go for?

Good call about the wet belt, I need to read up more on this. I know Ford had a Powershift issue for many models but they have fixed it or have they...?!!!

I got the last of the "old" model Niro, 2022. The only one available was the level 2, ("poverty spec") model, I really wanted the level 3, but the level 2 still has the adaptive cruise control, flappy paddles and rear view camera, all of which I would want again. The other advantage is that it has the larger tyres which make for a really comfortable ride and are much cheaper to replace!

I would avoid any car that has a wet belt, a fundamentaly flawed design from an enginerring point of view, that will always been prone tofailure at some point. (Would not be so bad if you could replace them cheaply / regularly?).

I would never touch anything French, and from what I read about Vauxhall, probably not a lot better??

For me it will always been Japanese / Korean with a full main dealer service history, and the balance of the 7/10 year (Toyota) warranty.

I know of 3 people who run / have run a Honda Jazz, and they all love them, and seem to be all but bullit proof, as well as being quite practical.

Before my Kia I had a Yeti which I loved, and would probably have got another one if they still made them. I was looking for a mid sized "SUV/Estate" that had an auto box, (would never go back to a manual now). I was (very) sceptical about "self charge", but after owning one and seeing the benefits/fuel consumption I would certainly go for this option next time. Ended up test driving all the competition before droping on a "Which" article that happened to rate the Kia Niro, (until then it had not even been on my radar)...the 7 year warranty was a bonus, and my dealer offered me a service pack for around £200/yr which includes all routine servicing and MOT's...so a bit of a bargain really!!

..oh, and try avoid anything with an "opening" sunroof as it will (probably), leak at some point.....

Happy hunting...and do keep us posted as to your final decision!!

Insightful post, thank you. I am learning so much here more than what ChatGPT can offer (or perhaps I used wrong prompts)! I was leaning on the self-charging hybrids because they do not use start/stop motor.

I know what you mean about Mokka however a relative has a manual 2018 Mokka still going with no issues so I was a bit conflicted!

daveyjp said:

Easy.  Toyota CH-R.

10 warranty advice above is incorrect.  After 3 years each time you have a Toyota main dealer service and any identified repairs are carried out you receive a 12 month warranty up to the 10th year service/100,000 miles.

A totally left field option, but offering bomb proof reliability, an excellent auto box, mild hybrid, plenty of luxuries, higher driving position, rear view camera, heated seats - Subaru Crosstrek (formerly XV).  The slightly higher version of the Impreza.  From my experience the dealers are also excellent.

Great shout for Subaru Crosstrek - looks great and I love the portrait touch screen! Sadly outside of our budget.

facade said:

Be careful with the Mokka, the 1.2 is the dreaded Puretech engine, you won't find many people with anything positive to say about them.

The later ones swapped the wet belt for a chain (hooray!!!) but kept the direct injection and the massive oil burning problems of the earlier engines (boo!!!)

I don't know when the Mokka changed.

Never knew this. A real eye opener and definitely to watch out for!

Funqi said:

Fix your Nissan note! Look around, there's still absolutely tons of them, even from mid 00s still in great nick, still on the road. They're bloody well built cars.

My mum has one, a 2007 1.4 manual. We spent £1k replacing a door, a mirror, new clutch, new tyres, some other minor repairs and a service. As an asset, the car isn't worth it, but we did it because it should easily last her a few more years yet. Everything works, it still drives flawlessly. 

I on the other hand, bought a 3 year old car and have nothing but trouble with it. Expensive trouble at that. As others have said, definitely void anything with a wet belt engine!

A valid point! We have had trouble after trouble with our Nissan since March with a broken spring coil, boot not opening (3 times), rear window wiper motor (twice), air blower (5 times), MOT fail, and likely need to replace the tyres soon (and was told that the battery isn't in a good health). It's becoming costly although we saved money with my DIY and managed to fix rear wiper, boot, and air blower (potentially saving over £400). While OH loves driving the car as a learner, I was more comfortable with the Ford B Max (oh and I so loved its front elevtric window heaters!).

moneysaver1978

daveyjp said:

If the Yaris Cross has the same hybrid set up as the Yaris I'd give it a good run, especially on motorways as it is great around town, but on motorways if you need to accelerate quickly it really doesn't like it.

Give it too much gas and the CVT can't keep up with the increase in engine revs.  With with no rev counter there is no indication the engine is close to red lining.  I had one occasion where I needed to accelerate to overtake a HGV which pulled into lane 2, I gave it gas, lots of engine noise, no acceleration, red line, engine dies and throws up malfunctions to hybrid system, cruise control, braking power and pre collision system.

Goudy said:

The Yaris Cross comes with the 130hp set up rather than the standard 115hp of the normal Yaris hatchback (but you can also get the 130hp in higher spec hatchbacks).

I found it has plenty for motorway driving but they do put their power down differently, it's no longer all about what the engine is doing.

You have to ignore what the engine is doing as most of the time it's has nothing to do with transmitting torque directly to the wheels. In fact, the ICE runs an Atkinson cycle which produces far less torque then a Otto cycle.

It's either stopped, idling to top the battery up or as mentioned, revving up to produce lots of electrical energy quickly, but yes it does occasionally work together with the electric motor when really provoked.

You soon get used to them though. It doesn't take long to ignore the what the engine doing and you then get a bit of a shock when it does fire up in anger as it's been doing sod all for so long.

These later gen Toyota Hybrids has a much better CVT gearbox arrangement.
All low speed drive is direct from the electric motor and the taller "gears" handled by a much smaller and lighter gearbox.
As it only has to handle the taller gearing it has much better ratio spread to suit.

I found the older gen Toyota hybrids could be made to suffered from battery exhaustion in certain circumstances, but that was quite rare and you would normally have to provoke that behaviour.
They could be made to use up the stored electrically energy quite quickly, like flogging it very hard up a long steep hill with your foot nailed to the floor and the power would tail off, but I've never yet had one of the later gen systems act like that. 

Never considered Yaris Cross, and it does look like a good contender for our list.
 @Goudy, when you say later generation - do you mean 5th generation?

Desmond_Hume said:

The original requirement and list are confusing. Nissan Micra is too small but, a Fiesta and Polo are fine? Almost luxury feel, Vauxhall Mokka?

Mazda CX-3 is my suggestion. 

I found Fiesta and Polo to be more roomy inside than a Micra. While the Mokka isn't luxury like say a Lexus or similar, it does seem to have nice interior premium materials compared to say a Nissan Micra.

Did you mean Mazda CX-30? Looks like a really nice car but 2.0L engine size might be overkill for us!


Stubod said:

Looking at your original list I would shorten it too:--

Honda Jazz

Kia Niro (level 3 if you want some more "toys"),

Any Toyota that takes your fancy

Ideally a self charge hybrid, this should gives you an auto box either DSG or CVT by default. 

Also adaptive cruise control is a real plus, and make sure they have been serviced to maintain the balance of the manufacturers 7 year warranty.... 

I like that list! Honestly, thanks to this thread, I feel like I’ve made real progress in becoming more informed!

Grumpy_chap

moneysaver1978 said:

We have had trouble after trouble with our Nissan since March with a broken spring coil, boot not opening (3 times), rear window wiper motor (twice), air blower (5 times), MOT fail, and likely need to replace the tyres soon (and was told that the battery isn't in a good health). It's becoming costly although we saved money with my DIY and managed to fix rear wiper, boot, and air blower (potentially saving over £400). 

None of those repairs you mentioned sound significant or more than typical wear and tear on a 2012 car (assuming the MOT fail was a similar type of matter as the items actually mentioned).  Is the Nissan still mechanically reliable?  If so, it may be a case of better the devil you know.  Tyres and battery are consumable items, so you should not see these expected expenses as extreme.

How many of these types of repairs can you get for the £15k - £20k budget you have for a 2 - 3 year old car?
The 2 - 3 year old car is an unknown beast.  It may be great.  It may be that it is only on the "for sale" market because it was a lemon.