An update – we got the Kuga back yesterday. There is a faint whiff of “metalwork” in there, reminiscent of metalwork classes at school many years ago, but it doesn’t smell of diesel.
The fuel pump, fuel line, undertrays and and a handful of other ancillary components all had to be replaced, and the engine bay seems to have had a steam cleaning, it certainly seems a bit cleaner than before.
The dealer very kindly put about £2-3 of diesel in it to allow me to get to the nearest filling station 🙂
So, after 2-3 weeks I’m sorry to have to hand the Corolla back. The seats in the Kuga are a LOT more comfy, they almost feel like armchairs in comparison, but the ease of drive and economy more than made up for it, and I’m sure a higher spec will have better seats. We’ve all but committed to a GR Sports spec estate come renewal in a few months which does have better seats but obviously haven’t been able to try. The Excel spec doesn’t seem to offer all that much more on paper and is another hefty hike in AP. We’d like the 2.0 as the 1.8 does feel slow in comparison to the Kuga, but not entirely convinced I can justify the hike given the extra power would only come into play during the occasional overtake on the M1
Average commute to and from work in the Corolla, I managed around 62mpg, after discovering a “hack”. The Kuga? a very disappointing 37mpg, driven in exactly the same relaxed manner. My (richer than me) mate has a Mercedes s350d with almost 300bhp and weighs almost a ton more; even with a heavier foot than I have he still averages almost 50mpg
The “hack”? Imagine this scenario – I’m convinced the battery could play a bigger part, but obviously I know the road – the car has no such knowledge. So I’m driving a steady 30mph on a long flat stretch of road, at the end of which is a long downhill stretch. Very often, the petrol unit will kick in on this flat stretch – it doesn’t know there is a nice battery charging slope ahead of it. Easing off a little doesn’t switch the petrol unit off. I found that very suddenly slipping my foot off the accelerator “tricked” the petrol unit into stopping, and suddenly reapplying the accelerator to bring me back up to the preset speed limiter doesn’t result in any loss of speed, so effectively I get an additional half a mile on the battery alone where normally the car would be slipping the petrol unit on and off. That trick alone, used on just one or two stretches, was enough to eke out the mpg from 57-58 to 62-63, a worthwhile difference. I can’t imagine it did the car any damage, I haven’t been able to find out. It is designed to switch the petrol unit on and off dozens of times per journey, after all.
I have also read, but I don’t know if it’s true, that using the built in Sat Nav in the Volvo hybrids allows the car to know when to make greatest use of electric power for greatest efficiency, it will make more use of the battery on flat or uphill stretches if the Sat Nav indicates that a long downhill stretch is coming soon. It’d be great if the Toyota and all hybrids did this, but I wasn’t going to program all my personal addresses into a courtesy car to find out.
Last thing – small but very annoying. The fob is absolutely ridiculous! It’s twice as big as the Ford fob, and where the Ford fob is smooth and pendant shaped, the Toyota fob is slabby and angular. it just will not fit into any pocket comfortably. Maybe the fob on keyless entry Toyotas is smaller? Does anyone know?