Well we have taken the plunge and ordered! A bit like you @kezo, we got fed up waiting for anything better to come on the scheme and we didn’t want a full EV, which is the firm direction of travel with Motability, so we are getting something that hopefully suits us whilst we still can. Ideally, I would have left the scheme and bought a 3 year old BMW X5, but as we now need a hoist it makes sense to have it drilled in to a lease car and we can get the hoist for £795 through Motability rather than £3k privately. Also, whilst the scheme is no longer the ‘no brainer’ that it once was, due to the eye watering APs, once you’ve swallowed the cost of the AP, and accept that it’s also costing over £12k in benefits, at least it’s worry free motoring thereafter. I don’t think it makes sense for cars that are say £30k or less, but the car we have ordered is almost £46k and the AP (less the £750 new car payment) is 8% of that, rising to 34% of the purchase price when you factor in the sacrificed benefits. That’s a much higher % than we’ve paid in the past, but we can get a PHEV which we’d never get privately as the price premium as a private buyer wouldn’t make financial sense, whereas the additional cost over the much less desirable Hybrid is negligible through Motability.
Unlike BMW (which builds cars to order, as almost all customers add options), Hyundai thankfully stock pile their cars (as you can’t add options and, in the case of the Ultimate, wouldn’t need to anyway as it has absolutely everything you can think of as standard), so the dealer said that there were 3 Cypress Green Ultimate 4WD PHEVs with Moss Grey leather interiors and 2 with black leather (none with the black with Cypress Green trim) waiting at Tilbury to be called off, so he’s taken one of the 3 for us and he expects it to arrive at the dealership next week. I doubt that we will have it next week, as the hoist has to be fitted first and there may be a few weeks lead time on that, so I suspect that we will take delivery early August. If it’s much later than that we will probably delay until 1st September.
The sun was out today and the Cypress Green Tucson that the dealer has on site looked really nice. Sadly we couldn’t see a Moss Grey interior, but I’ve seen it on a pre facelift Tucson and liked it. My wife is concerned that it will be light grey, but I’m sure it’s more a cream colour. As you said @kezo the dealer confirmed that the cars now come with a set of velour carpet mats and if for some reason it doesn’t come with a granny charger he will give us a new one out of an EV. No deposit was mentioned.
I’m relived that we’ve made a decision at last, but I’ve always said ‘order in haste, repent at leisure’. I’ve had 3 days in BMW iX1s (20e M-Sport and 30e xLine and M-Sport), more than enough time to know that an EV isn’t for us (and that BMW has gone backwards with its latest iDrive systems). It was very easy to rule out the new Tiguan and facelifted Kuga as neither of us liked the former and the latter was very low rent. The CX-60 could have been a contender but for the eye watering AP, the need for costly options and poor reviews. My wife absolutely refuses to even consider anything French (🙄) and there were a number of cars that I’m sure would have been good but I simply couldn’t live with the looks of them (e.g Kia Sportage). The Tucson ticked every box spec wise (both essential and desired items were all standard) and it will be the first Motability car that we’ve not had to add a single option to.
Having tested 3 different Tucsons it was really interesting to see the phenomenal improvements that have been made with the facelift. Frankly, the level of improvement is as much, if not more, than you’d often get with an all new model. In fact, the all new Tiguan has less standard kit than the outgoing one! I reckon I must have spotted a good couple of dozen improvements between the pre facelift and facelift Tucsons. I wasn’t at all impressed with the Hybrid model and can’t see the point of it as the mpg wasn’t that good and pretty much comparable to a decent ICE engine, which would cost far less and be much lighter and nimbler.
I shall be very sorry to see the BMW X1 go. It’s been an absolute peach and driving it home after 2 days in 3 different Tucsons I instantly realised how much quicker the BMW is and how the PS figures of PHEVs are misleading, as the extra weight saps so much of it. However, it wil be fine. Conversely, we also instantly noticed how much extra road noise there is from the X1, so the quieter Tucson will be a treat in that respect.
Finally, a big thank you to @kezo for all the help, which has come on top of all the help you gave with my home electrics issues! Actually, some final quick questions that link both issues! You mentioned charging at 10 amps rather than 6, and said that there would be no issues with my electrics. The 3 pin socket I shall be using for charging is a double socket which has one of my two electric garage doors plugged in to it. Will that still be OK? Also, will it cost the same to charge at 10 amps versus 6 amps, the only advantage being that it’s quicker? Other than speed, are there no other cost or safety issues to consider when deciding whether to charge at 6 amps or 10 amps? Many thanks 👍