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I was thinking about this some more, and still think there is quite a bit of resistance in EV and hybrid vehicles due to the perceived notion that the hybrid traction battery is a disposable consumable item, and will need replacing at some point. It's obvious that the hybrid battery has a finite life, but where do you draw the line between an item that is expected to be replaced, and one that "should" last the lifetime of the vehicle?, what frequency of replacement denotes consumable? It seems to be a common question when people are looking for, or are presented with the fact that you own a hybrid (ooohhhhh, how much will a new battery be), however, when people are looking to purchase a diesel car do they factor in the cost of expensive replacement items (turbos, injectors, I mean a high pressure fuel pump is £1500 a pop) when considering a purchase?, no, they generally don't, because there is an assumption that they will last the life of the vehicle (many don't). I just wonder why there is this disconnect between expensive replacement items on ICE vehicles, and the battery pack on a hybrid / EV vehicle? There are also a few items that don't wear as much as ICE cars, brakes is one, and things that are consumable on ICE cars (clutches is a big one) that don't even feature on a hybrid / EV, then you've got the transmission, the eCVT HSD is way less complex than people think it is (can be hard to get your head around how it works!), but it's extremely robust, and features way, way less parts than the transmission on an ICE vehicle. Sorry for the ramble, but I just think that the notion of having to replace a pack as per for the course is mis information spread around by ill informed people!

Is that the wife and your car, the wife and her car or just both cars Joe ?

How do I get out of this? I know........ its BOTH the wife and the two cars. Phew!

Ah, yes, I too love the digital display! Actually if she has a petrol Mk1, changing to a Mk2 could be good potential upgrade path - The 2009-and-older ones keep the digital dash, and the inside is nicer than the Mk1. It also has a higher quality feel - The doors have a much more satisfying weight and closing-clunk than the paper-light Mk1 doors (Esp. the rear doors!)! The later 1.33VVTi engine is also more powerful and cheaper to tax than the earlier 1.3VVTi's Tyres are more expensive tho' on those 15" rims! (If anyone has any 14" steel rims they don't want I'll be interested!! ;))

A "good quality" filter may not be good enough if it does not have an anti return valve to prevent oil draining out into the sump when the engine is switched off. When you come to restart, the oil pump has to refill the filter before there is any noticeable oil pressure- especially high on the head where the oil tensioner is mounted. I ALWAYS use a genuine Toyota oil filter...the extra cost = peace of mind...

I found this super helpful when trying to explain what fuse I needed! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuse_(automotive)

Good quality oil and filter. Oil was changed at last service last June. Its such a good car in perfect condition and very nippy but lacks the comfort of more modern verions or cars but it still does a great job and looks better than many newer cars so I dont mind spending a bit on it even though its not worth more than £1800. Sometimes the value in a car is its reliability. Why spend £10k when you can spend a few hundred on keeping the old one going.

The timing chain on the Mark1 is tensioned by oil pressure,The fact yours ONLY rattles on startup suggests a slow build up in oil pressure. The usual causes are wear or wrong oil or wrong oil filter. Wear can be chain, or tensioner. The guides tend to not wear. Or worn oil pump or engine bearing (unlikely except with gross abuse) So are you using a good semi/fully synthetic 5W-30 oil? And a Toyota branded oil filter? If no to either, change them and see. And when was the oil last changed? Annual or every 10k miles is a must on an older car...

Hello, from one Martin to another I've no experience of Toyota diesels, but until 4 years ago, I ran 2 diesel Citroens, from 1988 - 2014, clocking approx 200k miles. These had indirect injection, whereas newer diesels are direct injection - unsure what yours would be, not that it's IMO very relevant. I found that when 1 glowplug failed, it was hardly noticeable, particularly in the summer - starting no problem. However, 2 failed glowplugs in the cold of winter and the engine would immediately become quite difficult to start, involving long spins of the engine, and unburnt fuel smoke from the exhaust . So my suggestion to you, in view of the difficulty & cost in removing the offending glowplug, would be to leave the failed glowplug out of the circuit, and rely on the remaining 3 glowplugs, as you suggest. If at some future date, engine starting becomes difficult, then address the issue. Maybe by then you've decided to change the car. Modern diesel engines seem to rely a lot less on the glowplugs than on older engines of 80s design vintage such as I had.

I forgot to mention that I too did similar to you Mick with the curved corners. I made a left and right template cut from smaller pieces of card then superimposed those onto the bigger template. I have now cut two 50mm wide braces, for underneath, from the offcuts. I intend to screw and glue those in place after the carpet has been fixed. That could induce a giggle using the aerosol, solvent based, adhesive.(NO, NO) Remember this is for a 2014 Mk 3 Yaris.Using the dimensions shown there is a small gap between the front of the board and the rear seat backs which doesn't concern me. I think that is a better option because the m.d.f. was a stock 610mm so no requirement for further cutting. Plus for flush to the seat back the front outside corners have to be cut to accomodate the two supports there.

and perhaps I should also mention that when I sold my 2nd Gen 1 Prius at 9 years old with 163,000 on the clock, it still had an original 12V battery. Also, the engine and HV battery were performing perfectly, except it had started to need a little oil after 100,000 miles (by the time I sold it, it got close to MIN about 7,000 miles after a service, and 1L carried it through to the next. The guy who bought it traded in used Hybrids and also maintained the HV systems. It became his wife' car for a couple of years and he then sold it to a customer. I got the odd update when he serviced it once a year and apparently at 180,000 miles and about 12 years old the HV battery started giving problems. He dismantled it, checked which sticks of cells had failed, matched them with spares from written off cars he'd bought and AFAIK the car is still in daily use. He has reported a few other cases of HV battery failure on 2000-2003 Gen 1s and a few 2004-2006 pre-facelift Gen 2s, many of which he's been able to rescue. My own dealer had a customer bring in a Gen 1 with a failed HV battery and he didn't want the cost of fixing it and asked the dealer to dispose of the car. I put them in touch with the guy who bought my Gen 1, and he got the car to drive well enough to get it home and fixed it up. I'm also aware of two cars that had the HV battery killed after the driver put diesel in it, and let the Hybrid system try to start the ICE so many times it flattened the battery enough to terminally damage it. Once of those was a 2006 Gen 2 and in 2007 the cost of a new battery had fallen to about £2,200 (from around £5,000 in the very early days).

Funny enough I changed my rear dome light in my gen 4 recently and managed to blow the fuse in the process. I can confirm in the RHD style the fuse box for the dome is located on the passenger side with a small section of trim in the foot-well underneath the glove box that needs to be removed. You should then see a small fuse box on the left with a small removable door. The dome fuse is the 3rd one down on the LHS and rated at 7.5A. The style is a flush fit mini blade fuse although the normal mini blade fuses do fit but the door can't be replaced. I've attached a quick photo for comparison as I still had them to hand along with the front cover of the passenger fuse box door which lists the fuses ratings and locations.

It is a bit silly; If they were worried about abuse then they could have just made it able to increase the odometer but not decrease it.

Just to update what happened, the dealer found that there's a fan speed controller built into the fan motor housing which was faulty. The controller isn't available on it's own so i ended up replacing the fan motor. At least it wasn't some £1000 plus VAT Ecu that i fried ! Thanks

Can just be the tensioner - I remember someone here saying it uses oil pressure to work and the seals can deteriorate over time.The chain-cam Toyota engines definitely benefit from regular good quality oil changes! re. the suspension bushes, if you mean the anti-roll bar drop links, they have a history of being a fairly common MOT advisory for the Mk1 Yaris - For some reason the outside of the bushes appears to deteriorate really quickly, but unless you are getting a clonk sound when going over speed bumps/potholes/etc. then they are still working fine and you don't need to change them. (I ignored the MOT advisory 3 years running before it annoyed me enough to swap them for polyurethane ones; Not much more expensive than the Toyota ones but basically indestructible!)

We have a 2014 Hybrid with 195/50R16 tyres and the ride quality is fine. No complaints at all. Mick.