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Hi Karl I have a 2005 2.2d which has an oil and filter change every year by a Toyota dealership. The car only covers about 3,500 miles a year. The oil is reasonable clean when I leave the garage and it is black when I get home after about 5 miles. I had reason to remove the cover on top of the engine revealing the camshaft. The engine was extremely clean inside with no sludge or gum deposits. So, although the oil was black you can tell by the condition of the oil that it was new oil. Hope this helps. Regards Peter

It will start in EV mode whenever there is sufficient charge. However, if you left the climate control on when you last turned off the car, and the temperature is set in a way that requires heat, the ICE will start. If you want no ICE, you need to start the car with the climate control already off. You can potentially do this by going into accessory mode before "Ready" mode, if you forget to turn it off after your last journey.

There are very few large mass market non-premium badge estates left - other than the Passat/Superb, Mondeo & Insignia the only ones that come to mind are Peugeot 508, Mazda 6 & Hyundai i40/Kia Optima twins. The pug, Mazda & Mondeo at least are on "old" platforms (the reason that the Avensis went was that volumes didn't justify the investment to move it to a new platform & the Corolla saloon & estate grew to fill the same gap). The Mondeo hybrid isn't great. There is a massive difference between the sales levels of Passats (#1 in this class) & Mondeos & Avensis/Mazda 6/Peugeot 508 etc.but even the Mondeo is apparently walking a very fine line of whether it gets the chop or not ... Even the Passat has lost 30%+ of it's sales volumes in the last 3 years ... Nope, it's more in the driver's eyeline there (supposedly therefore safer) & you'll find most modern cars have similar.

I had a Kenlowe engine coolant heater fitted to an earlier VW Golf diesel....it was very pleasing to switch on 20 mins before leaving, and see the temp guage up to Normal, before even starting the engine....and of course, it blew hot air straight away... with even more modern engines, its major problem finding a bulk head to tap into to mount a pre-heat unit....but I think Kenlowe still do them

For my commute of 3 miles, in winter pre-heat would have to be a must have, otherwise owning a PIP is just like having a very expensive normal Prius.

I am fortunate to have a commute which is ideally suited to hybrid driving and I am also prepared to drive - within reason - in a manner which improves economy at the expense of speed. As a result I have only this week just dipped below 70mpg as my average on Fuelly having run the car since May. With the relatively mild winter, the difference between my worst winter weekly fill (65mpg) and best summer fill (76mpg) is 11mpg. I would expect a greater differential if we ever get a full week of much colder weather - I struggled to crack 60mpg in my wife's Auris HSD last year when it was really cold. Here's the relevant bit though: If I only did journeys like those described by Nicolai, I would be getting roughly the same mpg as he is. The first two miles of my journey home each day is through a congested town up a hill. At the end of those two miles, I will regularly see a display on the MFD of lower than 30mpg at this time of year and that's in weather which isn't as cold as he is experiencing. Adopting aceshigh's approach of turning the heater off until the engine is warm does allow milkfloat mode to operate earlier but even then this only nets maybe 4-5mpg gain over the same distance. Even on my journey out in the morning which is a clear country road, after a couple of miles I will be lucky to see over 40mpg on the MFD. Short journeys will always utterly 'destroy' fuel economy if compared to longer trips. Hybrids are no different from any other car in this respect - they are at their least efficient when cold and in stop/start traffic which requires constant acceleration and slowing down. Unfortunately, their reputation as 'city cars' probably leads owners to expect near-magical capabilities when driving in town!

hi , i just got a set of parking sensors that i want to colour code same as my bumpers, but i'm a bit stuck. the car is Argenta silver, but the bumpers are a shade darker any ideas where i will find the colour code for them. rav on Gaz