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Hybrid car advice

ks.234

ks.234

Half way to Infinity
I am looking at a Merc C 350 e. A hybrid that will give me 19 miles range which is just about enough for many of my journeys. I am looking at a 2016 model that has done 53,000 miles and is just under my £20,000 limit.

I’ve not seen a fully electric car for that price, with the space and sound system I’d like, so this seems a decent compromise.

I would need a charging point, but no idea what that will cost

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts or advice before thinking further
 
Do your numbers - I had a hybrid on loan while my car was serviced, and the saving for charging for 25 miles at a time would have taken forever to save me the cost of the charger. OK if you can granny-charge or find a cheap install for a proper charger.
 
ks.234 said:
Another thought, is there a fully electric car under £20k with a decent sounds system?
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Plenty of choice secondhand for that price but I'm not sure on the sound system as I have little direct experience of these cars. My friend has an MGZ (can get these for £18/19K) which is actually rather good but is of course Chinese made. Sound system seems OK, but not great. A work colleague has just bought an Electric Mini (70 plate) for £17K. It has Apple Carplay but no idea how good it is. What size car are you after would be the first question I think?
 
The sound in my Zoe was surprisingly good. YMMV ofc. For 20k you would get one of the most recent ones and they’re a fantastic car for running around in. Potentially up to 200 miles on a full charge.
 
Our hybrid Outlander would charge in 3 hours if I put a dedicated charging point in, but as it only takes 5 hours from a normal mains socket I've not seen the point - the Mercedes might well be the same.

If I was upgrading my own Mercedes C-class (a C200 estate) I'd definitely consider the C350e as for my use case the combination of being able to do local stuff/city commuting on electric but not have range restrictions etc. on the regular long trips we do is a good compromise (as we've found with the Outlander). The C-class is a lovely car.
 
Just make sure that it has been used properly. There are two hybrids by me, a BMW and a Merc. they both have no where to charge them at home so I suspect that they are company cars and they are getting the tax breaks from running them, so the batteries will have been flat for quite some time.
 
billo said:
Just make sure that it has been used properly. There are two hybrids by me, a BMW and a Merc. they both have no where to charge them at home so I suspect that they are company cars and they are getting the tax breaks from running them, so the batteries will have been flat for quite some time.
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I thought they charged automatically from their petrol/Diesel engines?
 
billo said:
I think they get a little from regenerative breaking but they have charging sockets built into them
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I think they can be charged 3 ways, usually: from the charging socket; from regen braking; or from the engine during certain driving modes. This may vary from model to model, perhaps?
 
ks.234 said:
I am looking at a Merc C 350 e. A hybrid that will give me 19 miles range which is just about enough for many of my journeys. I am looking at a 2016 model that has done 53,000 miles and is just under my £20,000 limit.

I’ve not seen a fully electric car for that price, with the space and sound system I’d like, so this seems a decent compromise.

I would need a charging point, but no idea what that will cost

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts or advice before thinking further
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Try to get an AMG Premium Plus or Night edition. Both come with a fab Burmeister sound system and the panoramic roof. Cracking cars. Just got my new one.
 
canonman said:
Try to get an AMG Premium Plus or Night edition. Both come with a fab Burmeister sound system and the panoramic roof. Cracking cars. Just got my new one.
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If it's similar to my 2015 AMG line model then the standard sound system is also very decent - better than the (also decent) Bose system in our Outlander.
 
@ks.234. I had one of those as a company car complete with the Burmester so on and so forth. So did several of my colleagues. They were all unreliable, unpleasant to drive, had unpredictable braking, unpredictable acceleration, lumpy handling and poor range. Some how the car is simultaneously large on the outside and small on this inside (like a sh*te tardis). The boot is small. The boot had a mind of its own…it wasn’t unusual to come back to the car to find the boot wide open. You won’t get 19 miles out of it. I thought the Burmestrer was deeply underwhelming. The navigation was the work of the devil. The telemetry was a pathological liar. Other than all that, it was great…..You’ll get a 62 kWH Leaf for your budget.
 
Martin M said:
@ks.234. I had one of those as a company car complete with the Burmester so on and so forth. So did several of my colleagues. They were all unreliable, unpleasant to drive, had unpredictable braking, unpredictable acceleration, lumpy handling and poor range. Some how the car is simultaneously large on the outside and small on this inside (like a sh*te tardis). The boot is small. The boot had a mind of its own…it wasn’t unusual to come back to the car to find the boot wide open. You won’t get 19 miles out of it. I thought the Burmestrer was deeply underwhelming. The navigation was the work of the devil. The telemetry was a pathological liar. Other than all that, it was great…..
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I'm not sure how much of that relates to the hybrid (but I imagine the hybrid might be the repmobile version of choice for tax reasons so is probably a common company car choice) but I've never had any of those issues with my petrol C-class estate and I've had it quite a while.

You’ll get a 62 kWH Leaf for your budget.
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A Leaf would be a good choice as an around town car (if I did more commuting I'd consider one myself - although I'd lease rather than buy) but I'd personally prefer something nicer for longer journeys.
 
In all seriousness, the VW Passat GTE has a better hybrid system than the Merc or BMW and the sound system is pretty adequate for driving.
 
@SteveG Mainly hybrid centric. The C350e I drove and c300de I was loaned were equally horrid. The C300 petrol I now have has none of the above issues. Re the Leaf, I assumed the drive was either 19 or 38 mile round trip and I think that a Leaf is very pleasant for that.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I think they can be charged 3 ways, usually: from the charging socket; from regen braking; or from the engine during certain driving modes. This may vary from model to model, perhaps?
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They all charge when the motor is running. It makes them very tractable at low engine speeds such that if you drive up a hill that would normally have the engine labouring the electric motors assist and the car keeps rolling. Unless you are on the Alpe d'Huez the hill will flatten off before the battery is exhausted and the computer then simply tells the engine to work a little harder for a while and diverts some power to the batteries until the batteries recharge. As a driver you don't notice, the car does what you ask it to and the computer runs the show.
 
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