Considering switching from Lexus hybrid to PHEV

Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV Forum

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geordiepaul

New member
Joined
Jan 11, 2018
Messages
1
Hi all,

I'm hoping to buy a used Mitsubishi GX4h - 64 plate with 65k miles on the clock.
As a bit of background I currently drive a Lexus CT200H which is hybrid and my previous car was a Nissan Leaf, so I'm am confident that the quirks of driving an Outlander won't be a shock to the system.

The big part of whether I take the plunge or not relates to how much the vehicle is going to cost me in fuel, both electric and petrol.
My commute to work is 21 miles which consists of city driving, a small section of motorway and then lots of hilly B roads.
I return the same route so there is quite a nice descent on the way home.

Realistically what can I expect on this 42 mile round trip, a ballpark figure for mpg would be great (my Lexus returns 50mpg) and an idea as to how long the battery may take me before it is fully depleted.

My leaf battery started to degrade after 3 years of ownership and the hills used to kill the estimated range.

Finally I've seen a few posts with concerns about the underside of the vehicles and potential rotting/rust - is this a rare or regular problem?

TIA

Paul
 
The answer will depend very much on your driving style and how many layers you are prepared to wear in the winter. When the PHEV battery goes flat, you are driving a fairly heavy 2 litre car and the fuel economy will never be better than about 44 mpg dropping to as little as 30 mpg if you have a heavy right foot. Because of our pattern of usage, most of the 40,000 miles on our three year old PHEV have been done on petrol - we have a lifetime average of just over 40 mpg.

The running costs of the PHEV are very much dependent on the EV range you can achieve and what fraction of your total usage that represents. The claimed 32 miles EV range is very much the best possible figure and only really achievable if you drive at a steady 30 mph on flat, uncongested roads in warm weather. The best I've ever achieved was 29.5 miles which was done on quiet country roads in late September with the aircon and heating turned off and never going over 40 mph. With my normal driving style which is fairly active and on urban roads around the outside of London, I reckon I'm doing ok to get 24 miles on a full charge in the summer dropping to as little as 16 miles in the middle of a SE UK winter. The heating and aircon will take a moderate slice out of your EV range - some here are happy to turn the heating off in the middle of the winter and wear multiple layers of clothing - I'm not.

So, your probable running costs are not particularly hard to calculate - drive slowly on uncongested roads and get close to 30 miles on battery in the summer; drive "actively" on congested roads and get closer to 20 miles in the summer and 16 miles in the winter. After that, the rest of your journey will be at something like 35 mpg - a bit better if you are well behaved and a bit worse if you are a boy-racer. A full charge will cost you about 10 units of electricity at your current rate - £1, give or take - plug those figures into a spreadsheet along with your normal pattern of usage and you will get a figure for running costs. We did it before we purchased and the answer we got out is remarkably close to what we have actually seen over the last three years.
 
Not sure what the build quality of a Lexus is, all I can say is that the interior trim/ergonomics are abysmal compared to my last car which was a brand new 2002 Focus.

There still isn't anything to better the Outlander PHEV for us, lease runs out in 2 years and not identified anything that'll do the job for our family any better.
 
I have driven a Juro for 5 weeks now. Driving 90% short distances in town and several trips on the motorway. I am using preheating and running on heater 23-25 degrees Celsius and seat heating all the time. The combined consumption of petrol and electricity ( 0.14p per kWh) came to 35 mpg. A fully charged battery on "normal" mode lasts 16 miles.
 
I have had a MY16 GX4h for coming up to 2 years.

As regards fuel consumption, I think that there are probably too many variables (more than on a simple petrol or diesel car) to give a reasonable estimate of what you will find. My usage is mostly on electric with the ice normally kicking in only on longer journeys about once a week so I am averaging over 60 mpg even in the winter.

I would agree with earlier comments regarding the quality of the interior trim, plastic and leather, probably best described as robust and practical. It just does not have the quality feel of my recent cars, Audi, BMW and Mercedes, which were all about the same price level as the PHEV. Technically, with the exception of the satnav and telephony, which I think are years behind the competition, it seems very good and it has proved totally reliable.

Overall you would find it very different to the Lexus but probably mostly in good ways.
 
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