Afternoon all I'm going to be changing my car soon and with the ever increasing rise in the price of fuel especially diesel and the tax increases as well I am considering looking at one of the hybrid 3 series. A simple question, has anyone out there got any experience of them good or bad to help me. I will be looking in all probability at a second-hand car and have had a quick look and seem to be able to get a 66/17 plated car with reasonable mileage around the £20/25000 mark. I will be doing certainly in the short term a fare few miles town and motorway so want something reliable. thanks Dave
Hi, Don't have any experience in hybrids myself but i'm sure some fellow members will be along soon. Out of interest what car do you have at present? Kev
No experience, but is this any help? https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/bmw/bmw-3-series-330e-2016-plug-in-hybrid-review/
Kev at the moment I have an 06 plated 330D. whilst it returns an acceptable 40+mpg on a good run with the ever increasing price of fuel it will have to go before to long
I’ve tested the 330e about 18 months ago, ultimately the boot was too small for me as the batteries take up some of the boot space. Nice cars though. They don’t really lend themselves to motorway driving, better for short journeys in the City making full use of the batteries.
I am fully aware that the electric range is related to town driving rather than motorway (if that is what I was concerned with only I would be looking at a tesla) but I will unfortunately be driving a lot of the time in very heavy stop start traffic so electric appears to be the way forward
There was a thread about electric/hybrids a few weeks back: https://www.bmwland.org.uk/index.ph...ng-to-have-one-in-the-future.1501/#post-23134 I made reference to comments from a 330e owner that I met at a local supermarket.
Are you able to charge at home and work? For me, driving the 330e makes most sense if you can exploit the use of electric every drive you make. I see some driving the 330e give realistic mpg figures for real world driving in the 40's. Peter
BMW 330e.....In the 40's real world figures.....(. i' m not doubting you here peter....) what's the point in that.. We're almost going backwards here..... My old golf diesel of 1996 did 60 mpg.....is this what we call progress..... Plus...In today's modern world you are either extremely lucky or retired if your daily commute consists of 12 miles one way and 12 miles back the other....
On another (cough cough) forum there is a thread about the real world range of the 530e and it appears to vary from about 10 to 28 miles on electric only depending upon the time of year and how much tech/heating you turn on. When it's really cold 10/12 miles before the engine kicks in appears normal with full climate on, heated seats/wheel etc. Once your journey is more than about 40 miles then the advantage falls away massively.
Not sure we can really compare, although I do agree we were getting some impressive figures with VW TDI diesels over 15 years ago. PHEV's can give exceptional returns if using electric for all local driving. Problem is when the driving mix really favours a straightforward ICE. Then there is the penalty of carrying around the extra weight. I'm aware of one 330e user, who has driven over 40,000 miles in his, has a long term figure of ~50mpg. He charges at home every night (and at work), gets around on electric for local journeys, that boosts his figures. He also drives long distances, has tried it up to Scotland, then it only returns high 30's low 40's. Another user who has an ideal driving mix for the 330e, home and work charging, has a long term average of ~58mpg. I see Honest John's mpg site shows a 50.5mpg average for the 330e. Peter
Many users are buying into the PHEV models simply as it saves tax, BIK favours the models. A bit of extra fuel is a small price to pay for bigger tax savings. Salesman at my own dealer was pretty honest and said for the average private buyer, there are no real advantages over a simpler and cheaper ICE model for the rural driver. That was already my conclusion. Company car buyers/users, that's where the financial advantages are. Peter
^ ^ This, except I probably have also saved £100 per month on fuel - I spend £50 every two weeks, as appose to £100 on the 640d. That's town mileage where it comes into its own. broadly speaking, urban/rush hour -- on electric I get around 5x the distance on the £6 of electric (100 miles) than £6 of petrol. (20 miles) Motorway, I am same as a petrol version, perhaps slightly better, but negligible. Different make as we know, but same principle.
thanks for your replies guys in a nutshell I think you are saying that if you just pootle around town then electric makes sense however once you hit the motorway and press on a little then the combined mpg is little better than I expect to get from my 12 year old 3 litre diesel, so not good as from what I can see the 330e is in fact a 2 litre engine (correct me if I'm wrong) so maybe i'll revert to what I was originally thinking of a 335D !!! seems that with some care (a hum) you can get high 40's to low 50's if not better Dave
I'm getting an average of 6.08l/100km (46.5mpg) with my 330d - over the last 34K miles -a mixture of UK country roads and long-distance European motorway trips - hardly any town use at all. So a hybrid would be of little use to me. I would have liked a 335d - but they only come with x-drive, and I believe have near standard suspension rather than the lower M-Sport suspension
I agree with you Bob. Our 640d is now stuck on 39.6.... Having got 6500 miles on the trip.... It's the same in the real world.. Brim to brim... With the car and using the gearbox manually to reduce the rpm more than the Auto box would normally allow on a route on 25miles of A roads and 17miles of motorway at around 75 I can get 53mpg...on a regular basis.... ( it's only my wife who screws the thing to death and ruins all my good work) ....I just can't get my head round a hybrid at 38-45 mpg... I am considering in a couple of years a Nissan Leaf for my own daily commute ( don't laugh). By then I am sure both Sheffield and Manchester will have their LEZ in place....and leaving my van at home for use on holidays only... The 640d will most probably be replaced with a Cayman or boxster brand new .. At some stage in the future... But no plans to replace anytime soon..... So now we'll have 3 cars father than 2...!!! That makes about the most sense of all situations..... For the time being anyway.... Just gotta wait and see how other things....( kids and uni' all pan out before we make any firm commitments...) For now it's 640d and onwards... As an aside....my mate had an old vw touran..90k..2004. Audi just offered him 8k scrappage against a very heavily discounted A4.... He's well pleased... Miles better than anything we buy any car combined with a broker for the Audi could do... I suggest keeping all old diesels.. They're going up in value... Not down....
If it helps, I've been very impressed with our hybrid X5. The swap between electric and petrol is seemless. It is great for short trundling trips but any big commutes would rapidly wipe out the battery range. Problem is that they are not cheap. I would stick with your diesel for now.
Cheers caveman I’ve be been reading your post with interest.... The problem for us with all hybrids is real world mpg.... which at the moment is still not great once the electric runs out.... My journey to work and back is 84 miles... so hybrids are just not there yet.... the Nissan type full electric may be the way to go.... in the future...I could always try and convince my wife that hybrid is the way for her to go.... but it would have to look coupe like for her tastes... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hi AS, I think a diesel would be best for your commute. For my wife this is working out very well as we charge overnight and get the most out of the, mostly, short trips that she does. To be fair, if you don't go mad it is not too bad on the motorway though nowhere near what you could get out of a diesel. If the next generation can get 50 to 80 miles then this will really start to get interesting. It has really opened my eyes to the hybrid option though I am still happy to go back to my M3 or my (compared to the M3) economical 993. Maybe that is the secret; get an E46 M3 and then everything will seem economical. Cheers, David
