Lexus CT200h for Motorway/A road commuting?
Discussion
Just wondering if anyone has any experience of the Lexus CT200h/Prius for fairly high speed commuting. I've had a drive in one at low speed around town but not yet on a Motorway/A-road.
My commute is 40 miles return on some fairly mundane A-road, 50-60mph with the odd bit of overtaking/passing slower traffic.
I'm looking for a replacement car and (unfortunately?) the CT200h sort of fits the bill - small, nice interior/audio, reliable, Japanese. I'm not exactly sold on the CVT/Hybrid power train but since I've got another car for track my commute has become more about sitting back and listening to music/podcasts.
I would be going from a 2.0 diesel with about 130bhp.
How do these CVT Hybrids like accelerating and cruising at 50mph+? Big concern would be how capable they are at metering speed or accelerate/overtake/join carriageways compared to my current car.
Any comments including abuse are appreciated.
My commute is 40 miles return on some fairly mundane A-road, 50-60mph with the odd bit of overtaking/passing slower traffic.
I'm looking for a replacement car and (unfortunately?) the CT200h sort of fits the bill - small, nice interior/audio, reliable, Japanese. I'm not exactly sold on the CVT/Hybrid power train but since I've got another car for track my commute has become more about sitting back and listening to music/podcasts.
I would be going from a 2.0 diesel with about 130bhp.
How do these CVT Hybrids like accelerating and cruising at 50mph+? Big concern would be how capable they are at metering speed or accelerate/overtake/join carriageways compared to my current car.
Any comments including abuse are appreciated.
I have a CT200h, sold a Merc C250 petrol for it, mainly for the reasons you've highlighted - nice place to sit, decent audio, lots of toys, and better economy. My commute is local A/B roads, A33, M4, A34, c45 miles one way.
Let's get this out of the way first - it's not a quick car however, learn to drive it and it's not slow either. The CVT box doesn't respond well to just mashing the throttle, you get a lot of noise and not much else. Smooth inputs is where it's at, do this and the car just seems to gather pace. I've never had a problem joining motorways or over taking. Inclines can cause an issue sometimes (it's a heavy car) but I drop it into 'sport' (yeh right!) mode which gives you more battery oomph and solves the problem. It sits quite happily at national speed limits, and more, although anything over 80 really canes your economy.
On my commute I see an average of 55-58mpg with no real effort to drive economically. I've had mine 17 months and done 12k miles and have zero complaints. It does what it was bought to do, get me from A to B in comfort, and when I'm sat in traffic on the M4 or wherever it's nice knowing I'm just pootling along on battery power.
If you're looking at 2nd hand go for a 2014 on, they revised the suspension and it's not so hard as the early models. Their trim levels are odd, if you want heated leather you need the Luxury but that has no sat-nav as standard. If you want sat-nav you get 1970's velour trim as standard. Bonkers. I went for a 'Luxury' and use sat-nav on the phone. The F-Sport models are just a derivative, no extra power, just some different external trim bits.
The dealers are ace, nothing is too much trouble and their servicing plans seem good value. The cars are very well built and come mostly fully loaded. Black paint is very soft so marks like buggery but so far I'm quite liking mine. £0 road tax, double the mpg of the merc, cheaper servicing, dealers who care, I'm literally quids in.
Let's get this out of the way first - it's not a quick car however, learn to drive it and it's not slow either. The CVT box doesn't respond well to just mashing the throttle, you get a lot of noise and not much else. Smooth inputs is where it's at, do this and the car just seems to gather pace. I've never had a problem joining motorways or over taking. Inclines can cause an issue sometimes (it's a heavy car) but I drop it into 'sport' (yeh right!) mode which gives you more battery oomph and solves the problem. It sits quite happily at national speed limits, and more, although anything over 80 really canes your economy.
On my commute I see an average of 55-58mpg with no real effort to drive economically. I've had mine 17 months and done 12k miles and have zero complaints. It does what it was bought to do, get me from A to B in comfort, and when I'm sat in traffic on the M4 or wherever it's nice knowing I'm just pootling along on battery power.
If you're looking at 2nd hand go for a 2014 on, they revised the suspension and it's not so hard as the early models. Their trim levels are odd, if you want heated leather you need the Luxury but that has no sat-nav as standard. If you want sat-nav you get 1970's velour trim as standard. Bonkers. I went for a 'Luxury' and use sat-nav on the phone. The F-Sport models are just a derivative, no extra power, just some different external trim bits.
The dealers are ace, nothing is too much trouble and their servicing plans seem good value. The cars are very well built and come mostly fully loaded. Black paint is very soft so marks like buggery but so far I'm quite liking mine. £0 road tax, double the mpg of the merc, cheaper servicing, dealers who care, I'm literally quids in.
Edited by rednotdead on Friday 26th January 14:52
Edited by rednotdead on Friday 26th January 14:53
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