Just a little comment on mpg. I think my car is doing around 48 to 49 miles per gallon as things stand. I've been doing some digging in spritmonitor and there is a decent sized cohort who are getting well under 50 mpg over longish periods. I saw one owner who even had the odd tank under 40 mpg. The lowest mpg, for a tank, was 36 mpg.
We are still in the winter but I can't see me ever getting close to 60 mpg, even on a run.
What am I doing wrong? I drive like a granny on sedatives. Don't get me wrong, the mpg is significantly better than the Mk3 but 60 mpg? How?
It seems to be a combination of time,speed and temperature.
If I stay under 50mph on journeys I can easily get 60+mpg.
Journeys need to be sufficient distance/time - say 20+ miles.
The first start of the day after being parked outside is always lower in the cold/freezing weather. The second trip gets better mpg as the engine/cabin are already warm.
I don’t baby the accelerator- something I learned from Prius. Car engines are most efficient under 80% load, so accelerating briskly up to the speed limit and then maintaining the speed maybe the car will use EV mode quite a bit once cruising.
FYI hybrid cars work backwards to ordinary ones - they get worse mpg on a run, and better mpg when stuck in slow moving traffic.