Funny enough I had one of the first GTE’s stopped working after a couple of weeks. Dealer took it back as it came up with hybrid fault. Took them 2 months to decide it was just a bad 12v battery. Only good thing was they lent me another car during the time and paid for the fuel! 

Harry is going to add triangular fillets to each of the rear arm brackets .

Be so good to get the rear end finished . 

Yep. A mate had a brand new Hyundai Ioniq (or ironic). Stopped working and AA man diagnosed 12V battery flat. Went back to dealer. They said they couldn't diagnose the fault because the 12V battery was flat and needed 'a special part' from Hyundai to charge it. Six, yes six months, later fault still undiagnosed and car still VOR. Lease company gave him the Kia he had eventually managed to extract from them as a replacement vehicle. So far so good. Mind you another mate has a two year old Discovery 5 that went into permanent limp mode. Took it to his usual 'man' from whom he had purchased said vehicle. LR diagnostics weren't showing anything wrong with the car so the 'man' brought in LR for advice. They scratched their heads and said car needed an entire new wiring loom (FFS) and if my mate wanted to proceed they could get that done in about 6 months time. And after he got a new mortgage! His man (who is old-ish school and really quite excellent) took an educated guess and replaced the MAF sensor and lo and behold the car worked again. I'm glad I have a car designed and sold by people who actually knew how it worked.

Things you would not guess . 

yep very stupid! Even stranger is that you have to have the 12V battery working. If its flat you cant do anything with the car even if the EV battery is full!

Just spent a great weekend, watching Grandson No.1 play hockey!   Last year, I reported their team's success in the Under-11 North Western Championship, and now he's in the Under-13s team.     This time, in a round-robin tournament for Cheshire clubs, they made it to the semi-finals, and hoped at least to be in the Final, as both Final teams go through the North Western contest and if they do well there to the Nationals. But through some odd and ill-judged seeding, their semi-final was against the other Cheshire contender for the  Nationals, that they beat last year, so this was the Final that should have been!  And as in all good tragedies, they lost by the only goal scored!   Much disappointment, which we all took like the jealous grandparents that we are.    Just wait, Chester, we'll get you next year! John

Glad you like it, because an electric car, even a hybrid, that goes flat when you plug it in to recharge, sounds a bit - well - dud!  

Oh yeah!    The rest sounds pretty depressing really. Best thing about my current cheap Chinese hire car is no fancy driver “aids” beyond a rather clunky cruise control. Even the CVT auto is adequate (manual would be preferred though)

Our last 2 new cars have been successively worse in terms on on-board systems and software quality. I wish we could go back to the car we had 6 or 7 years ago when stuff either worked or you could permanently disable them. Our previous Suzuki Vitara (21 plate) - lane departure warnings all over the place, emergency collision warnings randomly (although not when actually hit by another car), driver assist speed limit wrong more than it was right. Current Skoda (24 plate) - random issues with the touch-screen/sat-nav, lane departure damaging my wife's wrists (it's wrong and it tries to force you back in lane, but actually tries to drive you off the road or into on-coming traffic), random collision warnings. As somebody who works in the software world I can say it's all about cost. The more reliable you want the software the more it'll cost. Just look at Boeing saving money on the systems for the 737 max and how successful that wasn't.  Next time we look to replace the car (probably 2027) I'll be advocating a low mileage 10yo base model without all the BS "driver aids" instead of new.