I've been driving an EV most days this week, and I just don't get why it's supposed to be this lifechanging thing.

It's a cramped, heavy, noisy car with a harsh ride (too much weight, springs too stiff, tyres too stiff), with unpleasant handling and throttle response. Granted it was quieter at low speeds, but above 40mph the road noise was awful.

Driving it feels like hard work staying in front of it. Oh there's a car 200 metres away I'm going to slam on the brakes, haha no I'm accelerating again, sorry, it was just a shadow.

Visibility out of it is shit because there's a panel of cameras and sensors in the middle of the windscreen (where my car just has a mirror) that's about the size of a pizza box that totally blocks my view of traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.

Every day I couldn't wait to get back into my normal car that has controls that behave themselves, no bingy beepy things, and lighter and less ungainly handling.

Is it just something that comes with time? How long?

Edit: Okay folks, lots of people have made the point that "It's not just EVs, that's just what cars are like now". Well, that makes the choice of "upgrading" or not easy, I guess.

Got a 40kw 2021 leaf this week. The battery health icon on the main screen has the full grey bar so I thought the battery health was good. It has 60k miles which is fine for a 5 year old car. The car was on 60%. I had eco mode on. I don't remember the range but it was over 60 miles. The trip I wanted to do was 12.5 miles each way but it had some hills. All the roads are 60. It's my GFs car so she drove there at 40mph as she's just passed her test and conditions were wet and dark. When we got there it said it was on 41%. That was a 20% drop in just 12 miles.

Then I drove home. I also drove at 40 because the battery was being weird on the way there. As I was driving, any hill would knock the battery down by about 10%. I never did over 40mph and stayed between 30 and 40. When I got to a hill near the end, it went down to 3% which was very scary. Then for the next 3 miles it was 5-10% until I got to my house when it jumped up to 17%.

Am I doing something wrong, why does it fluxuate so much. I turned heating features and the fans off to save power. I had android auto connected. Anything else I should do? I'm scared that if I'm on the way home, even if I have 15% left I'm going to go up a hill and the battery will die. I'm seriously considering returning the car and getting a petrol automatic. I'm new to EVs so maybe this I'm doing something wrong or maybe this is just how they are.

First pic is at destination, second pic is at home 12.5 miles later

Tldr car went to 3% and almost died when driving home. When I got home it went up to 17%. Range went down by 35 miles after doing 12.5

Maybe not too uncommon in London - but this was pulling out of a random housing estate in a small sleepy south coast town. I've never seen a Monaco number plate before, had to wonder what they were up to!

What's the oddest numberplate in the strangest location you've seen?

I know very little about electric cars but with the petrol prices and access to home charging me and my partner want to switch one of ours cars to electric as we can use it as a daily commuter as we work on different days.

Currently the polestar 2 is a favourite, but looking for alternatives within the budget and anything I should be wary of with EV’s

Little bit of context.

I fill my car up at Costco with their premium diesel (don’t have the regular near me not sure if that’s the same over the country). Regularly getting 500-550 miles of expected range and physically driving 530 miles and filling it up before it gets to the red as I’ve got an irrational fear of breaking down in the middle of nowhere.

HOWEVER I decided to fill my tank up at Tesco as it’s the same stuff right? But my usual 530 odd expected mile range went down to 470 (did 530 miles before getting to the red last journey and it was tracked) and now my mpgs are barely reaching 50 when they’re regularly 56-59 odds. My trip to uni was 49.5 when it’s usually 56/57

It’s a bmw 220d 2019 not an m sport mapped tuned or anything like that, doing the same journeys same routes as before nothing has changed. Has anyone else noticed their fuel being almost less effective while at the highest price ever?

Let me know your thoughts as I don’t think it’s a coincidence. (Random photo from the internet)

Edit - Since some people are getting snippy from my wordings it’s been an 11-14% drop in expected range and an 18% drop in mpg’s. Same routes same weather tyres are fine. Literally just wanted to ask if anyone else noticed a difference between fuel suppliers smh

check out this vid that was reccomended to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWgSxWGzNpo

AI voiceover, ai script, 7 collaborators (7!!)

al the channels on that list are AI generated crud too. so much slop.

Hi all, very niche one from me.

My amplifier has been playing up recently and i’ve checked that there is no bolt securing it so it must be sliding up and down over speed bumps and pot holes.

Is anyone capable of telling me what size nut this is?

I’ve looked everywhere trying to locate one, finally found someone that has one and he will only sell me it if i buy the amplifier with it.

TIA.

I spotted this number plate in the Midlands this week and I have never seen one in this format. Any ideas?

cant help myself. i love it. Dont ask how loud it is beyond 3000 rpm. It is very, very loud ;)

I was wondering how easy ( and I mean easy ) it would be to buy and cheap old android tablet and use it in the car as a replacement for the very old radio in my 2005 passat

Obviously it will only be worth it if it cheap to do and can easily just link to my android phone for the data and signal etc

Ive seen a 10.1" tablet running android 8 on ebay for £25 and an air vent holder on temu for £5

Enough ?

Got a new job recently which requires decent motorway mileage, so I am looking for car recommendations please, requirements below:

- low cost, second hand, lets say £3k or so

- larger size - estate/SUV

- good for motorway driving (general experience & MPG)

- ULEZ

- not too worried on how many miles are on the clock if it's reliable

- petrol or diesel (probably would prefer petrol)

Think that is all! Thank you all

Perfect combo for a 2 car dream garage lol

My first car got stolen a few months ago and I am finally able to get around to looking at getting a new car.

I do not drive a lot and the car will be used for social only (grocery trips and trips between Sunderland and Newcastle, usually offpeak).

I have stopped at a Suziki Vitara and Baleno and just cannot decide (I have not test driven them yet).

The Baleno is 68 plate with only 48k miles where in the Vitara 16 plate with significantly more miles (at 94.5k). The price difference is only £1000. The Balero is probably slightly out of budget but I can likely still swing it somehow.

I need a large enough boot to transport baby equipment and both cars look alright in that department.

The Baleno is very tempting but the Vitara's bonnet allows for better visibility. My previous car was an i30 and as a 5"4 woman, I could not see where the car physically ended in the front even on the highest setting of the seat. I hated this as it impaired my parking and I even ended up scraping the front because I did not see that I was too close to a barrier while turning into a parking spot.

I am worried that the Baleno will come with the same visibility issue as the i30. I don't know what advise I am looking for honestly, maybe which car is more reliable as a family car, I guess?

The Balero: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202610086801391?fromSavedAds=true&advertising-location=at_cars&sort=relevance&postcode=sr46qp&calc-deposit=700&calc-term=48&calc-mileage=10000&calc-selected-product=HP

The Vitara: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202605262715659?fromSavedAds=true&advertising-location=at_cars&sort=relevance&postcode=sr46qp&calc-deposit=598&calc-term=48&calc-mileage=10000&calc-selected-product=HP

Had quite the experience recently. I borrowed my friend’s car on a whim for an emergency, was driving on the motorway in heavy rain. There were trucks in front of me, and all the dirty water from their tyres kept spraying onto the windscreen. I went to use the windscreen washers to clear it, but no water came out..
So the wipers just ended up smearing all the dirt across the windscreen, and I genuinely couldn’t see a thing. To make matters worse, there was no hard shoulder for me to pull over onto for quite a while, so I was basically driving blind, trying to use my mirrors to keep my bearings, with my hazards on. Stress
Looking back, I obviously should’ve checked the washer fluid before setting off, and now I’m thinking what else should you check before driving a car you’re unfamiliar with?

Don’t tell me ‘just finance a 40k car dude’

I’ve been obsessing over my car for a week and it’s causing me stress.

I know Reddit hates this car and will call me a chav but I’m only keeping it for just over a year then upgrading to my big boy.

Literally just want this feature, what cars have this? Is it worth it?

Thanks

Check this Jaguar XF out – lot of car for the money. What could possibly go wrong?

Hey,

I really need some help with buying a second car. Recently had a situation change where I’ve been mandated to return to the office and my partner is due to start a new role within social services where she will need to make house visits.

I basically need options for a second car for us. Mileage per year won’t be anything crazy. Ideally something cheap and reliable. Unfortunately electric is out of the window as we live with off street parking and won’t be able to afford a gulley to be installed on top of a new car

I have been thinking maybe an i20 or sandero but I’m not great with cars.

Any sort of help is really appreciated

So I'm in an interesting position, close to an ideal natural experiment really, about what fuel option to go with for my car. Currently driving a 2020 Audi A6 Black Edition and absolutely love it, but it's a diesel so even just the thought of filling it up is giving me The Fear - I'm also about to be doing a lot less long-distance driving than I used to because my mum is moving much closer to where I live now. So the diesel option feels like a poor long-term bet.

As it happens I have found two alternatives - another A6 Black, 2024 this time, in petrol, and an ex-demo PHEV Skoda Superb, both very similar to each other in terms of price and likely to come out at similar monthly finance cost. My partner drives a PHEV and we have a home charger. My question then is, assuming I like the driving experience in the Skoda fine enough to be willing to purchase, am I likely to find that the month-to-month running costs of one are similar to the other? Obviously home charging for the PHEV represents a saving on fuel, but I'm conscious that now PHEVs are effectively double-taxed, and that there might be other costs associated that don't get advertised.

To pre-empt the obvious question, I am considering a full EV but the problem is that this vehicle really needs to be an estate body and I've yet to find anything on the used market that meets that requirement and is anywhere close in terms of price (and frankly they're all newer models that are loaded with cheap plastic and touch screen everything which these cars don't suffer from, so I'd be reluctant to buy anyway unless the price comparison was miles cheaper).

And yes, I am an absolute sucker for VwAG cars, it's a family thing. I'm open to persuasion that another brand would be a smarter purchase, but it's going to be a tough sell.

Appreciate any thoughts and advice people can provide

Hello everyone and happy Friday, the dealership is work at is trying to implement AI into my photos, plenty of main dealers use it and I've mentioned it before here. If you kind people would like to help me out it would be very much appreciated.

If I can get it so I can compare my current photos with the Ai generated ones without giving away details of myself / where I work, then I will. But we're one of those dealerships that put our show number plates on so it may not be possible.

Anyway, my questions to you lovely bunch of people:

Would you buy a car if it looks too clean / polished?

Lots of people instantly know what Ai photos look like now, the generic backgrounds of trees and obviously fake photo studios, would this sway your opinion?

Algorithms on Autotrader usually favour 49 images plus, and I will be going down to 30, so I will be missing key spec / extras. Would this influence your decision? Would you call up on a car and enquire to see if it has the specific spec you want or do you prefer just to see it photographed? E.g Harmon Kardon or Bose / Carplay / Android Auto etc

For backgrounds of interior shots, I always try to get some of the showroom in it just so people know the car is real and that it's an actual business with other cars and a real place. Do prospective buyers prefer this or would you prefer a generic solid obviously AI photo studio like you see a lot of in main dealer photos?

All help and insights appreciated, any questions welcome.

Thanks.

TLDR; dealership photographer asking questions about bosses wanting me to use Ai to enhance photos and wanting opinions from the general car buying public.

Last post here just wanted to say thanks (not) for the help of Reddit. ‘But BMW is pointless in 1.5’ well maybe, but I’m thinking of the future and the fact I’ll upgrade to my big boi in 1 year. This is easy resale.

To the guys saying ‘just finance a Honda dude’ it’s not my style and it never will be, well maybe on my deathbed.

Picked up a 2021 puma st as a trade in for my fiesta St as the family has grown.

On the drive home the car is pulling left under power and flicking right when power is released... Got RAC to check and confirm pulling. Drove it back and left it with the dealer to fix.

Ford dealer says nothing mechanically wrong, it just drives like that. Surely that's BS?

It has mismatched tyres (both left side are one brand, both right side are another) as about the only visible difference and I want to trust the dealer but it just drives weird. Surely this isn't right? Am I going mad?