Goodbye and Hello.
 

Goodbye.
After 2 years, 10 months and 87,000 miles, I've waved a fond farewell to the Mini Cooper Clubman.

On reflection, it was a pretty good tool. Had it been the diesel I ordered and not the petrol version delivered by the CH company, I'd have said it was excellent for my purposes.

£540 for five years/80K miles of servicing was a superb deal. The appetite for 17" 205 45 run-flats wasn't so attractive. Brake pad costs have been an issue too.

Problems have been limited to a faulty Club door latch, two sets of rear anti-roll bar bushes and a replacement iDrive controller.

Some aspects of the interior we a little iffy (the 'Airfix quality' stereo controls being the most notable), but rest was good and nothing fell off. And there were PLENTY of toys to keep one amused whilst stuck in traffic.

Economy has been very good for what is a reasonably 'nippy', but portly, petrol-fueled car. Its average was 43 - 44 mpg.

The list price was a smidgen under £24K (it had almost £9K of extras in addition the price of the basic car...) and the CH offered a buy price £7,600. Dismissing the effect of the options, not a bad residual for a leggy, three year old car.

Hello.
The Toyota Prius T-Spirit has arrived - with only one option; an iPod interface. This isn't a patch on the Mini's iPod interface, but at £300 and pretty much half the price of the Mini's, I guess it wasn't going to be.

The Park Assist is completely bollocks.

The HUD for the speedometer, power/fuel usage and navigation is excellent.

The Prius is an auto' of course and this is one of the mains reasons for going for it. And other than that, the Prius is the equivalent of a Panasonic washing machine - and that is precisely why I have one.

Interesting stuff - I'll pass the Clubman comments on to a friend of mine who has one - though his is an S.

I'm very interested in how the Prius performs, especially with regards to fuel economy, as thre is so much talk about that.

thats really boring.

wowzer.. the prius is the antipody of a petrolheads dream car, it weighs 8 tons, doesnt have a noteworthy engine, looks awful..

it's as you say - a utility - be interesting to see how it compares to that mini over time

horses for courses but how good is this horse...

The display is indicating an average of 53.6 mpg - that's the result of the delivery driver's journey of 268 miles from Jemca Toyota on the Edgware Road to lovely Darlington.

See, I told you a lot of BS was talked abut the Prius:

Figures from Parkers
Prius weighs 1,370kg
A4: 1,410kg - 1,690kg
Passat TDI: 1,500kg
BMW 3er - 1,360kg - 1,580kg

i.e the Prius is quite light.

1420 kg kerb weight as compared to the Mini's 1220 kg (but that excludes the weight of options...). For comparison, a Bluemotion Golf DSG weighs in at 1340 kg.

I rather like the Prius styling; it's a function of aerodynamics rather than stylistic whim, so in that sense it has credibility.

If this Prius is as good as the 2nd Prius I had prior to the Mini, it will never have a spanner on it other than for routine servicing.

I admire you for having the courage to do your bit but why cant they make it look a little easier on the eye? It wouldnt look out of place in Logans Run (The Michael York Sci Fi series from yesteryear).

LG - you're not comparing like for like regardless of it looking to be a reasonable weight..

Prius is Focus sized - 4.46m long, 1.745 wide
A4 - 4.7m, 1.826 wide

also not sure how the figures pan out - 1300kg is listed as min weight, 1800kg as gross.. not sure what the gross includes?

The Pious is a tall c-segment (like a Golf Plus) not a d.

The acid test would be against Diesel golf pluses, really. If you can stand Diesel...

The CR-Z is even harder to place; it's closest to a Mini Diesel, I suppose. One with a broken turbocharger.