I've been shopping for a high mpg commuter with some utility and one of these popped up local to me. It's an '06 with 140,000+ miles listed for what I think is a decent price.
I don't know much about these and I'm wondering about the longevity of the hybrid components and the cvt.
Anybody have the poop on these?
I looked into one of these extensively.
The only real difficulties are if you want to tow with it, the 1000lb tow rating is because Reverse is electric only, it's not in the transmission. Oh and there's no engine braking if the battery is charged, which may get problematic on long grades.
There was also something weird with needing the electric motor when going uphill over a certain speed, and if you drain the battery on a grade, your speed drops dramatically. I forget the full details because I kind of signed out of the idea by the time I was reading into that.
I was reading about using as a tow vehicle. As a regular drivin' vehicle they are anvils. One of my customers has something like 180k on one and you'll find similar stories online.
We have a bunch of them at work and they seem to be pretty reliable. The interiors on a couple are a bit rough but they are used three shifts a day.
I know for a while there they were really popular with taxi companies because the hybrid system was indestructible.
An ex-colleague of mine has an AWD one as his winter vehicle. Just seems to soldier on with minimal regular maintenance and get him 25-ish mpg driving in the mountains around Tahoe.
Thanks. I'll have to carve out some time to go drive it.
Looks like I didn't act quickly enough, it's already gone.
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