so.. who misses their ICE car....

[Narrowgauge725]

Been driving the wife’s Smart ICE, lazy gear change, stupid stop start that you have to turn off every time you get in otherwise it stops just when you want to go quickly.

Sorry I will never go back to an ICE vehicle of my own.

 

[DrCAN]

Quite a long time since I had one. As far as I can gather newer ones are stuffed with the sort of half blown software we now all suffer from. My previous EV (BMW I3) was delightfully bug-free as was its hybrid predecessor.

So ownership 10-15 years ago was probably the optimal time for owning an ICE car: I still miss my SAABs, but maybe it is pure nostalgia on my part.

Environmentally and cost-wise there is no contest. No one should want to regress or even buy a diesel!

 

[Davn]

Quite a long time since I had one. As far as I can gather newer ones are stuffed with the sort of half blown software we now all suffer from. My previous EV (BMW I3) was delightfully bug-free as was its hybrid predecessor.

So ownership 10-15 years ago was probably the optimal time for owning an ICE car: I still miss my SAABs, but maybe it is pure nostalgia on my part.

Environmentally and cost-wise there is no contest. No one should want to regress or even buy a diesel!

I'm with you on missing my SAAB but is diesel any worse than all the stuff that goes in to our batteries?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. You can only burn diesel once.

 

[Ian Key]

I'm with you on missing my SAAB but is diesel any worse than all the stuff that goes in to our batteries?

At the moment if you are charging from the grid about 42% of the energy that goes into our batteries is renewable rising to a predicted 80% in 2030. Diesel will remain at 0%

 

[Rolfe]

Oh, did he mean the electricity? I thought he was talking about cobalt and manganese and lithium and so on.

 

[Fluffykins]

There's a couple of things that I miss from my old Passat estate: the boot was significantly larger than the MG5's and the rear seats folded properly. With squab up against the front seats and the back dropped fully down to give a longer and flat floor. Oh, and I didn't have to wait for ages for the infotainment to respond.
But that's about all. Boot space and flat floor is really only an issue a couple of times a year and I can live with the lethargic infotainment (just), though if anyone does come up with a fully compatible alternative I'd be interested.
Loving the peace and quiet, the refined drive, the grunt available and not having to mess with slippery, smelly diesel forecourts.

 

[Tangoed Man]

I have very mixed feelings about this. I love driving our MG4, especially for shorter journeys. I retain my quite rare fully-loaded E-class estate diesel and like it’s virtually zero NOx emissions, air suspension, luxurious ride and interior, matrix headlights, 64mpg, and 1,000 miles between ‘charges’. But I also love driving the MG4 and for its price point I don’t think it can be beaten by anything else either ICE, Hybrid, or EV.

I am pretty sure this will be my last ICE car, but not for awhile, and I am looking forward to the excellent EV’s coming through in the next few years. By then I hope dealerships will have a lot more experience in fixing EV problems (my brother’s 7-month old Hyundai Ioniq 6 has been in pieces at the dealership for getting on 3-weeks and they are simply struggling to even diagnose the problem, and whatever parts it needs are likely to have to be flown in from Korea.

One thing that did strike me was whilst being driven in a Tesla Model S for a while I looked around the rather bland and lack-lustre interior and concluded it didn’t feel like a £90,000 car. My friend caught me so observing and said out loud exactly what I was thinking and confessed that, too, was his major ‘negative’ about driving a Tesla. I guess that is a case of expectation and I realise I need to reset my expectations for the middle to luxury end of a what is important in a modern car. I sat in both a Mercedes EQS and EQE - both truly impressive - but, oh, that price tag. If only you could get a new Lucid Air for £50,000 …….

 

[CarlThom]

There are some aspects that my Peugeot 307 sw that I miss, the fact I could chuck building materials , tools etc in , 2.4 m lengths of timber ,completely remove the rear seats and there is loads of space for the dogs . I have not yet disturbed the pristine nature of the MG , in fact its still on the mantlepiece in its box awaiting courage or desperation.

MG5SWEV??

 

[EVsince2016]

I switched to EV in June 2016. When I owned my early LEAF I did sometimes miss the heating in winter and longer range for longer trips, I felt that I needed an ICE to go on long trips sometimes, but hated driving the ICE, even though my wife's ICE was nice to drive, I think regen braking was the biggest issue, plus the smell.

Now I'm on the MG5 there's nothing I miss, maybe slightly larger boot in my old estate but that's all. I last drove an old ICE last April when I sold my wife's old banger & drove it to the buyer.

I don't miss petrol stations, the noise, smell, hard work, maintenance or anything really. I will never go back & probably would never drive one ever again.

 

[MG Fred]

There are some aspects that my Peugeot 307 sw that I miss, the fact I could chuck building materials , tools etc in , 2.4 m lengths of timber ,completely remove the rear seats and there is loads of space for the dogs . I have not yet disturbed the pristine nature of the MG , in fact its still on the mantlepiece in its box awaiting courage or desperation.

I can sympathise with that view, I also have an old car, a Freelander 1.8 (turbo’d) for van type duties of wood etc and dogs and as a hobby car. However I have used the MG4 for dog trips as well, I fitted my all round boot cover, originally from a discovery sport, that fits ok’ish.

I am not missing an ICE engine with the MG4 (Xpower) as it is just a better power plant, especially for the money. Can help thinking ICE cars are now old fashioned in a rather quaint way.

 

[RogerWill]

MG 4 replaced a 1.8 lpg converted TF. I miss having the beater that I threw around but don’t miss the noise, vibration or going to the gas or petrol station. I’ve kept my other car as it’s a little diesel for if there is an unplanned emergency or a long journey (my maths says I’m better off on a jaunt just paying for diesel vs going in the 4 and having to wait at rip off public chargers).

Getting back into a 1.1diesel Rio feels like going back in time.

For info how economical is your Rio? I had a 2016 i20 2.1 D. 1st 28 months AVG 62 mpg. All this time something was amiss. Eventually by default (an ex Peugeot technician arrived at the Hyundai dealership) it was sorted - too much/often diesel was "cleaning" the catalyser.

The last 18 months AVG 71 mpg, loved driving it, happy to stir the nice 6 speed gearbox, noting torque band was 1750 to 2500 rpm, so 750 rpm narrow. Methinks the slightly smaller/lighter old style Rio had the 1.1D so would expect even better mpg.

Do you have the i20/Rio clone?

 

[3sheds]

Only thing I miss is not having a seven seater. I used to have a 2012 deisel Peugeot 5008. Maybe one day I'll replace my mg5 with a second hand 7 seater ev when they become available... and cheap enough.

 

[gazza487]

For info how economical is your Rio? I had a 2016 i20 2.1 D. 1st 28 months AVG 62 mpg. All this time something was amiss. Eventually by default (an ex Peugeot technician arrived at the Hyundai dealership) it was sorted - too much/often diesel was "cleaning" the catalyser.

The last 18 months AVG 71 mpg, loved driving it, happy to stir the nice 6 speed gearbox, noting torque band was 1750 to 2500 rpm, so 750 rpm narrow. Methinks the slightly smaller/lighter old style Rio had the 1.1D so would expect even better mpg.

1.1. Crdi eco dynamics 2014 horrifically underpowered, no luxuries etc. Paying zero attention to economy and keeping up with traffic (so a pretty hard life for 74 raging Korean horses from the rattley 3 cylinder) 69mpg and that isn’t the liar gauge, that’s reality. It’s rated at something like 81. It isn’t loved or coddled and is probably the most reliable motor I’ve ever owned. 70k miles with me and it’s had 2 sets of front pads and discs, a fan belt plus normal servicing only.

 

[acl]

The only thing I miss is the range. Most of the time that doesn't bother me but there have been a couple of times it has E.g. I rented a Vauxhall Corsa this last week for a trip because I could do without the grief and expense of public chargers. It's funny because I could have rented a polestar 2 for the price of a crappy Corsa but it's not worth it to me.

But in terms of driving experience, comfort, responsiveness etc there is no way in hell I would want to buy another ICE car. I really like driving my MG4 and nothing I've ever owned or rented comes anywhere close to it. I suppose if had bought some crappy EV I might have another opinion but I did my due diligence.

 

[turntoport]

'going backwards in time' sums up many EV drivers feelings towards icecling. For sure, I'm one (my wife too) who wouldn't remotely consider it. The MG4's really good, but oh, the honda e; sticky pants - almost (shame about the range.)
I am just a tiny bit tempted to buy a Peugeot 205 diesel, xud 7 or 9, non turbo, and sorn it just in case ww3 kicks off.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm thinking there are few circumstances where the range of my (SR) car is going to be an issue. I drove to Glasgow and back last night to the theatre, nearly 100 miles and only 3.0 miles/KWh, probably because it was chilly (5C) and I had the heater on the entire way. I still had no worries at all about range (although I could have charged on a type 2 in the car park during the opera if I had wanted to) and I got back on 33% charge. I haven't needed the car today. I plugged the granny charger in when I got home about 11.40 last night and the app is showing 97% charge now. I'm unlikely to want to go more than a 100-mile round trip in one day in winter in normal circumstances.

However. I am intending to drive from a friend's house to her brother's house on Boxing Day, carrying said friend and her husband. Brother's house is either 113 miles away (by motorway) or 100 miles away (cutting a corner through Huddersfield). I'd prefer to drive the motorway, but common sense is telling me that in midwinter with two extra adults in the car, the 100-mile route is the prudent one. What I do not want to do is to have to break the journey with my friends in the car. I want to get all the way to our destination on one charge.

Once there, I'll decant my passengers and bugger-off to an electric forecourt six miles away to charge up on their 150 Kw chargers. I'll try to get up over 90% there so that I can go back to my friend's brother's house and go all the way to 100% (and balance) on my granny charger while we're eating roast beef and Yorkshire pud and playing silly party games. Then we should be sorted for the trip back in the evening without any stops.

Obviously, my ICE car could have done all this on one tank of petrol. Really, on not much more than half a tank. But when I had my ICE car I was quite inventive with my excuses about why I shouldn't be the one to drive. I disliked the trip a lot, even though it was fun when we got there. This year I have actually volunteered to do it, despite being in an EV which will have to be charged at some point during the day, and which is in fact likely to be a slightly close thing for the length of the journey given the time of year and the load.

Now the two ICE drivers who would normally have been deciding which one of them was going to drive, are thanking me profusely for my offer, and I'm contemplating the drive with complete equanimity. I don't entirely understand why the MG4 is such a joy to drive that I'm thinking up reasons to drive it, even when I'm playing with the edge of its range, but it is.

 

[profdraper]

There’s no going back really, after having experienced zero gears, huge torque & great acceleration & regen breaking on any EV … I’ve had some very nice ICE cars in the past & especially loved my Audi & Saab cabrios, but that was more about aesthetics.

Meanwhile the more luxury EV sector is looking pretty good now. BYD Seal is one standout & also with amazing LFP blade battery tech across all range variants; another that very much impressed me recently is the Genesis GV60 (Hyundai’s luxury spinoff).

Still, my 22 ZS EV LFP drives so well.

 

[Rolfe]

I've just had an attack of masochism and posted a load of accusations of the whole thing being rigged under The McMaster's highly contrived YouTube John O'Groat's to Land's End tale of woe. Oh, the declarations that EVs are junk and useless and so on.

EVs are going to do to ICE cars what digital cameras did to 35 mm film, and for much the same reasons.

 

[OriginalBigAl]

Another point to remember is, Boxing Day as normally a full football programme and as it's the holidays lots of travelling fans, how many have EVs could not say, thinking about the charger availability, good luck.