When ours bit the big one in November, I too wondered if it was a good idea to continue driving it. My dealer was very gracious and immediately offered a rental while we waited as soon as he noticed my concern.

That's really where customer service makes such a big difference. Being without a car for 11 days is a nuisance, and especially if the car is still so new. By offering a rental and being generally helpful at all times, they made the situation much more bearable.

There is good news in all of this, though--most people who had problems at the very beginning ended up needing a new battery, and once replaced, I haven't read of a single repeat problem.

New Battery Experiences

Just thought that I'd update everyone about the new battery experiences to date. We were rather disappointed with the GL's mileage over the first two weeks after the battery replacement. Even with some descent highway trips we only managed a measly 27 USMPG during that period. I put this down to the "reprogramming" that was done after the battery exchange.

We've had two previous reprogramming experiences and after each the mileage was disappointing for the first couple of weeks after it was done. The service manager explained to me that there is an certain amount of artificial intelligence built into the hybrid computer that adjusts to your driving style. After a reprogramming the system has to "relearn" things as the reprogramming wipes out past data.

Anyway, since my last tank top up we carefully monitored the Charge/Assist activity as well as mileage verses fuel gauge level. Over the first two weeks with the new battery the tank level would dip below half after only going 180 miles. That's about what we were getting with the old faulty battery.

It's been a week since we topped up the tank and during this period we began to notice that the fuel gauge wasn't dropping at it's previous rate while at the same time the odometer was climbing. We've been doing a lot of driving in the city and on country roads gathering materials for the planting season. Today after a trip into the countryside and back the tank finally was down to the half way mark and with much hope I decided to fill it up to check what I already guessed would be an improvement. With most (80+%) of this driving at under 50 miles per hour and associated stop and go we didn't expect too much.

The net result was a 31.19 IMPG (26 USMPG) mileage for what was mostly urban driving. ( Resource Canada's city rating for the GL is 32 IMPG) We haven't seen these kind of numbers since last October. Granted the temperature here has been a tad warmer 40F but it was around that during the first two weeks after the new battery. Our previous numbers over the last few months were stuck in the 20-22 USMPG range so this improvement at least looks promising. BTW, our 2006 Vue's mileage over the same period has been in the mid teens.

Cheers!!

Jan