I haven't been around in a while, and was going to add this to Steve's post, but it's not really my one year anniversary yet. A year ago, Memorial Day weekend 2006, we put down our deposit for my Jasper Pearl TCH. It didn't arrive until August, but it was well worth the wait!

My FE during the winter (~34-36mpg) was not as good as my FE in the summer (38-40mpg), but now that temps are well above freezing and I'm not using the heat at all my FE is back up again. My current tank is 39.1mpg (half tank).

I have a little more than 7500 miles, and have had two oil changes. My car's record in the dealership database has a "big, strongly-worded note" indicating that ONLY synthetic 0W-20 is to be used in it. Instead of free oil changes I get almost-free oil changes, as I have to pay the difference between the free fossil oil and their cost of the Mobile-1 I want them to use in my car (which the parts department assures me they will stock adequately, so that when I come in for oil changes I won't have to go buy it myself ). Oh, I found out about the note, because when my husband took his RAV4 for its first oil change last week the guy asked him immediately if he wanted synthetic. DH said, "No, that's my wife's car." And the guy told him about the note LOL. I think they put that note in after I made them re-change my oil after they put 5W-20 in it despite my explicit and repeated instructions that they use synthetic 0W-20 when I brought the car in for the 7500 mile service.

In regard to the free oil change issue, I have spoken with the customer relations manager and my salesperson and told both that they need to add some kind of notation that makes it clear that synthetic 0W-20 for hybrids will not be completely free to all of the documents they have stating that the car's oil changes are "free for life". They both agreed that it was a good idea... we'll see if they do it.

The squeak... I had the console squeak, but only got it fixed at the 7500 mile service, because I didn't want the hassle of leaving my car with them for any length of time on a weekday. It has been almost a month and since they fixed it it has not returned. My car is now even more quiet than before... I love the quiet.

I still get compliments on the color, and I still love it.

I LOVE having all of the controls on the steering wheel. I am totally spoiled by that. When I drive the RAV4 (a Limited that only has the audio controls on the wheel) I feel like it's not as convenient as my car.

The TCH doesn't seem to be as hard to come by as it was a year ago. I regularly see five others in the area, including two owned by my employer. My dealership usually has at least two in their inventory online. Their inventory currently includes two of the anniversary edition models! Does anyone have one of those yet? I'm not a big fan of white vehicles, but I like that blizzard pearl white color...

Hope that everyone is still enjoying their TCH as much as I am still enjoying mine!

 

Lilarienne, I thought of you yesterday when I saw my first-ever Jasper Pearl TCH. It was on the freeway from San Diego to Los Angeles, and it was stunning. I still can see how it would be controversial, but now that I've seen it in person, it's easy to understand how you could fall in love with that color. Plus, there is no confusing it with anyone else's car in the parking lot. Glad to hear you're still happy with your purchase.

 

Thanks, Steve.

Yes, it is a bonus that there are so few Jasper Pearls around when I can't remember exactly where I parked... All I have to do is look across the lot for that lovely green.

 

Lilarienne We have just last month purchased a TCH, 50th Anniversary edition, in rhe Pearl, very nice, I also said I'de never have a white car, but it is distinctive and easy to pick out in a parking lot. Getting about 39.5 MPG with 2200 miles total. Ray Jessenhttps://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/images/smilies/emotikons/smile.gif

 

Congrats on your anniversary edition. The one I saw made me change my opinion about white cars .

 

Well, it's been only 10 months for me, but I thought the following comparison might be of interest. I compared the fuel usage of my previous 1993 Camry V6 LE (3.0 liter, 185 hp) for the 10-month period July 2005 through May 2006, to my 2007 TCH (187 total hp, and about as peppy as the V6 was) for the comparable 10-month period July 2006 through May 2007. This period includes last summer, fall, and winter. My driving is largely in-town, short-trip (maybe 2/3rds of the total mileage) and 1/3 on the highway. This is what I found:

Camry V6 — 12 296 km / 1 463 L => 11.9 L/100 km = 19.8 mpgUS = 23.7 mpgIMP

Camry Hybrid — 13 857 km / 963.4 L => 6.95 L/100 km = 33.8 mpgUS = 40.6 mpgIMP

That's a 42% overall reduction in gasoline usage (i.e., a 42% improvement in fuel efficiency) from switching to the hybrid. I'm impressed! Yes, the hybrid's FE drops dramatically in winter stop-start driving here in Ontario, but so does the FE of regular vehicles.

Stan

P.S. I had a block heater fitted at the end of last year, after I saw how long it took for the car to reach operating temperature when the weather was cold. In two-and-a-half hours the block heater raises the block temperature by ~30 degrees Celsius above the ambient temperature. This makes warm-up very much faster, reduces ICE wear, provides cabin heat sooner, and at 10 cents/kWh costs me only ~10 cents per day — definitely less than the cost of the fuel saved.

 

1-Year Update:
My TCH has now had its first birthday (July 21), and so I thought I'd update my post #6 with a full year's worth of data. I compared the fuel usage of my previous 1993 Camry V6 LE (3.0 liter, 185 hp) for the 12-month period July 2005 to July 2006, to my 2007 TCH (187 total hp, and about as peppy as the V6 was) for the comparable 12-month period July 2006 to July 2007. My driving is largely in-town, short-trip (maybe 2/3rds of the total mileage) and 1/3 on the highway. This is what I found:

Camry V6 — 14 205 km / 1 674 L => 11.8 L/100 km = 20.0 mpgUS = 23.9 mpgIMP

Camry Hybrid — 15 568 km / 1 075 L => 6.90 L/100 km = 34.1 mpgUS = 40.9 mpgIMP

That's a 41% overall reduction in gasoline usage (i.e., a 41% improvement in fuel efficiency) from switching to the hybrid. I'm impressed! Yes, the hybrid's FE drops dramatically in winter stop-start driving here in Ontario, but so does the FE of regular vehicles.

Stan

P.S. I had a block heater fitted at the end of last year, after I saw how long it took for the car to reach operating temperature when the weather was cold. In two-and-a-half hours the block heater raises the block temperature by ~30 degrees Celsius above the ambient temperature. This makes warm-up very much faster, reduces ICE wear, provides cabin heat sooner, and at 10 cents/kWh costs me only ~10 cents per day — definitely less than the cost of the fuel saved. I'm continuing to use the block heater this summer too!

 

For interest, I also broke down my fuel usage data, presented in post #7 above, into separate summer (July - August) and winter (January - February) 2-month periods, to see how the greatly-reduced average temperature in winter affected my FE numbers. What I found is that, for both cars, the FE dropped by exactly the same amount, 28%, between summer and winter! Moreover, the comparison of just the summer (winter) numbers between the two cars showed that my TCH used 44% (43%) less fuel than my 1993 Camry during these extreme 2-month periods. The consistency of these data surprised me — the benefit of the hybrid isn't just for summer driving, but appears to hold about equally for both summer and winter!

Stan