Firstly, congratulations on your purchase. Its not only a beautiful car but is also very practical because of its size and fuel economy. I am sure it will give you years of pleasurable drive, inshallah.
Since this is a public forum I would also like to highlight a few observations pertaining to this car which are purely my own thoughts, but i am sharing them since the discussion is open.
Firstly, the car looked much more decent with its stock rims and wheel covers The ones you've chosen do not suit the sober personality of this car. And the problem just begins here... In my humble opinion, the OFFSET of these rims is non-standard. I am quite sure just by the look of the negatively offset rims that your ride quality and characteristics have been compromised by these rims. Anyway, the choice remains yours, but if i were you Id certainly do some research on them.
Secondly, you should expect quite a lot of depreciation in the resale value of this car as time progresses. The question isn't whether you can afford to book that loss or not.. The question is, should you? The problem with most hybrids is that the savings in fuel cost are mostly off-set in advance with the enhanced price of the car. Even substantial savings in running costs will typically not be enough to match the price differential.
Your car being a 1.5 is probably the most expensive 1.5 car available at the moment. Since you've spent so much money on it, and that you could afford that sort of money, fuel saving isnt probably even one of your major concerns. So why save money on fuel which you will end up losing on the resale value of the car?
Also, one major drawback which you haven't mentioned...the 0-60 time which you have mentioned is for a fully charged battery pack, and you will learn that it is always not possible to keep the charge up at 100 percent all the time. For example, if a conventional petrol powered car would do 0-60 in say 10 seconds, it would continue to do so in ten consecutive runs. However if you floor your vezel in sports mode it would completely deplete the hybrid battery very quickly, and it would need to get recharged through slow driving and regenerative braking in subsequent runs. In short, if you drag race a comparable petrol car over a long distance, chances are that you will lag behind after your initial gain, as your battery loses its juice and power is transferred to the weaker-than-conventional atkinson -cycle engine. Would you still love your hybrid as much even in that situation?
lastly, parts are an issue. So is service. I hope you have some solutions for them...
