Hi,
this is my first post- I have an Alphard Hybrid E4 2005 purchased from Dave at Vineplace Motors in October last- can thoroughly recommend Dave if anyone is looking for a vehicle. Vehicle was fine until just at New Year and the 12v battery kept going dead and eventually wouldn't start from the booster pack (Noco GB50- would recommend this) and until that point was doing odd things. Dave had fitted a new battery at purchase but was a standard Alphard battery in error- he kindly sourced a new battery FOC as the system has to have a special stop-start type- the replacement was Panasonic S55D23R (advertised as for a Toyota RAV 4 Hybrid) at £199.99 but the supplier said this was the manufacturers genuine part having been supplied the vin no.- sourced from e-hybrid.com who apparently specialise in hybrid spares. Fitted the new battery and everything has been fine since then so the 12v battery appears to be critical- there may well be other suitable batteries out there but this is my experience.
Vehicle drives beautifully and I am getting about 35mpg driving carefully and using the hybrid system so I use it more often than I expected.
Hope this helps.
Paul
