Yet another fuel economy thread

What tires did you have on your previous Prius?

I had a 50.1 mpg lifetime average on my Gen2 after 67k miles.

When I renewed the tires at ~35k miles the mpg dropped about 10% and took a few thousand miles to recover.

My current gen4 is at 56.1mpg after 6 months and 6000 miles.

kevin

 

Maybe the Blizzaks? Seems like the gen 4's are returning some disgustingly good mpg, on the whole. But hang on: you're currently getting 55 mpg? That's good, no?

Also, I'm not clear, are you calculating, or is this displayed.

 

Sounds like tough slogging winter conditions. Keep in mind too: the car monitors ambient temperatures, and changes warm up behavior accordingly. From reports here, in warm summer conditions, the car will occasionally start up and drive without a mandatory engine start up?

You get used to that, then ambient temps drop, and the car reverts to more gen threeish behaviour. Couple that with Blizzaks, snow, bitter cold, defogging and so on.

Maybe start calculating tanks and logging. A spreadsheet gives the most control, or just use Fuelly website.

 

No not different at all.
It mostly boils down to unrealistic expectations in almost ALL cases......where there is not an actual defect involved.

The most important thing that I got from your post is:
You NEED to completely FORGET about your "overall average".
It is meaningless for anything practical.

Reset that overall average and pay attention to your current situation......if you MUST.
Don't worry; be happy. Really.

 

I find it starts up if over 20 mph even if there is good charge in the battery. I sometimes forget to keep it below that when leaving work. Speed limit is 15 but most people ignore that.

 

Gen 3, you start the car, 10~15 seconds elapse, engine starts, regardless of ambient temp.

 

If I am careful, I can make it the 0.3 mile to the stoplight with no engine running. I then need go on a ramp to merge onto a 65 mph freeway, though.

 

I wouldn't chase EV too hard. It might be advantageous to purposely kick the throttle, wake up the engine. Especially to avoid cold engine acceleration at the freeway entrance.

I do play tricks sometimes, to try to keep it in electric-only, but yeah, it's a balance.

 

In colder weather the engine kicks in when the heater or defroster is on anyway. I do not think Trim Two has an electric heater.

 

Take a look at the averages for various years here:

Toyota Prius MPG - Actual MPG from 6,238 Toyota Prius owners

Also, calculate a tank or two: 4th gen mpg displayed in the dash is fudging around 5~6% I think, from reports here?

 

I only measured once and the dash was 10% optimistic.

 

One calc'd tank is the most vulnerable to the vagaries of fill technique. If you do two, three, four, it'll settle down to the fudge factor, which I'd say must have been imposed intentionally by Toyota. A consistent, positive bias, now who might have done that...

Of interest: Wayne Gerdes (CleanMPG) had a pre-production model, and found the displayed mpg virtually matched calc'd. He disclosed that when he returned it to Toyota it was destined to be crushed.

 

my 2004 got 60 mpg, my 2012 gets 70. i'm expecting 80 in the gen 4. i would look at tyres, they make a uge difference.

 

I doubt the pre-production units used different size tires.

 

I'd think @bisco is referring to rolling resistance, not varying outside diameter?

 

i don't even know what 'pre production units' are. or i should say, what they have to do with the o/p.

 

I'm guilty of drifting, specifically the accuracy of displayed mpg, vs calculated. Wayne Gerde's 4th Gen was an early one, not finished product. I was postulating that one of the unfinished bits was that the optimistic mpg "spin" hadn't been applied yet, the car still reported mpg semi-accurately.

But yeah, off-topic.