Hello everyone, I recently purchased a Prius, everything seems ed to be working fine ithe the vehicle. After a month of driving, I noticed that I'm averaging 15-19mpg on the car. I know this is not normal. I've spoken with my mechanic, he says that there's nothing wrong with that number as most Prius's he fixes always hit that mpg, but my guts is telling me that something's off. I noticed that when accelerating the car sounds like it struggling to cope. I've done alot of research and can't seem to diagnose the issue. I'm constantly on the look out for error codes but the vehicle hasn't had any pop up.please help!!!!
There are many factors that affect consumption. Fuel quality, duration and frequency of trips, driving style, serviceability of all systems in the car. For more precise control, you should purchase some device that will read the parameters of your car's operation for further analysis. You can install the program on your phone for free. Hybrid Assistant can be a good fit for this. Hybrid Assistant
You only drove 10 miles. You are not going to get economy starting from cold and only driving 10 miles. Make longer trips, and don't reset the average consumption after every trip, only after every refill (filling the tank from empty to full) is enough.
Could be anything. It would help if you gave us what diagnostic steps you've already taken. I know some usual suspects are stuck brakes, dirty MAF, clogged injectors, dragging undertray, bad battery, etc.
In 10 miles and 30 minutes our Prius has usually warmed up fully and is averaging over 40 mpg around town and close to 50 mpg on the highway. However, it will be substantially lower if the trip consists mostly of very short jaunts and then the car idles for 5-10 minutes at a time with me in it while the wife runs into one store or another. Going up hills, or even long shallow grades, also causes a huge hit. (Although typically made up when the vehicle descends again.) Running the A/C will also lower mpg a lot at low speeds, less so at sustained higher speeds. Since the screen shot shows 88F it seems likely that the A/C is on. All that said, do check the engine's air filter, and after driving for a sustained 15 minutes at 30 mph or more, stop and feel all the wheels to see if any are substantially hotter than the others (dragging brake or really bad bearing). This model car is not a rocket at the best of times. However, when the high voltage battery is on the way out it can become distinctly sluggish, which may be what you are describing as "struggling to cope". How old is the high voltage battery? The pack can degrade pretty substantially without throwing any codes. If you see the state of charge indicator collapsing frequently (from many bars to few bars, then terrible acceleration while it charges back up) that is a sign that it needs a new pack, or at least a pack reconditioning. If you can get a paid copy of Dr. Prius and a compatible OBD2 adapter there is a test which gives an estimate of the state of the pack.
