Noob here... be gentle!! My consumption screen seems to reset everytime I power off the car. Is this by design?? Is there a way to get a "lifetime" screen??
The bar graphs reset when you power off. The mileage displayed at the bottom is retained until you touch the "reset" button on the lower right of the screen. This -can- be used for "lifetime" mileage, but it's so easy to reset (many have posted their "friends" have reset it on them) it's better to keep paper records. This is the -only- way to keep a reliable record on the Prius. My small notepad/book has: Mileage from odometer, distance traveled from trip meter 1 (remember to reset when you fill up), date, fuel pumped in to fill, and calculated mileage for that tank. You can then enter the fuel and distance numbers into a database or spreadsheet which can calculate an ongoing "lifetime mileage", among other things.
I think most folks here reset it after every tank (some of the older models actually do this automatically) so you can see your tank average. Its kind of fun to see your numbers get better or worse over time, and a tank is a pretty good interval to do this over. Once you get more than a few thousand miles of data in there its hard for anything you do to move the number around. If you reset it on every trip, the numbers are all over the place just due to the natural variation. On a tank by tank basis you can really see the effects of driving style, temperature etc. Also, there is a general tendency for your numbers to get better over time. My tank numbers are almost always better than by lifetime average numbers, as it takes them a long time to catch up. I like to have the bigger number showing when I have friends in the car I just finished a 56.1mpg tank, which is considerably better than my lifetime 50.9! Rob
You can use a site like GreenHybrid.com to track your mileage, and you can use it to generate a signature like mine. I'd recommend keeping a second copy of the data, though, in case that site has a problem.
I don't know when the change happened but I'll assume '08... the '08 Prius' automatically reset the mileage on the consumption screen when you top the tank off. I can drive about 10' or so and it will reset to zero automagically.
Getting close to first 1000 miles on my 2008. After reading these forums I like the idea of resetting the Consumption Screen at each fill. I did run into a glitch a few days ago. I may never know what happened for sure. I'm just keeping a close eye on it for now. I was showing a friend some of the cool features. While we were sitting in the car the AC was running for some time. The Battery meter got pretty low (no surprise) but never low enough to change color. (I understand it should change from blue to red when it gets too low.) Next time I got in the car the Consumption screen had been Reset. I swear no one touched that [Reset] button. I had been watching for just that reason. IF the battery meter gets too low, but stays blue, should I expect the Consumption screen to reset? Tks, Bob
