Well I work overnight security and I'm able to watch movies in my car or be on my laptop at work but I ruined my battery( didn't have the car engine on) and now that my battery is dying I noticed huge drop in gas mileage .
View 18 RepliesI replaced my 12V battery yesterday with the Optima yellow top. immediately after, my gas mileage dropped to about 16 mpg.
View 9 RepliesI've had my 2007 Driftwood Pearl Package 2 Touring a little more than a year now. I had been getting 42-46 MPG every tank until I filled up my gas tank today.
View 19 RepliesMy '05 Prius has been going strong with just passing the 200k mark recently. However about 2-3 weeks ago after I replaced the PCV valve, I started getting really bad gas mileage. I'm talking about getting an average of 45 mpg in city/highway combo down to 30 mpg. Filled up my tank twice from empty so I'm pretty sure it's not just bad gas. Highway driving does slightly better than city.
Today I noticed that my acceleration from stop is just absolutely terrible. The car responds really slow and sluggish and takes a while for it to realize I want to go. Low speed doesn't get good mileage at all. It seems I get normal mileage at almost 65 mph, not sure why.
I don't think the 100 degree weather we are having here in Texas is causing THAT much of an effect because last year and two years ago during 100 degrees, gas mileage was normal. What to check? I searched and most talk about cold weather. I have a relatively new 12V gel battery so I doubt it is that but I can try disconnecting it.
So this morning when i started up my car the cel came on. The car seems to be running fine so i decided id try to go to work and hope for the best. Well nothing happened and i made it to work fine, but i noticed i was always regenerating power. My drive is 45 miles all freeway and little traffic most the drive.. ive never had this happen on my drive to work and ive had the car for a year now. Could the hybrid battery be dying? i have a cheap scan tool but that doesnt mean i will get the correct reading...
View 16 RepliesTrying to figure out whether to fix or scrap our 2005 Prius with 193,000 miles and a mysterious 12V battery problem. What would you do in my situation?
We've had a recurring problem with the 12V accessory battery: I have replaced it myself three times. The last failure was the most mysterious, because after replacing the 12V battery for the third time, I conducted nearly daily voltage tests using the Prius' "secret" vehicle signal check. Voltage coming off of the 12V was normal, if not high the entire time in all of the Prius's various starting and ready modes. I wired up a solar panel to trickle-charge the 12V battery when we weren't around, and we plugged the 12V in at night to a trickle charger to keep the battery topped up.
Nonetheless the day came a few months after the latest replacement when we had our usual 12V failure symptoms: the time on the clock started resetting, the car didn't turn on on the first press, the Prius computer rebooted, and eventually the car wouldn't start without a jump start. This has been super-frustrating, and googling around, I haven't been impressed by people's reported experiences trying to have the dealer try to resolve such problems. My worry is that a dealer repair person will change the accessory 12V battery without fixing the underlying problem. I would suspect a parasitic draw somewhere, but voltage tests when the car was overnighted without any kind of charging did not suggest a serious voltage draw on the 12V battery.
Other details about the car: our keyless entry hasn't worked for several years (dead batteries in the key fob?) and we open the car manually using the key each time. We stick the fob in the slot each time we want to start it. MPG is comparatively low vs. other Priuses, perhaps 44-45 MPG, and lower when the 12V battery starts to die (37-40). I have had the car serviced (oil, etc.) like clockwork every three months; recently, I've noticed the engine is starting to burn oil a bit (level is reported low on each change).
Most of the driving has been done in the flats and the heat of California's Central Valley, and we've put something like 120,000 miles on it just in the last five years. Besides the fact that the 12V battery keeps dying, the car has been very reliable.
We just inherited a free Prius with just 60,000 miles on it, and I have a 1993 Camry with 150k miles on the chassis and maybe 60k miles on the replacement engine I had dropped into it a few years ago. The Camry just passed California's smog test and seems to be running well. We don't want or need three cars.
Our choice is to try to fix the Prius with 193k miles on it and donate the Camry (which gets about 20 miles to the gallon, the horror...), or keep the Camry and donate the Prius. My instinct is to not drop thousands of dollars into the high-mileage Prius, especially if these issues might be pointing to a dying main battery.
My 2002 Toyota Prius keeps dying (triangle of death and OBD Code 3191) after running smoothly for a few seconds each time I start the engine. Clearing the DTC code allows restart. But the check engine light and triangle of death keep returning after a few seconds.
It has been doing all this since I recharged the 12V battery (which had been drained completely by a dome light left on for 3 days). Initial attempts to recharge the 12V battery were causing current spikes at charger, and (relay?) clicking sound under the hood. So I disconnected positive battery cable and charged the battery in isolation, then reconnected it to the vehicle after charging was complete.
When I reconnected the recharged 12V battery the vehicle (honking horn) alarm went off. But that stopped when I unlocked door with key. It may not be related, but I'm also hearing a fan-like sound (under driver seat) when ignition key is in run position. I don't recall hearing that sound in the past.
Drive a 2004 Ford F150 4.6L V8 EXT CAB. It has 71,000 miles on it. Truck runs great, doesn't stall or miss and idles good but my gas mileage lately has been very bad. Oil, air filter and fuel filter have been changed. What could cause this?
View 14 RepliesI turned on the car, CONS showed 56.0mpg,
backed out of the garage (about 20 feet) 55.8 mpg,
waited for the garage door to close 55.0 mpg (ICE started),
got to the end of the street (about 200 feet) 54.0 mpg
outside temp was 51F, humid, cloudy
had about 90 miles on new tank of fuel
I know you get big swings in fuel economy when you reset the trip on fill ups but I just thought it was funny that the mpg would drop 0.8 mpg while not moving.
I have a 2004 Subaru Forrester with a 2.5L engine (non-turbo) and about 137,000 miles. I usually get just a bit more than 300 miles on a tank of gas. About 3 weeks ago, I took the car for a major tune up (and they also replaced a valve cover around the spark plugs area). After the tune up, the car was running great and I was still getting about 300 miles to the tank. Within the last 10 days, I noticed that the gas mileage on the car has decreased - I am now getting closer to 250 miles per tank. The mechanic rechecked the fuel lines and test drove the car two days ago but did not see any signs of leaks. The weather was near freezing for about a week but has warmed up again to the 40's. My driving habits have not changed and I am driving the car the same way as before. I am stumped as to why the gas mileage would drop that much. What might be happening?
View 8 RepliesFor about the last two months I've noticed a significant drop in my gas mileage, I usually average anywhere from 20-26mpg depending how I drive, but lately even if I am cruising with the windows up no ac nothing I can't get better than about 18mpg.
Car has about 26xxx miles, evoms intake (which I cleaned out the filter thinking that may have been it) EJ exhaust and just got REVO flashed, but my mileage has been suffering prior to that.
I'm going to the dealer tomorrow for an oil change and spark plug replacement thinking maybe thats it, I've already had the recall done, and always use 91 octane (social area) what it may be?
I commuted to LA 2-3x a week. The mileage on my car is now at 90k. I have had an average of 40 mpg since new, but suddenly it began to drop. We took it to our local Toyota dealer and was told it was most likely a cable that needed to be cleaned. That was $160. It didn't work.
View 10 RepliesI was driving up a hill today at about 30 mph with .9 miles remaining showing on my EV battery meter when all of a sudden it drops to 0 EV miles remaining and shows only 2 of the battery level bars (which is very very low), and the engine of course turns on. What happened?
I promise I did not push the EV power bar over its threshold. I monitor that like a hawk. I also know for a fact that it jumped from .9 to 0, because I watch that part like a hawk. This part of the trip is near the end of my drive home and I've done it about 50 times so far with no issues. With .9 miles left at that point on the hill I have always been able to make it to my driveway with .4 or .5 remaining, so this is very odd.
I am using a 2012 Prius and I was running around 23KMpL average. For sometime I am seeing my mileage around 17 - 18 KMpL. What could be the reasons for this ?
The only change happened in between is that I had a accident which I had to replace the front buffer.
I bought a 2010 Prius II (150,000 miles on it) about two weeks ago. In that time the car has been averaging between 41 and 43 MPG according to the computer, and I calculated 41.3 MPG at my last fill up. I am concerned about the MPGs. I bought a brand new Prius in 2012, it was a III model and '12 year. That car always got 48 highway, and 50 in the city. From what I understand, the 2010 and 2012 models have the same engine and transmission set up and the only difference may be the software.
So my questions are; why am I getting 7 to 9 MPG less than my old (newer) 2012 Prius? What to do to get better mileage, but what actually worked? My checklist of repairs include; check 12v battery, change out spark plugs, just changed air filter, check brakes, oil change (using Mobil 1 full synthetic 0w-20), what else should I check/replace/update,
It seems that my mpg gauge always drops by at least 2 mpg when it's raining, even if one goes slower because of the rain. Why is this?
View 19 RepliesI have a 2005 with 165K on it. Just within the last 2 weeks, at start up, no matter what level the charge shows on the display, the HV battery will almost fully discharge and then come back up to full charge within a mile of driving. I just replaced the 12V battery thinking this could have been an issue, but it didn't change anything. The car never acted like this since I bought it in 05. When it drops to the discharge level, It running on ICE only, with the typical slower acceleration. What could be going on?
View 8 RepliesThis Easter I put summer tires on my "new" (owned about 4 weeks) prius -07, and cleaned and greased brakes.
With winter tires (almost new Nokia hakka xx, stud less) I got 4.5 l/100km (52mpg) easy and 4.2 (56mpg) at best, now I get 5.5 (42mpg) and 5.3 if I struggle, if I relax and put cruise control on I get 5.8 (40mpg). I travel 100km to work every day.
Summer tires is Michelin primacy (about 2 seasons?) pumped to 3.0/2.8 bar (over inflated).
Brakes don't seem hot after drive and they was really clean and easy to move after my service so my guess is that they work fine...
Mileage went down over the weekend so I see a clear link.
It was more fun trying to hypermile at 56mpg aiming for 60 then it is at 42 aiming for 45...
12v battery charged, just in case. Still same temperature out 1-8 C. Oil and all filters changed first week (will change trans axle oil in summer). Travel to work got 4% shorter so tire size must be a small reason to the +20% problem.
While driving in EV mode I noticed my remaining estimated gas mileage drops. I watch the dash and the EV is constantly light and it doesn't appear the the ICE is coming on. Is this normal?
View 1 RepliesLast October I needed new tires, so I had Michelin Defenders put on my 2011 Three in place of the OEM Firestones. The Michelins perform well and are nice and quiet, but...
My gas mileage (both indicated on the dash and calculated) has dropped by about ten percent. In researching the two brands of tire, I found that the OEM Firestones are rated at 836 revolutions per mile, and the Michelins are 839. I'm wondering if this is the reason for the apparent change in mileage.
I have a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am with about 130k miles on it. For some reason my car has been dying lately. It did this a few times so the obvious thing was to buy a new battery- oct 2011. Everything was good for a couple months but I recently went on a trip for the weekend and when I came home the car was dead. I jumped it and everything was good until this week. I had a work conference and left wednesday at 8am. When I got home Friday at 5pm the car was dead again. I had an alternator test done before but could it be the alternator? I love my little car and would like to get a couple more years out of her!!!
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