I am the owner of a new 2014 Prius Two as of three months ago. I have really been enjoying the car, and it is certainly more friendly at the pump than my old Chevy Tahoe. I have a question as to why my mpg has been getting worse of late.
View 19 RepliesHave had my 2011 Prius all of 4 weeks. Followed PC for months before the purchase, practice pulse/glide regularly and have really change driving habits to increase MPG. First tank was 51 MPG, than 48, 46 and now 45. each one was 75% city driving, 25% freeway.
View 19 RepliesGrill blocked today for the first time and have a couple questions.
Temps have been dropping more these last 3-4 days and have noticed my MPG dropping as well so I thought I'd try grill blocking.
Tempts have been and will be high 30s-low 40s in the morning and upper 50s to mid 60s for the high.
At first I just wedged the pipe insulation and drove one trip. I didn't feel comfortable that it would hold for the long haul so I added zip ties.
I used two pieces of pipe insulation 1/2 inch copper / 3/8 inch iron. Up close it looks like 2/3 or 3/4 of the grill is covered.
My two questions:
For fWT, at what temperature should it not exceed?
At what outside temperature should I remove the pipe insulation? In the Phoenix area, temperatures rise in March and sometimes we will have a short period of warmer than normal temps in February. I just want to make sure I do not cause overheating.
While most of the emphasis I've seen on improving fuel economy seems to focus on warming the car up quickly in cool/cold weather, I seem to be experiencing significant mpg drops at the other end of the spectrum.
View 8 RepliesSo I bought a used 2010 Gen 3 with ~26,000 miles on it in July 2013. I started out getting 48-52mpg depending on where I was driving. I live in Raleigh, NC and I did notice a drop in drop in MPG over the winter ranging between 44-48mpg but the mpg never rose again as the months warmed and I averaged 44-46mpg for most of the summer. After changing my tires a few weeks ago I've dropped to about 40mpg regardless of where or how I drive. I bought Pirelli P4 Four Seasons 195 65R15 91T and have them inflated to the levels recommended by Toyota. 35/32 or something like that. Is it the tires or is there some other possible issue?
View 19 RepliesI brought my car back to the dealer last week because my stereo volume keeps dropping for no reason while driving and I have the ASL turned OFF. the dealer said unless they can duplicate the problem there is nothing they can do. I just got the car in july...
View 1 Replies=this is my first summer to own a prius, and I noticed this last week that my fuel economy seems to be slipping. I am averaging around 42 MPG instead of my usual 49. Only reason this worries me is I've noticed the car is charging the battery a LOT, and it's not uncommon to have my MPG drop down to the low 20's on a flat road if I am lightly accelerating.
View 8 RepliesWinter temps are dropping my mpgs from 51-53 mpg to the 44-47 mpg range. Snow, rain, slush puts drag on the car, as well as temps in the 20-40s causing the ICE to run more during warmup and during the 15 mile trip I make daily. Also mpgs in town on 1-3 mile trips are dropping into 29-33 mpg range. I guess the Prius isn't made to thrive in cold temps. I don't know if there is much I can do about it. I did remember to raise the pressures in my tires which has dropped also.
View 19 RepliesI changed bad combination meter today and I noticed that everything works fine but the fuel gauge is blinking with all the bars! After a few miles the fuel gauge is still blinking but now with less than a half of deposit, I filled the entire deposit yesterday. Maybe is a consequence of changing the combination meter? Should I reset the fuel gauge or reconnect the 12v battery?
View 2 RepliesI just bought a 2010 salvage Prius. I have another 2010 I have been driving for 3 years so I am pretty used to the mileage I can expect under different conditions.
When the car is totally warm and I measure the mileage for 15 miles or so I get normal readings of mpg. But with a lot of 2-3 mile trips during the week I am getting about 10mpg less than usual compared to my other 2010.
I have 60k on a 2010 Prius III. my mileage is slowing dropping, i am thinking about installing new plugs.?
View 7 RepliesJust had my first battery boost for my year-old Prius 2K10.
This morning I went to start the car, it didn't open the door for me, then I had all troubles in the world turning the key ... And obviously nothing was opening, no lights, nothing.
I had my car boosted. First time they put the booster, I couldn't start the car (everything showed up but starting the car didn't start the conventional motor - the lights were all on). They unplugged it (everything disappeared yet again) and plugged it back in ... Then I could start my car. Of course, everything was reset: time, trip meters, everything.
That's where I noticed my battery indicator was half-full.
I have a 2010 Model I with only 19K miles on it (purchased new). For the past year or so, at any time throughout the night it will give out 5 beeps for apparently no reason. I have reset the system by disconnecting the alternate battery and have used a PocketScan Plus to test the systems which shows no problems.
View 5 RepliesJust traded in a 2012 Nissan Sentra SR on a 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport and have a question about the gas mileage.
My Sentra always read 28+ MPG, but it was a known issue that the reading was almost exactly 3 MPG off; thus, I was hitting about 25 MPG most of the time. I could typically get by for a week and a half, sometimes two on a single tank (which was about 11 gallons).
I took the Santa Fe home on Thursday night, filled up from the dealer and reading a range of 384 MTE. As of tonight (Saturday), my fuel meter is reading two notches over the halfway mark and the range has dropped to 232 MTE. I haven't driven anywhere near 150 miles since Thursday, FYI.
The MPG on the Santa Fe started t a measly 12 MPG when I left the lot, most likely due to sitting and idling and lots of stop-and-go driving on test drives. I've since managed to get it up to 22.2 MPG (and feel confident it should eventually read about 25 MPG, about the same as my Sentra). Even though the MPG reading is going up, I feel like I'm going to be filling up the tank again without hitting a full week of driving (and this is a bigger tank than the Sentra). I'm not getting the difference. Is there an issue that I'm missing here? After checking in with the dealer that the previous owners used for service to ensure there were no red flags, they did tell me that it had an active bulletin for a software update. I've read in other places here that this update can have some effect on the MPG. Any thought on if these things are connected?
I am new to the prius 2010.
I filled up last week and I noticed that as soon as a single cell display in the fuel display part has some empty section like 3/4 fuel(single cell) the next day or after that that whole cell disappears without it showing that single cell as being empty.
Around which fuel cell, when displayed, is it important and recommended to fill up gas again, with one cell remaining or two etc.
When I go out to do errands around town (I live right in town) I get horrendous gas mileage. Now, I understand gas mileage is high at the beginning of a trip, but for this long and this high and under these circumstances? I'm getting ABOVE 10l/100km when I have 80% charge available (for americans, that's disgustingly high MPG like, pick-up truck high), AND my foot is completely off the gas. Literally, coasting, or braking, and I'm still sucking up gas. What the heck?
Is this just because it takes a certain amount of time for the engine to run no matter what or something? I still don't see any reason for me to be eating up all that gas when my foot isn't even on the gas AND most importantly, I have charge available. Feels pointless for me to use my car for what I use it for 70% of the time, which is for quick errands around town at low speeds. Thought the prius was suppose to be a superstar for this kind of thing.
Been having a problem with fuel pressure dropping under acceleration intermittently. Normally runs around 65psi, sometimes at idle or normal driving is only 55-60psi lately. Most of the time it has done this it dropped to 50 and I let of the pedal and it will slowly go back to around 55. Then I just baby it and it will slowly creep back up to 60 or maybe 65. A couple times it has gone below 50 after letting of the pedal and wouldn't go back up, so I actually pulled over and shut the engine off and cycled the key to get it back up. Once this happened while towing up a hill, I could only get to around 35mph really had to baby it and at the top I pulled over and cycled the key and it came right back up. At the time I attributed it to the steep hill, 11k trailer, and the tank only being about 1/4 full.
Since I put the fuel gauge on way before any of this started happening, it has always fluctuated 2-3psi at idle. I always thought it was kind of odd, maybe pointing to combustion gasses entering the injector through a bad seal or something weird like that, but a couple of people have told me that fluctuation is normal.
I'm thinking there's either a restriction in the fuel pickup or the pump is going bad. This problem happens even when the tank is full, but seems worse on a low tank. I change my fuel filters every 10k mi, I'm at about 9k right now so I guess it could be dirty filters? Got lots of towing over the passes coming up as fishing season is just starting and I'm sure we'll be spending as many weekends we can at the beach camping.
So my fuel light started blinking after 480 miles. How much more can I drive it? The display shows 30 miles left before fill up but I read in the manual that when the fuel light starts blinking there is 1.6 gallons left so should that be like 75 miles left. Just wondering. To be on the safe side, I went to fill up.
View 19 RepliesI was heading to the gas station with one bar on the fuel gauge. When I got there to fill up I had two bars, same Miles To Empty (45). What would cause that?
View 6 RepliesSo I just recently had to take my 2010 Golf TDI into the shop to replace the mechanics unit. Took them a while to get the unit installed but overall I was happy. The car was driving perfect for about 2-3 months. Then all of a sudden the transmission starting violently surging and dropping the clutch again. I thought the mech unit was going bad again in less than 5K miles. I couldn't get the car in the shop until about 3-4 days after and I did drive the car there because the surging was manageable. It did kick the car into safe mode when the dsg appeared to overheat. It turns out there was a leak from the gasket. They are fixing it now free of charge but it looks like they messed up.
The issue is now I am afraid of any damage that may have been caused to the mech/clutch form the fluid getting low. Should I be worried about this and if so what should I do? I would think the shop should be responsible for any damage done to the car.
My alarm went off for no explainable reason today. My car is parked in front of my house and all of a sudden I hear an alarm going off. Now, I've never heard my own alarm so I wasn't even aware it was mine until it kept going and I realized it might be mine. So I went to look out the window and I couldn't decipher where the sound was coming from because there's a lot of cars around here
So for the heck of it, I grabbed my fob and kept pressing buttons to see if it would go off. I was so flustered and nothing went off so I thought it wasn't mine. Then I held down the red button and it finally went off.
Does it mean someone tried to open my door? What warnings should I look for on the dash when I go in there for the first time after shutting off the alarm?