Prius (2010-12) Fuel :: Temps Have Been Dropping, MPG Dropping As Well
Dec 17, 2012
Grill 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.
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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.
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Winter 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.
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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.
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So 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?
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Have 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.
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=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.
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I 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.
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I have 60k on a 2010 Prius III. my mileage is slowing dropping, i am thinking about installing new plugs.?
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Just 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?
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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.
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So 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.
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My 2007 Prius (72k miles) has been dropping in MPG steadily for the last 6-8 months. Where we would get a strong 42 mpg, we are now experiencing 34-36 mpg. After a 400 mile trip to the coast, we just experienced a 34 mpg average. 1 year ago, we would have seen 42-45 mpg on the same trip.
I had the dealership check it out, only to tell me the computer says nothing was wrong. This is the 2nd time I've voiced this concern about the car in 12 months. They told me to replace the tires. We did. No change.
I checked the 12v battery through system check on the display screen (method I found on this website). It was showing 12.4v for an unloaded battery. When i put a load on it, it dropped to 11.7v. Once I had it charging, it raised to 14.0v.
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I'm having a few issues I have 2010 corolla le.
For some reason when my daytime running lights are on my rpms drop to 600 rpms and I get a rough idle. My needle jumps up and down. Happens when car is warmed up. Once I turn my low beam on rpms go up to normal 800 rpms. No rough idle and car runs normal.
Yesterday I was parked with radio on ignition off for about 10 15 min and turned the car on and idle went really low. I Rev it up and the needle dropped to the bottom before going up. Hesitating. Did the same a 2nd time needle dropped all the way down and car shut off. I shut the car off and turned it back on and car was hesitating. Then after a few revs car was normal.
Car is running fine now no light on my dash.
Is it a throttle body problem? I cleaned throttle plate recently it's not dirty.
I'm wondering if I should replace throttle body?
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So when I first got my car, the dealer had put in a full tank of gas and the miles to empty range was at 347~. After several fill ups since my purchase, the miles to empty has been dropping every time I filled up. A few fill ups ago, I remember it was 327. The latest fill up was about 318. What gives? Do the current MPG avg affect this number? What is the factor for the variance?
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2007 model Prius with 74k miles.
I was getting 45.6 mpg on the trip computer. MPG dropped a couple of tenths pretty quickly. Got fuel and put in some Techron fuel treatment. Checked 12v battery, was a bit on the weak side, so I replaced it . Checked voltage and everything was good.
While I had the battery out I let the car sit for 10 minutes to reset the ecu. Now after 40 miles I'm getting 35 mpg on the trip computer, and the ICE kicks on any time I press the accelerator pedal, even if I'm going down hill from a stop.
There is no difference in driving style, tire pressures (40 front, 39 rear), I bought the fuel at a place I normally get fuel.
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I am very disappointed with my Toyota Plug-in because I have only had it 2 months and have 1400 miles on car. When I first charged it up with the 110 volt charger supplied with the car, I got 13.5 miles to use up before the car went off battery. Then on recharges, every two or three times when the battery recharged the usable mileage dropped by a 1/10 a point. I now have only 9.5 miles to use before I go off battery. When I first got the car I could go to work and have 3 miles extra to go home on. Now I cannot get all the way to work. I wonder how low it is going to go? I took it into Gladstone Toyota and had the service department look at it. They said after they recharged it and found it to be only 9.5 and that there is nothing they can do unless the red warning light comes on saying that the battery is defective. I asked them how low the battery would go and still considered normal, and they said they did not know. So I guess I will keep loosing free electric miles.
My getting progressive lower usable mileage has nothing to do with my driving habits as they have been the same since I started driving the car.
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Last week I switched my wheels and tires out from OEM 15 x 6 wheels with 195/55R15 Good Year Fuel Max tires to 16 x 7 Drag DR9 wheels (16.55 lbs.) with 205/50R16 Good Year Fuel Max tires. ( I wanted a different look) At first I didn't notice any change in mpg's, but that soon changed. The temps went down into the 20's for lows and 30's for highs. I went from 48 - 50 mpg to 41 -43 mpg in just a few days. I assumed that the drop was due to the cold weather. This morning I decided to check the tire pressure in the new tires. 32 psi all the way around. I asked the guys that installed the tires to fill them up to 44 front, 42 rear. I guess that never happened. Anyway, I looked on the sidewall of the tire to check max pressure and I was shocked (51 psi). I ran 44 front, 42 front on my old set, because that was what I was advised to do.
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So, I got stuck in standstill traffic for about an hour due to bad weather and wreck up ahead, and barely inching along the highway, I was surprised how fast the battery was dropping and having to turn on the engine to recharge it, killing the MPG; normal drive home I get around 50 MPG, it dropped to 38 due to all the idling. In such situations, just place the Prius in "Park" in order to shut down the electric motor (I'm assuming that's what park does) so it doesn't idle to conserve power? Would probably be an annoying way to drive regularly, but if you know you're gonna get stuck for awhile, I may try it next time...
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I knew when I bought my car it wouldn't get optimum mpg as no car would with the many short trips I have to make every day but I have 5000 miles on it already and have averaged approx 46 with all the city and highway combined.
I took it into Toyota last week for the tire rotation and ever since it has been horrible. There were 120 miles on the tank and I refilled because I couldn't stand to see it staying around 39 on the computer. I have never seen that before. I checked the tired and they had brought them down to 32psi so I put then back to 40/38 and refilled.
Not noticing much of an improvement, sadly. Hovering at 40 mpg still. Weather has changed a lot. Temps much higher daily mid 80s to low 90s. This is my first summer with the car and yea the ac has been on nonstop with the higher temps.
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I am having an issue with my 2006 Toyota Prius. The battery seems to be fine, but when I turn on the headlights the battery suddenly starts dropping sharply and the lights quickly dim. I turn them back off and it starts charging properly again. It only does it when I turn on the headlights. Weird part is if I hit a bump just right sometimes it goes back to normal for a while, but then starts discharging again.
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