I've read on here that the cold weather has a big impact on MPG with the engine and the battery working more.
Here's the link: Why mileage gets worse in winter
When stuck in traffic jams, and my 2004 Prius shows 2 bars on the HV battery charge, it attempts to start the engine to maintain the charge on the HV battery. What was happening was the engine would attempt to start and then it would immediately die. It would keep repeating this process, over and over again, and would not charge the HV battery. Once I started driving out of the traffic jam, the engine ran fine and it charged up the HV battery while I was moving down the road. I decided to clean the throttle body. My charging problem did change due to me cleaning the throttle body. Instead of starting and immediately dying, over and over again, the engine no longer dies.
It now revs up, and slows back down to idle over and over again when sitting still with 2 bars of charge. The display does not show any charging going on during this revving up and slowing down episode. I need some more hints as to what to check out. I am studying electrical diagrams of the vehicle, but I need a synopsis of which system starts the engine for HV charging, and which system keeps the engine revving at the same RPMs during charging while not in motion. The throttle body cleaning made my 257 K mile Prius run like a scared deer again. I just need to get her charging while sitting still again. 12 volt charging system is in the 14+ volt range and 12 volt battery with no load is around 12.2 volts.
I only drive my car once a month or so to visit family. A few years ago my 12v Battery stopped working in my car. I assume age and just moving my car from one side to the other every morning contributed to this. I got the battery replaced at my local Toyota dealership in Jan 2012.
In early March of this year my 12v battery died again. I jump started my car every morning (with a portable battery pack) until I was ready to drive it a distance a few weeks later. I got about 2 miles and then my check engine light came on as well as my Hybrid System Warning Light.
Got a 2011 Sonata back in 2010, drove for 4.5 years and battery is finally showing weakness this winter, planning to replace the battery, but unable to find the recommended battery specs from the owner's manual.
View 5 RepliesWell we got our first snowfall here and since buying the Tiguan and I had to clean windshields this morning. Go to lift the wipers off the windshield to clean under them and "THUNK"; they don't lift higher than a couple of inches above the windshield and they certainly don't stay there while I'm trying to scrape, brush, clear off snow and ice. The hinge on the wiper arm is below/under the trailing edge of the hood! This is a horrible design flaw.
Not mention that when knowing that we are going to get horrible freezing rain/snow, I would typically lift my wipers while away from the car so they would not freeze to the windshield. Clearly I cannot do this on the Tig.
This design flaw will lead to faster wearing of wiper blades through ice not being cleared and blades being frozen to the windshield in wet turning to freezing weather, a fairly common occurrence here. Like last night.
How do those of you in wintery climes deal with this issue? Is it only on the face-lifted '12s and '13s?
Our 3 day old outback had a failure in the instrument cluster. Dealer will fix it of course, but now it looks like there may be a sticker that has to be added to the car alerting a odometer repair was done. Also not certain if the mileage will be back at 0 or at the <300 we had on there.
What is the hit on value because of this type of repair and the sticker required? I for one am having a hard time coming to grips that there wouldn't be a very negative impact to the value of the car.
For those of you regular Gen3 (non PiP) that average in the low to mid 60's for MPG during the warmer months of the year....what do you average in the winter for mpg? And what is your yearly average?
View 19 RepliesI'm trying to think of what gets affected on a vehicle which is driven about 20 to 25k miles a year. I'm looking to purchase one with the following description.
2006, 4.7L V8 is bulletproof, but with 165k miles already, what should I look for when inspecting the vehicle?
It's been dealer serviced. Is there anything other than normal wear and tear items that might be negatively impacted by doing so many road trips (lets say 300 miles at a time) That would be around 550 trips of 300 miles in 6 years.
The reason I ask this rather than just looking at the truck is because I'm in Dallas and the truck is at a Houston dealer... So before I drive out there, I wanted to "assume" what affect this kind of usage would do to an engine.
During the summer, my Celica runs just fine. Now, the temps are as low as the single digits outside (Fahrenheit). While I'm out driving, it can easily take 30 mile or more miles of driving before the engine finally warms up to the normal operating temperature, according to the dash gauge.
My mechanic is quoting me $135 or so to replace the thermostat. I haven't heard of thermostats getting stuck open and resulting in "under" heating conditions too often though.
Any thoughts on what the likely cause of this cold engine condition is? My gas mileage has also taken a good sized hit. Lost 5 mpg or so.
Can I just put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator for the winter and call it good?
I'm a new Prius III owner and have diligently been reading the manual. There is a note in there not to use the parking brake in winter because it might 'freeze up.' I am in the habit of always setting the parking brake for safety reasons.
View 12 RepliesWinters get COLD up here, easily -20F at night.
All my life, I've always went running outside, start the car up, get the heat blasting, run back inside. By the time I walk out to actually leave 10-15 minutes later, it's warm (or at least tolerable) inside the car, and the windows are defrosted.
Temps average maybe around 10-15F in the winter so mileage won't be great. Tires are up, grill is blocked. We're getting about 42-43 on the HSI which means about 40 mpg in reality (I've checked this many times and Toyota is off by 3 mpg on average in our car). But Mike in Maine shows up with a 60+ mpg in 15F temps, and I know my fellow Alaskan, Spiderman, is getting 50+ easily. My commute is more highway than stop and go. I don't use P&G but I'm very gentle with the go pedal. I feel that I should be getting closer to 50 here, even with the temps. Is this too much to ask? Maybe it is...
View 12 RepliesDoes traction control can be disabled on the C? I will be driving this car through the New England winter/ and just wanted to prepare myself for the worst possible scenario (ie not being able to make it up a slippery inclined road). I will be getting a set of winter tires which should work with the tire slip but doubt that will save me in all situations. I also was wondering how aggressive the traction control is compared to a GEN II or GEN III Prius. I was reading that the GEN III allowed more wheel slip compared to the GEN II which made it more drivable in the winter.
How to disable the stability/traction control.
These steps must be completed within 60 seconds.
Step 1: Set the ignition switch to ON, not READY. To do this press the power button two times, without pressing the brake pedal.
Step 2: While the transmission is still in park (P), fully press the gas pedal two times.
Step 3: Apply the parking brake to ensure that the vehicle will not move during this step. Put the transmission in neutral (N) and fully press the gas pedal two times.
Step 4: Put the transmission back in park (P) and fully press the gas pedal two times. The car will display "!Car!" in the upper left corner of the LCD screen.
I like to have heat coming out of the vent. However, in the winter, when I click for it to come out of the vent (as opposed to the floor), it turns on the A/C full blast. I then turn off the A/C and turn down the fan speed. About a minute or less, it automatically turns itself back to floor heat.
View 11 RepliesIt gets really cold in the winter (-30 C is common). Now I'm wondering how does the A/C button on the remote work? Is it literally just for remote air conditioning or can it also be used in freezing temperatures to remotely start the car to warm it up?
Normally I don't warm up my car but when it's been sitting outside in -20C or colder I sometimes let it run a few minutes just to clear the windshield before I drive.
If the A/C button doesn't work the heat also in the freezing cold, will this kit for the regular Prius work?
I bought my 2007 Prius in July 2010 with 70k on it. To date it has 78k.
During the summer months I was in Colorado and achieving anywhere between 400-450 miles to the tank.
In August I returned to the Mid-West, running well and achieving the same mileage, but as winter has come along, it is now getting about 300-350 miles to the tank, but has gotten as low as 240.
The brakes have seemed to become more sensitive, and the car seems to rattle more when I come to a stop.
Are these just symptoms, especially LOWER MILES PER TANK caused by the cold Mid-West winter?????
If the remote AC button is pressed in middle of winter does it turn on the heat and if yes, does it stay on long enough to actually get some heat going.
For example, if I press it while car is in the garage and it turns on (auto temp set to 70 when it's maybe only 25 in garage), if I go out in 5 or 10 minutes will it have actually heated things up a little? Hope so because that would be better than going into garage, starting it up and going back inside.
I live in NJ and in summer I am getting a full charge of 8.1 miles. In winter i used to get almost 11 miles. I thought in summer the charge will be even more?.
View 5 RepliesHere's an odd one. On our mildly cold winter mornings ~12 degC the radio on button doesn't work. This is regardless of the power status the night prior. What's even weirder if that if climate control is off and you turn it on the radio button is fixed. Earth leak, cold temp resistance, 12V battery?
View 5 RepliesWith colder weather upon us here in the States, many of us are experiencing ICE startup with turning the cabin heat on or trying to defrost the front windows. The seat heaters go a long way towards not having to turn on the cabin heat and triggering the ICE, but that doesn’t solve the window defrosting issue.
I was thinking today as we got the first of our seasonal rains here around the Sacramento area, and the ICE kicking in while defrosting the windows, it would be nice to have another non-ICE solution for this. I’m not sure if the technology yet exists, but if there was a defrosting system on the front and side windows similar to the defrosting grid of the rear windows, but invisible to the eye, this might do the trick.
Typically here in the Phoenix area the coldest it gets in the morning is mid to upper 30s for about 2-3 weeks in dec/jan for the low and 50s for the high. Half of November, Jan, Feb & March temps are around 40s for the low & upper 50s-60s high
With these temps is it worth grill blocking?...and how much of a MPG gain would I get?