Prius (Gen 3) Fuel :: MPGs Going Up In Warm Weather
Apr 15, 2012
Here in the northwest the weather has been dry and temps in the 40's to over 60 degrees. The mpg's have increased about 5-7 mpg over just a month ago.
View 5 RepliesHere in the northwest the weather has been dry and temps in the 40's to over 60 degrees. The mpg's have increased about 5-7 mpg over just a month ago.
View 5 RepliesI have noticed that due to warmer weather and more Prius C owners that the MPG's are going up. No many in the 40's mpg anymore. I enjoy people posting and obtaining over the EPA of 50 mpg, the 60 mpg figure appears to be fairly easy
to obtain with the Prius C.
On our Prius the last mpg was 52.3 calculated this is real world driving with my wife driving 75% of the time and she does not drive strictly for MPG's.
I believe we should all take a minute and pat ourselves on the back as all the countless gallons of gas we our saving and will be saving for our friends and neighbors who have no choice but perhaps to drive large cars and pickup trucks...
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.
View 19 RepliesI 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?????
My wife and I were driving around town the other day. While merging onto the highway we hit a nail. I put the donut on and went to TiresPlus where I have gone since I started driving. I had been thinking about replacing the front tires due to wear and the nail wen in the side on the rear. Anyway I purchased 4 Firestone Affinity Touring tires and went on about my day. My wife drives 100 highway miles a day and then does some city driving. This week she has lost about 5mpg's according to the display average. Also the service light has come on. Can this all be tire related?
View 9 RepliesFirst time Prius owner Aug 2012. First 2 tanks of gas very impressed at 50-51 mpg. Then going slowly (10mph) through a parking lot I heard a strange noise on passenger side underneath the car. The best description is that it sounded like a steel lawn rake being dragged under the car on the asphalt. It lasted for about 30 seconds, then quiet and I have not heard it since. No sign of issues. No dash warning lights.
My next tanks rendered 47.5, 48.5, 46.5, 45.75 mpg. Then in the last 2 tanks suddenly at 41.5 and 42.75 mpg. This seems like a very major drop in mpg. I have been reading the comments regarding outside temp etc. and I will make adjustments. It just seems extreme and the "noise" is now making me wonder if some electrical component failed and is adding to the poor mileage issue.
Winters 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.
I have a 2007 Level 3 Prius with about 110k miles. I now have a problem that I am not sure how to fix. Perhaps because of the warmer weather the rubber that you press to get the hatch open has gotten kind of sticky. Sometimes your fingers will get some sticky black on them. I was starting to think that I should look into replacing this rubber. The hatch was sometimes getting hard to open.
Well, we just took this big 1300 mile drive from central Florida to western NY. We are now in 9 degree weather. I cannot get the hatch to open at all. The other day it stuck but after a few attempts and carefully pressing down on the hatch without hurting the spoiler I got it to open. I first thought it was just because things were packed tightly, but now nothing is back there and I cannot get the hatch to open.
I think I have resigned myself to the fact that I wont fix this until I'm back in sunny warm weather. Any thoughts on how to get this to open? And if I do get it to open will I be able to close it again? It feels like there is no longer any "give" to where you press the rubber to open the hatch.
Im noticing my mpg dropping in the past couple of months. I usually get 19 or 20 in town, and up to 23 on the highway. Now im lucking if I get 16 or 17mpg.
I have a 2001 escape XLT. 6cyl 4x4.
I changed the spark plugs, coils and fuel filter about 3 years ago (almost 40k miles ago).
The car starts fine, seems to idle fine, seems to accelerate ok. The only thing that is off is the MPG.
I dont just want to throw money at parts. Which one should I replace?
Well, for the past few weeks the weather in Los Angeles had been a little on the cool side. I didn't notice the cooler weather, but I noticed that the computer says I was getting around 51 MPG for almost the entire tank (the warning was blinking so I think I used about 10 gallons).
Then today, the temperature rose to around 90 degrees. I noticed the heat. All of a sudden, my computer MPG rose to slightly above 52. I think that would be difficult to do as it must average out the entire tank an extra 1 MPG. And correct me if I'm wrong, but if I got 51 MPG over 10 gallons of gas, in order to raise the gas mileage by 1 MPG in the next gallon, I must get around 62 MPG for that last gallon.
I just got a 2005 Prius, it is getting about 40-43MPG in 50F weather. This is my first time with a hybrid, much less a Prius. Is this normal for this car in this weather, or does something seem wrong.
The 12V seems to be getting about 11.7-11.8 under load.
Tire pressure is about 33PSI, going to increase it most likely from the sounds of other people having it higher.
I don't have a lot of data yet, but the last couple of times we had temps over 80F, my mileage took a significant hit - about as bad as when temps are below 20F (more than 10%)... Shutting off the A/C doesn't change things much...
View 19 RepliesI think I'm getting the hang of this car after 3 months. My mileage has been steadily increasing as the weather has gotten warmer and as I've adjusted my driving a bit. If I drive fairly normally i get about 55 mpg (HSI, ~52 mpg actual). If I'm more careful I get closer to 60 mpg HSI. If I'm really careful I get over 60. My last tank was 61.8 (HSI), and 59.6 mpg from the fillup (see attached). I put 10.13 gallons in the car for 604 miles. I call that 60 mpg, and I'm pretty pleased. This is for a week of normal commuting which includes lots of hills, about 1/3 surface streets, 1/3 state highway, and 1/3 interstates with occasional stop-and-go. It is pretty hot here these days so the AC runs constantly. I have only seen my mileage get better with time so I haven't seen it roll over as the weather has gotten really hot, but that may be that any affect is counteracted by my learning to drive this car.
View 19 RepliesOn a hot sunny day, occasionally I have to be stopped for extended periods with the A/C running which means the engine will come on for a few minutes out of every 10 minutes or so. to charge the traction battery. Engine comes on at 2 bars and goes off at 3 bars.
As engine efficiency at idle is low, would it be better to put it in D with the brake firmly pressed and push the accelerator so that the engine speed is in the high efficiency range so as to produce more charge for the fuel burnt and maybe also I could charge it to a few more bars on the battery indicator?
Just purchased a 2010 Prius with 17's (after market) rims. Wondering now if the change in rim size/style will cause my MPGs to go way down.
View 13 RepliesI have a "new to me" 2009 Touring that I purchased on 9/2/10. She had approximately 35K miles on her and an Average MPG of 39.6. While I have managed to increase that average up to 41.7, I'm tired of looking at the results of the previous owner's bad habits.
I have hit the Reset button on the Consumption screen several times, but the only thing resetting is the number of miles driven. I have reset both the Trip A and Trip B Odometers, again the only change is the trip odometer reading, NOT the Average MPGs.
This is making me a little crazy as my previous car was a 2004 Prius and the Average MPGs AND miles driven automatically reset any time I filled up with fuel.
Well I bought my Prius 2013 II about a month ago so I have been learning alot about the car as I go and reading how to effectively get the best mileage from the car. I have only filled it up once so far but one thing I am trying to figure out is the mileage at start up. I have read that you get the worst mileage when you first start up the car after a nice period of no driver which I understand. They say 5-10 minutes of driving and it should be fine.
But my thing is it seems like every time I start my car up it goes through the whole slow mpg start up. Is that normal? Let me give you a example. I had to drive from work to a movie theater which was about 9 miles and I averaged around 68 mpg. Yes right when I started my car after a 8 hour shift the bars on dashboard next to the MPG were going up and down and would stay around 25-30 mpg for the first few minutes but would eventually go back to 99.9 when i was coasting.
Well anyways I drive to the movie theater just to get out and get a gift card for fathers day. So I am only gone for maybe 3 minutes. I get back into my car and start it up and my fuel consumption plummets to 20-30 mpg for a few minutes before it goes back into warm up mode. I was told your car should only do that your initial warm up after it hasnt been started but it seems like when I do many errands and I have to turn my car off for whatever reason. My gas plummets until I get the ball rolling again. IS this normal?
I can't believe what I'm saying as I always say to start driving (slowly) to warm up the engine. Besides, who has the time?
But, this AM, I was stopped as soon as I exited my driveway as big garbage trucks blocked my cul-de-sac street. The engine went through the warm up cycle as I waited stopped and later, I went through my usual commute.
The thing is the commute ended at 67 MPG (indicated). I usually get "only" 60 MPG on the very same route, unless the engine is prewarmed before driving and I get exactly 67 MPG. I always clear MPG trip counter before driving on a daily bases.
how much fuel is consumed during a typical warm-up period for the Gen III? I realize there are variables related to ambient temperature etc..
my interest is to get a baseline consumption figure to compare warm-up saving devices/techniques against.
I've got a problem with my R and I don't know what to do. It will overheat after being driven for a bit in warm weather and then if I get stuck in traffic, boom, the temp goes to red and the warning chimes on, stop car and check coolant level. The coolant level is OK, and I can't seem to figure out what is failing. I brought it to the dealer and they couldn't find anything wrong with it and it supposedly didn't throw any faults.
I know it's not just me that sees this happening as I now have two witnesses( I thought I was going crazy at first, I could still be going crazy but the car is definitely exhibiting this issue). Which temp sensor the fans work off of? I was thinking maybe the fans weren't coming on, as soon as I get back under and the highway air is coming, it cools right back down. The problem is sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not. I don't want to continue driving thinking it's just a gauge glitch and end up overheating and ruining my car.
It seems like it takes an awfully long time for the good mileage to get going from a cold start - even when it's warm outside. The last 5 miles of my commute are great, but the first 10 miles not so much. How much effect does ambient air temperature have on this process.
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