Engine Strain 200k city vs highway

How about at normal highway speeds of 65, 70, 75 mph, of course exceeding the speed limit is not recommended ?

 

tpfun, I missed the VW chart. You can compare EPA to EPA or DOE to DOE, but you can't compare EPA to DOE.

Mark, I suspect this Prius is also in the deep south, notice that it gets the worst mileage in summer, I suspect the A/C is set in the 60's.

 

Mark - I don't live too too far away down here in the small blunder, but I think I've made a few drives that you might be able to compare with.

If I go down Route 13 N-S to Dover, DE I've gotten between 50-60 MPG and typically set cruise around 63 MPH. If I take Route 1 N-S to Dover, I'll get 45-50 MPG with cruise set around 73 MPH. This is relatively flat, with a few hills.

Even trips up I476, I95, etc at speeds upward of 78 MPH, I still come in over 45 MPG. This is even without the Low Rolling Resistance tires that are recommended. As you probably know, this isn't exactly "flat" and on 476 there are several large, long hills.

Round Trip to Cedar Point in Ohio, with 3 people (2 of them over 225 lbs) and our luggage, cruise set to 75 going on the PA Turnpike, I averaged around 45 MPG and this was through on/off rain on the way out.

I keep the climate control at 68 in Winter and 76 in Summer. I let it do its thing on AUTO, with exceptions depending upon "point in time" senses.

As for reliability and engine strain, I think the rest have answered this for you. The Prius engines have been very reliable as long as you service them properly. You'll probably have other repairs along the way, but this is true with any vehicle as you approach these mileages. If you really think about it, a vehicle is really put through a lot getting to 100k miles, let alone 200k+.

I would recommend, snow tires for the winters regardless of which vehicle you get. Especially if your DOT is as good as ours here at keeping roads cleared.

 

If you are considering the VW still, please look into the HPFP failures in the 2009-2011 2.0 TDI engines. There are some serious issues going on that VW isn't taking care of yet.

Makes me even more glad I bought the Prius.

 

I don't know how anybody can post with any seriousness that the VW gets better hwy mileage than a Prius. I've seen that crap on other forums, though..... wishful thinking at best, lying at worst.

I get about 50 - 52 mpg running 72 mph set on my cruise control for interstate driving. This through some very gentle rolling hills around the Macon area of Georgia. Not sure how if my mileage will improve with break-in, only got about 2400 on it at this time.

And one point of consideration for anybody thinking about long-term ownership of the Prius...... consider how many years Toyota has had the Prius out. I believe since 1997(?) This hybrid is a mature, reliable design. I'd be a little hesitant to bank on long-term ownership of a newer hybrid design, such as the Fusion, Cadillac, or Sonata.

Vic

 

JP,
I wasn't comparing DOE to EPA. The DOE charts were meant to show the slow decline in mpg for these hybrids due to battery deterioration.

Right on, the test was in AZ, interesting how using A/C can cause the huge 10 mpg swing !

 

Not if it's true.

How long was your test drive ?

The diesel engine has been around for more than 100 yrs, for that matter. Hybrid batteries 10.

 

Besides in the EPA tests, that definitely isn't true in CR's testing either. See Most fuel-efficient cars. I just stumbled across the a Prius vs. Golf TDI vs. Fiesta comparison at http://www.roadandtrack.com/tests/comparison/hybrid-reality. The Prius was the mileage winner in every segment.

+1 on the lack of reliability on most VWs. As for interior materials, they've taken a significant step backwards in the current gen Jetta. I've looked and touched these materials besides reading the criticism about them. Prior to this, VW seemed to be good at making interiors that felt good to the touch but seemed to have durability problems.

 

Tpfun,

I think I'm going to beg to differ with your interpretation of this graph. First, please note that this graph has the trip-by-trip MPG plotted against the cumulative MPG. Result: The cumulative is going to initially track the "instantaneous" at first. Since the first couple of tanks were all over the map (test driving?), but had a random, high MPG bias initially, it's obvious that the cumulative is going to trend downward over time to reach the "true" average MPG. And that's not necessarily because the real, average MPG is actually trending downward: It's because the average is coming out over time.

As it happens, I play an engineer working with noisy measurements in real life. The above graph looks like a single Prius. Now, if you took a couple of hundred Priuses, all bought at the same time, and then started playing graphical games, you'd probably get a nice, level graph with hardly any movement.

Final point:I believe that the graph doesn't support your contention. Papoulous would back me up on this one. Same comment on the second graph you posted about the Honda Insight.

KBeck.

 

So you are comparing to nothing? What if the slow decline is due to US Government workers realizing that saving fuel is not saving THEM money? That would explain the slow decline just as much. Or just maybe the AZ legislature raised the speed limit. 80 mph approved by state senators

I get a 5 MPG dip in MS with it set to 71 degrees.

 

That's the issue -- it is definitely not true. Volkswagen's own website claims 42 mpg hwy, on the Toyota website Prius claims 48 mpg hwy.

This was found on 10 different trips (5 trips each way) of 100 miles each. Exit 27 to 127, I-95, Georgia. I consistently get slightly above 50 mpg each time with cruise set on 72. With occasionally bursts of 78 - 80 to speed around some slower traffic.

My remark was comparing hybrid to hybrid. If you want to compare diesel to gas, what have you got to say about the price premium for diesel fuel? I'd rather not pay the extra 50 cents per gallon that diesel sells for around here.

 

Prius is a masterful commute car. I'd get it over a VW because of it superior reliability.

Most cars find highway miles easier. In the Prius since the gas economy is basically the same I think it safe to assume some degree of this difference is mitigated. If we use fuel burning a gauge of stress on the engine (seems reasonable, especially with the nearly static-RPM of a CVT), then city is probably no worse than highway, though a touch harder on the brakes.

Beyond this, the relatively small degree to which the gas motor runs in city or highway (again based on gas economy) means to me that the engine would last particularly long. Movement stress is shifted toward the electric motor (I bet these can break but I've actually not read of it happening even once) and battery. And we know the batteries have long lifespans.

And you will save money. Diesel fuel is expensive but even then the MPG of a VW do not compete with a Prius.

That's just crazy nonsense.

BTW, peeps, hit up fueleconomy.gov. On the left click find a car > compare side by side.

Now chow down on some real fuel numbers and you can have cars next to each other. Prius obliterates a 2011 Golf TDI auto or manual (same mpg) by a sickening 21 city and 6 highway. But when you consider that at least around here diesel is 7-8% more expensive than gas pretending that the VW is in the same ballpark is plainly false. A TDI with a toyota hybrid system would be an interesting creation but doesn't exist.

 

If taken care of, any engine will last a long time (200k+).

Think about the other stuff that you have to maintain. Prius has no belts, and the brakes last practically forever (especially if you do mostly highway miles). Sparkplugs are 100k mile items nowadays. The transmission has no clutches to wear out. The AC is a sealed system, like your house AC, with no clutch or rotating seal to wear out.

The VW TDI's are close to the Prius in terms of highway mileage, but that's about it. The Prius is way ahead in all the other areas that make it a good car to put lots of miles on.

Diesels make more sense in Europe for reasons that are mostly legal. Diesel isn't taxed as much (well, less than here relative to gas). They also have weaker emission standards (especially PM) that help diesels.

VW is taking a very Euro-centric approach to efficiency, and I think they'll regret it.

 

1. MPG diesel and gasoline are different, because of energy content per volume. MPG diesel is favoured, because has 11% more energy per gallon;

2. Interesting, batteries deteriorating. Do you have a source to enlighten us (poor hybrid-owners) and share, or it is one more of your "diagonal" opinions?

 

8% more energy/gallon If I remember. Even so, the VW does not have higher highway MPG than a Prius. Tpfun pulled that tripe out of his behind.

I imagine he enjoys watching us scurry to rebuttal his nonsense (classic troll,) but thankfully he makes it easy for new people to recognize his is full of shit.

 

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency]Fuel efficiency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Gas - 125KBTU/gal
diesel - 138,7KBTU/gal

About the tpfunNY...I cannot portrait myself posting BS in a forum...like he's doing.
I do have self-respect and esteem.

I believe he doesn't work at all, he's just gathering points for a tv contest. Probably makes a living that way. Some ridiculous life, huh? The wall of fame means you sometimes have to be infamous.

 

That graph above is good fun. Although the initial drop is interesting, after that the downward trend is almost negligible.

Nonetheless, it's done a good job of distracting away from the fact that even after the 320k miles the Prius is still outperforming the TDI. And it uses gasoline, which is cheaper than diesel. And it's a Gen2, which gets worse mileage than a 3 anyway. Which leads us still to the nonsense of saying the TDI can outperform the Prius on the highway.

 

Forget about the TDI.

Somebody else on this forum has already said it much better that I could.
"Volkswagen...great car to drive...not so great to own!"

I test drove a Jetta TDI when I was toying with the idea of adding a gas sipper to my humble fleet. Great build quality! Probably an order of magnitude better than my G3.
However (comma!) I unearthed enough data about the TDI's reliability (or lack thereof) to make my thoughts of becoming a Vee-Dub owner die of loneliness.

Diesel is too expensive. So are German transmissions.

I have issues with my G3, but If I ever decide to actually buy one, than I'm pretty sure that it will be fairly reliable, and I have the advantage of being able to change my own oil and perform all of the other routine maintenance required for this car.

The G3 (IMHO) isn't quite as reliable as the rabid cheerleaders insist that it is, but most of the problem areas for this car have been for non-critical components....brakes notwithstanding.
You can drive a $25,000 car with a rattle-trap interior, fogged headlamps, broken inside door handle, POS radio, bronko-bucko engine, and other little problems....but a $3200 transmission repair will very quickly deplete any "fuel economy" payback with this car.
Again....JMHO.
I'd take a G3 over a Jetta/Golf...TDI or not.... any day...

 

The 2 charts are from 2001-2005 and 2005-2008 from 2 different hybrid models.

100 degree summers are not kind to the Prius.

First, the initial mpg results had both a high and a low bias within a few months so you can't say the vehicle was driven for max fuel economy.

Second, the monthly mpg chart also shows a definite downtrend.