Suck that Gas Stations! Just got a new job which made my daily commute a round trip of 120 or so miles. Almost all highway with heavy traffic for maybe 15 miles a day. The savings on gas alone are almost half the payment of the Prius I am looking to buy. It is a 2011 Prius III, barely used with 1500mi on it. Barcelona Red Metallic with the NAV and Sunroof. I will probably be picking it up this week! Guess I am just looking for any tips/tricks/pointers/any feedback at all from the hardened veterans. I think the biggest issue I'm going to have to work on is my lead foot! X
Congrats & welcome! See the links in my signature. It is just a different game to play versus your 'stang. Still can have a competitive aspect going for high mpgs.
Welcome to the fold. With regard to driving the Prius instead of a Mustang, think of the Prius driving as developing another skill. I've had a lot of fun driving a modified Acura Integra, but now I've developed new skills driving for mileage, not speed. There are lots of pointers on the Gen III forum for fuel economy. On the other hand, I've found that Power mode from a standstill will leave just about all the other cars in traffic behind. And you can make suspension mods that will improve cornering performance. Mine is fun on twisty roads!
Tip #1 - Try to limit your top speed on the highway. If you can deal with the emotional/psychological issue of driving the speed limit instead of 10 - 15 mph over the speed limit, you'll improve your mileage immensley. Tip #2 - Inflate those tires. Inflate to max PSI in front and maybe Max - 2 PSI in the rears. The extra PSI will improve your MPG's and increase the life of your tires. You won't have the handling of the mustang, but this is a Prius afterall. Tip #3 - When driving in Slow and Go traffic, try to keep a "buffer" in front of you. This is hard to do because people try to jump into your buffer. But if you can, do it, it allows you to Pulse and Glide. Give the car a decent acceleration and then glide. It is an art and requires the buffer and looking several cars in front of you to see if they are braking or not. Basically, you want to keep your car moving and brake very little. Using coasting to slow down rather than the brakes. Tip #4 - (and this is counter intuitive), Driving on EV or all electric gets you worse gas mileage. It's better to "Pulse" into the gas range (the second fat bar) to get your speed and then coast "Glide". You don't want to drain the traction battery, because there are losses in conversion, turning gas into electricity which is stored and then to remove electricity and use it for propulsion. Better to just use gasoline for propulsion and skip the middle steps. In stop and go traffic, it is hard to avoid draining the traction battery. Tip #5 - There is a video somewhere in the Gen III fuel forum that gives tips and information on driving the Prius. It is very helpful. Edit - found it. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...omy/79086-new-max-mpg-driving-tips-video.html
You shouldn't have much of a problem adapting. I switched from an 800hp 4x4 truck, 11sec Trans Am and Corvette yet I love my Prius more the most. I had a 10sec Stang but sold it back in 2002. I found that instead of trying to be the fastest thing on the street, it was more fun to try and get good MPG. It takes a lot more skill to do than just going fast.
Welcome To PriusChat . I remember the excitement waiting for my 2007 Prius to come in. Every month since than I remain excited with all the features of this wonderful car. But Best Of All The Gas Savings, I get 56 MPG for the last 4 years. I hope you enjoy your new baby as much as I do mine.
Picked it up today! So nice! Can't wait to spend some time in it tomorrow on the way to and from work. Think as a newb Cruise Control will be the best bet for driving on the highway?
Just drive it lik a normal car minus the hot rodding and see what you turn for MPG after 3-4 tanks. Then you can start playing around with hyprmiling tricks. It's good to establish a baseline to work off of.
Agreed. For me, the best first advice for a new Prius driver is to just drive it. Get used to it first and then try to work on improving mileage. Besides, in my opinion they're so fun to just drive that if you start worrying about things right out of the box you'll never get that initial enjoyment. 59?! You're already beating some of the regulars. Awesome!
As an aside (and expectation management), the indicated MPG on the HSI is "optimistic". After driving my car for a year, I find that if I subtract 3.5 mpg (or more simply, subtract 3 mpg and truncate) you will be very close to you actual MPG's. For example, if your reading is 59.7 mpg 59.7 - 3.5 = 56.2 mpg or 59.7 - 3 = 56.7 (truncate) 56 mpg. You can confirm this at fill up time.
