Just purchased a used 2007 Prius at the end of last month. MPG on car when we bought it was around 42. It had about 300 miles on the trip thingy since it had been reset at the dealer. I drove it back from St. Louis where we had purchased it to Springfield Illinois.. and reset the mileage thingy so I could see what I get.. 118 miles and I seem to get 31.7 - 32.1 mpg so far. Now my conditions of driving are a lot different from most. I only drive about every 2 or 3 days and it's usually only to the grocery store which is about 12 minutes away by car. I live in a downtown capitol city.. every block has a stop sign or stop light.. traffic is slightly heavy and aggressive.. people will get up to 35-40 mph between stop lights. On medium trips.. say about 20 minutes away my MPG will go up.. on short trips it goes down. Would you expect to get more MPG on such short trips or is this about right? No matter what, this car is much better than my last car.. a 95 Honda accord that got about 18 - 22 mpg in town.. about 25 on the highway. But considering people enjoy bragging about their 50 mpg experiences I feel kind of left out.
Your mileage sounds about right, perhaps just a tad low. Short trips are a killer, and stop and go doesn't help. Tom
It's not likely to get much better with the conditions you describe. With maniacs flooring it from a stop then slamming on the brakes at the next stop it is difficult to practice long glides which are essentially to high city mpg. Anytime you start to feel really bad about the car just go for a long highway trip and 60mph and watch your mpg go through the roof.
Short trips really keep MPG low. It's the result of warming the emission system. Another factor is the season. Warming gets faster as winter changes to spring. So, you will see some improvement over time. Here's an example from the experiences with my 2004, which illustrations the seasonal change quite well: .
It sounds right for short trips. But you can try to do better by not playing the dumb games that others play and help your fuel economy. Getting off the gas as early as possible and coasting to a stop will help fuel economy. Even better if you can glide (foot _just_ on the gas so the car won't apply regenerative braking, but won't use any power either), as the Prius glides very efficiently. If the car is still warming up it keep running the engine, but it still helps not to make it do more than it has to. Then, you can try and time lights: to put it simply, if you have a series of traffic lights there's simply no point rushing to get to the next red. Ideally, you use "light timing" and travel at a lower speed that will allow you to hit the green light and allow the traffic ahead to get moving before you reach them. If you learn the lights and get it right, you don't hold others up because you'll arrive at the point you would have restarted around the same time but at a higher speed If you don't quite get it right, you end up having to slow down to allow traffic to clear, but it's better than stopping: every time a car is stopped it increases congestion due to the delay in getting started and back up to speed. But, to drive like that in a city with aggressive drivers takes some nerve, as some people following you could get angry even though you'll actually not be impeding them and may even help them move faster.
Thanks for the replies. Makes me feel better. ^lights are timed pretty much to the speed limit and if you go the speed limit you can hit all greens if you time it right. It's just somewhat hard to time during peak driving hours. I have noticed a bizarre reaction from a few drivers.. they seem to want to "beat the prius." So far, I've had two cars peel out at a stoplight next to me and on double lane roads some people seem to go out of their way to pass me even though I'm usually driving above the speed limit. People are funny.
I have only had mine for 3 days, but they dont pass me, they just ride my behind and at times, I would swear they were pushing me.
They do that. The Prius has a stigma and people try to pass it all the time for no reason. The best is when you are driving on the highway, and go to pass someone correctly on the left. When they see it is a Prius, they speed up. This happens much more in the Prius than any other car I own. While somewhat true, remember that since there is no trunk jutting out behind the rear window, cars "look" closer than they might otherwise be because your rear window is further back than normal.
There are a lot of little things you can do to help by reading this site. >Keep car in garage (warmer in winter) >Make sure 12v batt is healthy - on a Gen-II may want to consider disable smart key system for long down times >Go with lower visc lube oil >Higher MPG tires >Go with no ethanol in gaso if avail
When the weather is damn cold, it seems to me that my mileage is better if I leave the car idling for several minutes before I start the trip.
