440 MILES FROM START - only 44 MPG - SHOULD I BE WORRIED?

It takes a while... For both learning pulse and glide and for car tires to wear in... also higher psi in tires = higher mpg! High mpg is not something you simply buy, u have to learn all the details, develop skills, make mods....

 

Sounds totally normal for a first tank.

 

Stop driving like a grandma and just drive the car. Don't drive aggressively, just drive. See where your mpg goes from there. Some people actually reduce their mpg by driving too conservatively. High freeway speeds will always hurt mpg though. So keep your max highway speed at or below the posted limit. 60mph or less is best.

Short trips of less than 5miles will also really reduce overall mpg.

 

Ohh and a lot of areas have transitioned to winter blend fuel and temps are dropping. Once temps (during driving times) drop below 60F mpg will start to suffer. Expect to lose 6mpg+ in winter.

 

EV mode is great for parking lots, not for real driving.

 

Don't worry, I got similar result on my first tank: 425 miles. But now I'm having 500 or more in a tank, you will get there soon enough after learning all the tricks in this forum.

 

Completely agree with this post. Just don't drive aggressively and you will probably do fine (and have less stress, not that all Prius drivers practice zen on their daily commutes , but it does help to be calm). Also as I have suggested before in other posts, if it is less then 4 miles (or maybe even 5), consider riding a bike if you can. Much more enjoyable and better for you and your car.

(NOTE: I am by no means an environmentalist, I just figure everyone could stand to get some exercise every now and then, especially when 1/3rd of Americans are obese)

 

It all depends on how fast you drive, environmental conditions and your technique. If those are not exactly as there are when official testing for EPA mpg is determined then you will have different results or as they say YMMV (your mileage may vary).

I honestly don't know how you could average 35mpg on any long highway trip unless you are driving at 90mph with flat tires.

 

I think the "c" should stand for country rather than city. In stop and go city traffic I'm often in the low 40s for mpg, and likewise on fast highways. But on a country road between 60-80km/h, I get 60mpg.

 

No. Read Car and Driver: The Truth About EPA City / Highway MPG Estimates | PriusChat to learn more about the EPA tests.

If you want more data points, these are CR's test results:
The most fuel-efficient cars
Best & worst fuel economy

Last page of http://www.consumersunion.org/Oct_CR_Fuel_Economy.pdf describes their tests vs. the old (pre-model year 08) EPA tests.

 

I just got my Prius c a few weeks ago and I have been pleasantly surprised with the mileage so far.
I reset trip A on every tank. First tank the car said I got 57.1mpg (actual fill up was 54.9). The second tank read 58.8 (actual was 56.7).
I just returned my 2010 Prius from lease and the mileage was never as high as it is on this car, I was averaging about 52.5 for the last 7000 miles that I had the car.
It does take a while to get the hang of how you can get the best mileage.

 

We used ECO for the first 6 mo or so with our reg 3rd gen Prius, then switched it off (went back to "normal" mode), and the mileage didn't change one iota. The main change was a more responsive gas pedal. I found the pedal response in ECO way too sluggish; I think it's actually hard on your gas foot, having to constantly move the pedal through more travel.

Are you still on your first tank? With the various factors that might have happened at the dealership, I wouldn't trust the displayed mileage as being represenative of the future. It could have just sat idling for extended periods, for example. And after fill up, I still wouldn't trust it, verify with calculation (though the in-dash display is supposedly getting closer).

There's many things you can be doing to improve mileage. The car is capable of electric only propulsion off-and-on during lower speed driving. It will do it unbid, and you can help it into that mode. The owners manual for your C likely suggests:

Lift off the gas pedal, then gently re-apply, keeping HSI bar display to left of centre mark

This will usually put the car into electric-mode, at least if it's warmed up. If you do this often enough you will eat up the charge though, so do this in moderation. If you see the charge dropping fast you can switch to pulse-and-glide: give enough "gas" to kick on the engine, accelerate a bit over your target speed, then coast (engine should shut down again), maybe feathering the "gas" to get a small electrical boost to your glide.

Also, just drive conservatively: abide by speed limits, leave decent following distance, coast up to stops. Whenever possible start your drive with plenty of time. Avoid jumping lanes. Do what you can to minimize braking; this by itself makes for more efficient driving.

Then, to reduce your overall consumption: consolidate trips, consider alternatives, reduce "optional" long drives, etcetera.

 

I got 55-63 my first few tanks - but I had a week off and did a lot of driving out on 2 lane (highway) roads which I swear is the sweet spot for this car (at least for me) - better than the city, better than the freeway. Something seems off whether it's tires that need more air or you are gunning it or running right up on stoplights and doing hard braking. I sometimes find myself struggling (like last week - when our temps first dropped) to break 50 mpg and then....when I just stop TRYING...boom! I was back up to 55. So, the points of others here about "just driving" it totally make sense.

 

Personally I do not think that you should be worried at all. I recall having your feelings after our first tank on a 2010 model IV. That tank came in at about 42 MPG, and I thought that we had been had. By the time we reached the third full tank of gas, the mileage was running north of 50 MPG and it has never gone below there since. Please consider setting your tire pressures to a level consistent with the recommendations here on PriusChat. I am not familiar with what those are for the "c" but do believe that they make a small difference.

 

^^^
That doesn't sound like an odometer to me. An mpg gauge is NOT an odometer. Odometers count distance in the upward direction only, in km or miles.

Your initial mileage will always be poor when the engine's cold. That's true of all internal combustion engine cars. You just may not have realized it as you may have had no feedback mechanism.

 

Yes, something is wrong but perhaps not with the car. An odometer reads the elapsed miles, it should only go up, and should be linear with distance.