Prius c only getting 43mpg avg

For the GenIII 195/65/15

For MPG and comfort:
Energy Saver A/S
Ecopia EP422

For wet traction and handling:
Michelin Defender
Continental ProContact with EcoPlus
Bridgestone Turanza Serenity Plus
Primacy MXV4

 

Thx Buddy !

 

All the reasons you aren't getting 50+:
-You drive over 60mph.
-You use the heat and the a/c.
-You get in the car and it has to warm up while you drive.
-The car is still breaking in.
-The tire pressures may be below 40psi.
-You're still learning how to drive the car for best mileage.

From what you describe the numbers you are getting are normal. Sorry to break the news.

When you're on the highway you're using the gas engine. 1500cc. It will get what about every other frugal 1.5L engine will get. Drive it fast and your mpg will suffer.

Your expectations were simply created without full knowledge of the subject. Drive normally and you won't get MPGs at the special customer rate. Drive at the special customer level and you'd better have patience and clean rear view mirrors.

It is what it is. You can deal with it or you can't. I'm sitting with the heater on while I finish my cigars before work. I like to turn the heat up. I get sick of driving real slow all the time and I like to keep up with some of the faster traffic some times. I still get on the high side of 48-49mpg on a tank. I can deal with it.

When summer comes back, the mpgs will go up again.

 

And this morning when I got out of the car the trip mpg was at 38. My two-pip tank so far was at 46-ish. The 900 mile trip mpg was at 49.8.

Winter sucks...gas that is. I say GAS, son.

 

It's true...this tank has disappeared rather quickly compared to before. Looking forward to summer already.

 

Small correction here. At highway speeds you are using the gasoline engine but you also benefit from the HV system and the Atkinson cycle engine. This makes even highway mpg much higher than the equivalent non-hybrid vehicle at the same speeds.

 

Maybe.

I know the electric part does some work at highway speeds, as well, but didn't want to go into that. When the motor is flogged it uses gas like all the others at approximately the same rate...Atkinson-ized or no. The difference isn't always as much as people would like to think.

On the highway at 60-ish the C gets 48 or so. My old 1.5 l '89 CRX got about 46 or so. Not a huge difference. The only real way to increase mileage is by using the electric bits, but the faster you go the less effective they become at increasing the mpgs.

All told, 1.5 l is 1.5 l. Approximately. Give or take. More or less.

 

That is not correct. At 60mph in good weather my GenIII gets 60+mpg. The c will also. You really cannot compare the old CRX to a c or even a GenII. The CRX weighed at least 500lbs less.

 

I'm not gonna get all fighty or uppity, but I know what I'm getting. Remember, I put down the kool-aid and drive normally most of the time now. I know what I CAN get, and I know what I DO get. I described it accurately.

I'm glad you cars do so well and that you are such a superior driver.

 

Isn't 48 mpg the highway EPA rate for Prius C ? Am I missing something?

Sent ?

 

I'm starting to think I need to take a highway drive just for the fun and experimentation. What little highway driving our C has experienced has been with driver 2 at the wheel (the lead-foot). Maybe I'll just cruise up to Summerlin or do the loop around Vegas just to see what sort of MPGs I can pull at those speeds.

 

The highway is my old friend. I go for a couple of hours just for old times and to keep the oil happy.

On the drive out, drive steady state. drive fast, drive slow, drive with the pedal floored. Use all the charts and graphs. Take notes. Then forget it all and just enjoy the trip back to the house.

Drive as much and as far as you want. It's only gasoline...

 

I'm just keeping things factual and comparing apples to apples. If you want to compare the c to a car built over 20yrs ago (minimal emissions equipment) that weighed significantly less (500+) and made just over half the HP (62hp) of the c that is your business.

 

I have to say that I really don't see any point, when discussing why this particular car isn't getting the "expected" mileage, in talking about other brands or models of cars, it isn't relevant to the topic.

The OP is concerned about the mileage HE is getting from HIS C ... not any other car. The best way we can all help this driver is to try to figure out why he and his car are not getting the sort of higher mileage that some of us get in the same car.

 

Factual is what it isn't.

I get what I get. You get what you get. I'm glad you do so well. I don't care that I don't. Our driving styles are different. Your facts about X vs. my facts about Y.

Forget I ever mentioned the CRX. Two cars, decades apart, different era(s), different egineering. Still, the CRX got a record 53.x for me, and 46 on the highway, and 40 every tank I wanted, and 35-38 in the winter with much of the time at idle. Not bad for $875, regardless of how low-tech, low-safety it was. And it had 98 hp.

 

I was discussing the similarities of fuel efficiencies of 1.5 L engines across different platforms.

What the OP is getting in MPGs is not a lot different from what I get in my C, considering that he has not yet learned the finer points of MPG driving in the C and I ignore them.

He is getting about what he should be getting for his place in the mix.

IMO.

 

(smiles at Mr. Incredible)

I agree that the majority of the "problems" the OP are having are probably related to him not having yet perfected the optimum C driving technique. There are other considerations as well; temperature, road and traffic conditions, tire pressure, heat and a/c. I doubt the OP has a "bad" C, he and it just need to get to know each other better.

 

As they say, your mileage may vary. What's probably the best comparison isn't between each other, but what fuel economy you get in different cars during your normal commute, assuming you can with good conscience or data back up that you're driving in a comparable manner.

If the OP was coming from a car where he wasn't paying any mind to fuel economy, then he may never know that his driving style and/or commute would give him lower-than-typical results compared to some of us on the forum.

For what it's worth, the C definitely suffers in fuel economy when subjected to:
*cold weather and/or cold engine
*headwinds
*uphill grades
*winter fuel blend
*Interstate/highway speeds
*heavy right foot
*over-obsession with staying in EV mode

Now, there have been a couple instances where owners have had their cars ECU replaced under warranty and that's seemingly fixed the "low fuel economy" complaint.

It's also entirely possible the OP is in some magical place where 43 MPG is the best he can get, given his commute. Keep in mind that 46 MPG is the EPA estimated average, so 43 MPG is only 7% off, which isn't statistically significant, IMO. For what it's worth, my daily commute MPG has significantly suffered since the onset of winter fuel blend, to the tune of about 10%. I call that notable, given that I park the cruise control at the exact same speed every day.

$0.02,
Ryan

 

Talking about the OP's previous car and the mileage he achieved on the same commutes, using the same driving style and speed is somewhat relevant. If he was below (MY08+ method) EPA numbers, then for him to expect above EPA numbers on the Prius c, w/o making changes is unreasonable. This is why my questionnaire has those questions.

If he was 10% below EPA numbers before, I wouldn't be surprised if he's ~10% below EPA numbers on the c.

It is a mistake to use EPA numbers as an "expected" value or a minimum. It's even worse to see people's stories of 60+ mpg and use them as expectations when his car isn't broken in yet, it's getting colder and he hasn't learned a whole bunch of techniques besides keeping his highway speeds down.

The c might not. I expect the c to do a little worse than the Gen 3 at 60 mph given the delta we see at The most fuel-efficient cars | Consumer Reports (their highway test is done at 65 mph).

 

F8L, the thought occurred to me that you are speaking in terms of instantaneous mpg while I'm thinking about trip mpgs. Might that not be the difference in our #'s?

I have a scangauge and have instantaneous up, but don't use it much except for reference to what the gas/electric situation is. I look at the overall trip mpgs more often, and it's what I use as the most important reference number for overall mpgs. While we don't have very much straight/level around here between home and work, I noticed the 60mpg mpg was 60-something at one point.

I see your point, but I think overall mpgs was the OP's initial question.