Thinking about a Volt

I hear that fan almost all the time daily driving my prius v. Lots of hills which consistently charge the battery to the limit on the descents and draw power for AC use and climbing up those same hills. I trust Toyota designed the cooling system to cope with the demands on the Prius drivetrain for a long life. Summer ambient temps rarely break 85f here, it'll be interesting to see how long my battery lasts under these conditions..

Do you hear the cooling fan in daily driving of your PIP?

 

That's interesting. I rarely had the fan come on in all of my Prii. Do you have the vents clear of obstructions? Do you carry really hairy dogs in the car?

Maybe the v is programmed to run the fan more often.

 

no, and i never heard it on either of my gen II's. but it doesn't get that hot here, i drive pretty slow and i'm hard of hearing.

 

Get what you want....life is to short. I did not get the volt because of the small back seat. If you go to the forum people love them. Any car that changes how people drive is great. Good luck with your choice.

What was your mpg. Heard good things about this car.

 

We're still recovering from the trip. I should calculate everything and post it by this weekend. FYI - the ford's dash display now shows MPGe as 42.1, whereas it was at 47.9 when we started 7K miles ago. The difference is A). lack of daily charging during the trip, B). consistently high speeds, especially out West, C). higher daily driving altitudes, i.e. yellowstone roads are between 7,000 feet and 8,000 feet), and trip derring-do, such as climbing Pikes Peak in Colorado and tearing up the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

For more trip reports in the Fusion and other observations about the car, pls check out the "Have PiP, bought Ford..." thread in the Other Hybrids forum.