Yep, play with the pressures. I find 42 has a unique feel in OEM tires on smooth roads only. It as if they almost ride softer. Sounds weird doesn't it. Try for the sweet spot for you and your roads. nice
Three model / 15" tires: Door placard says 36/35. Dealer had them inflated correctly. Gas mileage has stayed consistent at 60 displayed / 58 calculated. I bumped up the tires 4 more psi... to 40/39. My eyes can't see the sidewall numbers very good. What is the maximum inflation pressure for the 15" tires? Thanks.
Was looking for a good source of tire testing results that is current for burst tests etc. Seems I remember from the Honda forum that testing was done at double the cold inflation max pressure rate. Car talk says 300PSI. Hence folks were running 90PSI on the early hybrid Hondas in 2002. I never went above 51PSI (51PSI Dunlap tires) in those early days and will not go above 42PSI now do to skipping side ways on the road after a bump. 44 is ok but too high for an old man. 40-42 range is what I look for but purists looking to hyper mile have gone as high as 120PSI for testing. Not me. Was craziness back when. Wow the things we did. At extremely high pressures you chance a pot hole wiping out a tire.
I always check tire pressure once i had it at the dealer for anything - I had my wheel once a bit more overinflated, say 2,7 instead of 2,4 - got out of the dealer and they turned the pressure down to like 2,3..... I need to find one of the above nice portable air compressors, because more and more here in Munich inflating tires is getting impossible. Gas stations see that no more as a customer friendly service, rather a waste of money, and hence save it by not maintaining the portable inflators which are often broken. It would be nice if Toyota provided one (is it part of the tire replacement kit???) to simply connect to the cigarette lighter plug. And then you can inflate the tires when you want and properly.
I just increased the inflation to 41, all around. The local McDonald's that has a gas station, provides free air. How can you go wrong? Egg McMuffin, a hot cup of coffee, and inflate your tires all at the same time! The car still rides nice. It's smooth, handles well in corners, and I don't feel the bumps any harsher. It's also no more or no less noisier. Maybe I will squeak out an extra 2 MPG.
When the Prius is turned on and the ICE is cold (not reached the minimum operating temperature and catalytic converter is cold), the timing of the valves is such that you use a lot more fuel but you warm up faster and with less pollution. Don't ask me why that is, but that how it works. There are gen3 posts that go into the nitty gritty details of this. The Prius can do this so well, because the wheels are not really connected to the ICE directly and can be moved by MG2, while the ICE does it's own thing in start up, if certain conditions are met (namely speed and accelerator pedal position). So, you can actually notice at start up that the noise the engine makes when cold, changes clearly after 1-2 mins (especially if you are not Moving or drive really slow) when the timing of the valves gets changed to more normal settings, and its rpms are constant even if you are accelerating because the thrust is mostly coming from the mg2. If you press more the accelerator and want to go faster during warm up, you notice the ICE "changes gears" regardless, and quite slowly I must say, to deliver the power even if not warmed up yet, likely increasing pollution. So, before the engine has reached nominal operating temperatures, you are consuming quite a bit more fuel than normal. Those are the "warm-up mpgs". They are evened out by traveling later with a high enough mpg. This is why if you travel not long enough to avoid a second warm-up, even partial, sequence, your mpgs are going to be pretty low. Even if the battery is full. Because even in that case, the ICE will run as it is necessary to reach the temperature in an environmentally good manner, no matter how slow or how charged the battery is... Ps: I noticed that if the ICE is not warm, at highway speeds the instant mpg is actually higher than normal, exactly for the above reason: valve timing is set in such a way to consume more fuel so that everything can reach operating temperatures as fast as possible. You cannot really hear the valve timing change at those speeds though. At least I never heard that, apart possibly a reduction of the rpms at constant speed (when the engine is warmed up it is also more efficient, hence less rpms are necessary to generate the same torque).
Having a hard time remembering which thread I posted stuff. Someone replied to my shutters in the Prius.
Tank number 10 - best tank yet. Probably due to warmer weather and my ability to pay attention to MPG most of the time. The 5% optimistic MFD is pretty consistent. lifetime MFD: 68.10 lifetime Calc: 64.59
Just passed my first 250 miles. My mpg...66.7 Merged. Wow, I thought I was doing good. Do you drive like an old man to get those numbers?
I'm still driving it like I stole it... I guess I'm "re-visiting my youth." The computer display shows 60-61 mpg consistently, for the past 3 months. (I don't even hand calculate anymore.) I'll just go with what the computer says, and keep laughing while driving!
I am a considerate obstacle. I am pretty good at getting out of the way. Love to find something big and slow to follow.
