Optimal settings for the night stealth camping in cold weather (below 32F) and how often engine...

Well, I've camped a bunch of times at rest stops when it's only 15 degrees F / -9 degree C out.

I have sunshades with reflective foil in them for all the windows, which probably helps a little...

But I'll never be the energy wasting fool who leaves their car on all night to keep the interior cool or warm depending on summer or winter.

What I do it is put on tons of layers and a hooded jacket and cover myself in lots of blankets, then when I can no longer sleep because it's starting to get too cold I turn the heater on full blast pumping through the floor vents till the interior is super toasty warm (less than 1/2 hours) and then I turn the car off and go back to sleep. The coldest evening I've had to do this no more than twice to sleep comfortably.

This seems less wasteful than other ways, but I haven't done the research to be certain...

 

Your asking about the operating parameters of a 14 year old car. There must be 100 different things that could affect how often your car would start, no one can give you a precise answer. Whatever you do please use a carbon monoxide detector if you plan on being in a sitting car for an extended period.

 

I was going to give your post a like but basically calling the guy a fool stopped me. I agree with the rest though.

 

The numbers seem about right based on my car. I don't know as I would be concerned about CO in a Prius when you have several minutes between run periods.

 

Don't worry about wasting fuel because the Prius sips gas. It becomes a very efficient generator when running it overnight for camping.
If you don't want to run the car overnight, get a low-temp sleeping bag from Teton. They're big and fluffy rated at 0° and -25°.
I used that for one winter in the Rockies and it was invaluable. Just park the car with the heat blasting. When the cab is toasty, shut off the car and get into your sleeping bag. The warm bag will hold the heat all night.

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For many reasons it seems less safe to leave your car on all night unattended while you sleep inside it... Not just the risk of exhaust poisoning, but also driving the next day is way less safe due to being unknowingly sleep deprived because most people's bodies will come out of their most deep restful sleep stage every time the engine goes on and off.

You could easily wake up and get back into your road trip thinking you had enough hours of sleep, but you really didn't get deep recovery sleep and driving hundreds of miles non-stop is not safe if you're still sleepy! For me personally, I don't sleep hardly at all if my engine is running because when I'm in my car and my engine is running I'm conditioned to be driving and a super safety conscious kind of alert and aware and that's not how a good night sleep works.

I will continue to use my method of being woken up from being too cold and then heating up the car super hot inside for less than a 1/2 hour and then falling into a deep, deep sleep because I'm so cozy and warm once I turn off the car. It also gives me the option of using less energy because some nights when it's super cold, if my sleeping gear doesn't come undone, I can sleep through the cold and barely even notice.

Also an essential winter survival tip that you can read in most winter survival guides: It takes more energy to keep your body warm on a full bladder, than on an empty bladder. 1/2 the time I wake up cold with a full bladder, I warm back up real quick after relieving myself, which also means I have less need to turn the car on and use the heater.

 

Apart from the driver's cabin heat demand, the goal set in the computer is to keep the engine coolant warm enough that the engine can burn gasoline cleanly, with less of the pollution generated from a cold start. The best way they found to do that is short runs with lots of restarts.

It sounds like yours is working correctly.

The best hack you could do for less frequent engine starts would be a block heater. You might even get somewhere by powering the block heater from the car itself.

 

I agree with op. more and longer runs would be best. It's probably not best spec, but i often force charge my battery to just under green or the first green bar. this will give me a good long run.

Have you heard of Hobbit? he used to post on here with some extremely thorough research on prii.

He worked on some complicated upgrades that allowed a person to run the Prius blower that the AC uses (for fresh air). When run off a second battery, it used a lot less power than when run with the car powered on.

I can't get to bookmarks right now, but will try to find and post it here later today.



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You mentioned the desire for Stealth camping... And leaving the car on all night means that a fussy overly-sensitive person within earshot of your vehicle will hear your engine starting up regularly all night and each time it starts up they'll get more upset... Whereas if you limit using the engine to just one or two events in the middle of the night you'll draw way less attention to yourself.

 

I know exactly what you are trying to do, because I tried the same thing last year in temps from -10c to -20c. But I was not stealth camping, I was at a campsite with electrical outlet. So I used an extension cord to keep the block heater plugged in and also to keep a 12V battery tender 1.5amp charge on the 12V battery at all times. Because I was thinking this would minimize the electrical discharge and also help to make the time between starts longer, and add some heat to the engine with the block heater.

My equipment:
-20c sleeping bag
-carbon monoxide detector using 9V battery and low battery alarm
-covered the grill openings

So I will say that by camping like this for 14 days, I ruined my engine. The car would start about once each 20 minutes and run for 3-5 minutes if I kept the heat on +1 from lowest and fan on min. I believe the repeated cold start was too stressful to the engine, and it never got a chance to warm up completely, oil still remained cold. After 7 days I noticed some strong odors and the cause was a blown head gasket. The engine was fine prior to this and just finished a 300 mile highway journey.

I really don't know what happened but I have 2 theories.

1. The cold start added a lot of wear and tear, and a weak head gasket could not take it.

2. The exhaust condensation never had a chance to heat up enough to evaporate, and thru the night repeatedly froze ice inside and built up each night more and more until it was nearly plugged. And the extreme back pressure caused the head gasket to blow.

So I don't recommend you do this, even under ideal conditions I damaged my engine. What I ended up doing after a week was to put a 1000W space heater on the dash, it had a tip over sensor and overheat sensor. I had to run it at nearly full power to keep the cabin warm once it was -20C and I kept the windows opened about 1cm to get fresh air. Keeping the windows shut also is a bad idea because your bag will accumulate a lot of moisture, after a couple of days the bag became damp and suddenly lost all insulating capability.

So for me to save about 2 weeks of motel fees cost $700 for a junkyard engine and a week of my time to swap my engine. Not worth it. If I HAD to do it, I would put the Prius in maintenance mode and let it idle the entire night because at least the oil and coolant will be fully at operating temp, same with the cat. You may burn 5L of fuel each night, but that's still cheaper than damaging any part of your engine or catalytic convertor.

 

Here's the page i thought you might be interested in .. why would you be interested? Your car won't have to turn off and on all night. Charge the battery driving during the day and never turn it on at night.

Prius camping

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