Prius and Long Steep Uphill Drive

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Sep 27 2007, 10:17 AM) [snapback]518467[/snapback]</div>

When there are more than 10 posts in response to a question, I tend to assume that either the question has been answered, the question has changed, or more information is needed than was supplied in the original post to properly answer the question.

 

When we visit our friend sin Half Moon Bay we have a similar issue. The live on the side of the mountian, which you have to climb very slowly. I have had the same smell sometimes, and not other times. It smelled like transmission fluid getting warm. I think the slow speed and steep grades make the transmission and electric motor work much harder, thus heating up the fluid.

The Prius doesn't have a dip stick, so you can't smell it that way.

I don't think it will be an issue, but to be safe you can drain and fill the transmission every 30K miles. It uses the new synbthetic Toyota ATF, so it should be plenty robust. Good thing is that you don't have to flush it like a normal automatic, but rather just drain and fill like a manual. You can also only use the the Toyota WS-ATF in it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lianimal @ Sep 26 2007, 12:15 PM) [snapback]518054[/snapback]</div>

I have made that trip several times myself and the average mileage goes down going up the hill but on the other side doing proper breaking I can get ALL the lights on. As far as accelerating and keeping up with traffic -- no problem.

 

I just drove over the Sierra Nevada and back (ca. 200 mi each way). Starting at 100 meters, driving up to 3086 meters (Tioga Pass, Yosemite NP) to Mammoth Lakes and back. Fuel economy was outstanding: 68.3 mpg.

 

I lived on a super-steep California street for awhile and can attest to the fact that ALL automatic transmission cars of any kind smelled a little toasty when they arrived at the top of that hill. There weren't many stick shifts around for comparing notes with, but I do know that if you tried to climb the hill in 2nd in a stick shift car you would stall even at full throttle. Friends of a neighbor had a VW microbus with the automatic, and it wouldn't make it up the hill at all, even if you got a running start.

After years of parking the microbus at the bottom of the hill and walking the rest of the way, they realized that Reverse was a lower gear than first, and thereafter they rode the microbus up the hill backwards.

Whee!

P.S. Automatic transmission fluid stinks (acrid, a little burnt) when it's new, fresh out of the bottle. When you get it any hotter than typical operating temp it really really really stinks, and your nose will notice it when driving. The only consolation I can offer is that the Prius monitors the temp of all that stuff and will let you know about it before it lets you destroy something.

 

Funny... Lately mine has started smelling like burning plastic. Looking at the bottom of the car there are splotches of discoloration on the exhaust pipe. I can only assume a "Desert Flower" (damn plastic bag) stuck to it when it was fully warmed up and melted on it. This happened on a previous car of mine too, it takes a few weeks for the plastic to burn off and quit smelling.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jtmhog @ Sep 26 2007, 02:17 PM) [snapback]518138[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like BS to me. See http://eahart.com/prius/psd/.

 

I live in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. My house sits at the bottom of a "hill". When I start off to town, I am driving up about a 7% grade for almost an exact mile. (Been on Hwy 17 and it's similar in grade to the steepest parts from Santa Clara to Santa Cruz).

I start off cold going up... Any advice on how to drive my new (used) Prius? My battery is always full when I get home.

 

I live at 8500 feet and drive over two 9000+ foot passes each day on my way to work at 6500 feet. This includes 15 miles of dirt roads on grades as steep as 11% and paved roads of about 8% to 10%. I have never smelled anything unusual or had any other problem.

The engine does rev pretty high when the battery gets low. I always get down to one purple bar going up and end up with 7 or 8 green bars at both work and home. The 13 miles of stealth going off the pass down to work is sweet!

 

Well... I just drove up an incredibly steep Hill that required me to go very slow. I had to turn around on a very steep place and the car didn't want to go backwards. I finally got it to back up and then it would hesitate to kick in when I tried to go forward. I went ahead and powered up the rest of the F hill and parked at a gas station. At first the car would hesitate to go forward or backwards. I let it sit then it drive fine 20 miles. I'm hoping it was the low speed as you say that caused an overheating issue and won't have the problem again. You can bet your butt I'll fly up every hill from now on and who ever don't like it can kiss my ......

 

Were you watching the state of charge of the battery as you went up the hill?

Sometimes it is worth taking a turnoff from time to time and just putting some charge back in the battery.

The engine can chip in to compensate for a drained battery in forward gear, but it can't help in reverse.

 

Thanks so much. No I didn't notice the SOC but it probably went low. Scared the heck out of me LoL. Now I'm changing the inverter fluid even though I didn't smell burning. It's a good thing because I had overlooked the inverter fluid until now and the car has 26000 and unknown when/if the fluid has been changed perviously