Colder weather has zapped my mileage to 44mpg

wow, at 100 miles a day, i would sacrifice a lot just to not have to pay for gas. the cost of buying gas goes waaaay beyond what you pay.

would we really give a rats nice person what went on in the middle east if we did not depend on an uninterrupted flow of oil out of the region?

 

Perhaps you just uncovered a problem.

My heater is set at HI with the blower at the second slowest setting along with lower grille-blocking. I can melt stuff with it. At 21°F yesterday on the drive home at 65 MPH in ECO, the heat from the vent was enough to burn fingers.

The result of that commute home (around 30 miles with a stop at the store) yesterday was 49.6 MPG.
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setting heater temp to high does kick in the electric heaters

 

Which appears to be more efficient based on my anecdotal observations.
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for keeping yer buns warm, u can betcha nice person it works much better!!

temp update...its now 12º

 

No, I'm actually spending LESS or equal fuel than anyone else. I checked several other random posts where people reported their MPG hit in very cold temps and did the math: most people are seeing at least 20% hit, there are some reporting close to 30% already!

And yes the heater in the new Prius is pathetic. Don't you know that there is already a whole thread dedicated to point out how much it fails to blow hot air? I keep mine at 70F and realize that unless it is on the 30's or bellow outside (F), it keeps blowing cold air in a very noisy fashion. The auto 70F in my Odyssey heater is enough to keep the whole car very warm and comfortable (a lot bigger than the Prius) and yet, cause very little impact on the MPG.

 

Sounds like you need to try MANUAL HI instead. Clearly, the AUTO 70F doesn't work the same.

As for the "no impact" perspective, remember how incredibily wasteful traditional vehicles are. They create a large amount of excess heat that's simply vented out of the tailpipe. That's quite a bit of impact to MPG that occurs all year long.
.

 

John, you have not had the dramatic winter dropoff such as Indyking is experiencing. I know that you did have such a dropoff in prior winters, in spite of grill blocking your gen II. You have also blocked the lower grill of your 2010.

Given your experiences as a gen I, gen II, and gen III owner and your winter experience with and without grill blocking, and given Indy's long highway drives, how much savings should Indy expect from grill blocking in your opinion?

 

Are you sure you didn't get a bad tank of gas? Let us know your result with the next tank as well.

I am still beating my EPA number. We are in 40's these days. I do mostly highway as well.

 

We have not had below freezing weather yet but we had a 36 degree F morning the other day. I had frost on the windshield. Started the car and put on the defrost which cleared the frost on the windshield much quicker than other cars that I have had. I turned off the defroster and ran the heat in Auto at 72 degree setting. The car was toasty in less than five minutes. Drove to work and continue to maintain 51+ MPG displayed.

I would not rate my heater as pathetic but much better than most other cars that I have had.

 

IndyKing is in a contrary mood. It will pass.
And if he decides to take small steps to adapt to his new car and use it to it's design potential, he might even be happy.

Or.. he can keep whining. His choice

 

Wolf, I gess I can never be sure about that but I have aways used the same few stations for filling up, which are either Shell or Speedway. Next trip will be great because it's going to be under the coldest day of the season here in the midwest and very strong winds.

 

I see.... will have to use Manual. I was trying to avoid that to prevent an even higher MPG hit.

Regarding the traditional cars and wasting... I have tested my V6 Odyssey in the hwy with or without A/C in similar conditions and with or without heater in similar conditions too. The MPG hit was negligible in both occasions.

 

Nothing to do with my mood. It is my opinion and if you don't recognize the problems the car has, that's not my problem. Maybe you don't even have the same problems in your car. Good for you. There is a whole thread here dedicated to pointing out the problems of the Prius auto heater system. Care of doing a search to find out? Anyway, the person above says the auto heater works fine for him/her, but he/she lives in NC. Try that auto 70F in bellow freezing or near zero temperatures in southern WI to see what happens.

Cheers...

 

I live in California. I got my 2010 Prius in August. I drive in Eco mode. From August to October I averaged 53.5 mpg (real calculation). But now it is a colder and over the last 3 tanks I've averaged 50.0 mpg... and I had to work real hard just to get those 50. The past couple of days it's even colder (below freezing at night) so the morning commute is taking its toll.

 

A cold weather causes the tire pressure down.
Please maintain your pressure properly.

Ken@Japan

 

Just did a 320 km trip , 4.6 l/km, minus tempertures
I thought that was pretty good