so i recently purchased a Prius Gen II and on the inscreen dashboard there is a settings under users i think and there is a reset button (no the reset button to reset your MPG and Miles tracking thing) for all the user information. I bought the car used and hear somewhere that the car tries to learn from how you drive on how to make the car work better for you. i figured that i should reset this, so that it learns from how i drive, and not still work off of how the previous owner would drive. before i reset this, i was averaging about 50+ mpg, and it was great. i thought i would be able to get better mpg if i reset this thing so it would learn how i drive. it's been about 9 months since i bought the car, and about 7 1/2 since i hit that reset button. i'm averaging about 41mpg now. it seems like my car has gotten worse. is there something i can do? or something the toyota dealership can do to help me? or did i just totally f myself over on my car.
No, you didn't. Cold weather (especially together with short trips, if you do much of that) kill MPGs on every car, it's just more obvious in a Prius. What are the tire pressures before you start driving for the day?
Yes ... read the threads on improving MPG's . . . theres a TON of things you can do. That said, the reset button simply resets the mpg record to zero. You could drive & drive ... and never hit reset. If for example, the Prius had gone 50K miles averaging 55mpg ... you'd have to drive a HECK of a long way, just to bring the 55mpg average down to 50mpg ... even if you were only getting 40mpg. But reset? Now it'll only take a handfull of miles to effect your average. .
I forget what they are this second, but they're what the recommended amount that's labeled either on the car or the tires.
