Well I bit the bullet and bought 2010 Silver Prius V over the weekend. I finish my residency next week and will be driving quite a bit. i think the Prius will be a good fit for me. Needless to say, I've never owned a hybrid before. What is the appropriate way to "warm up" such a vehicle? What I have been doing is, upon start up, after a few seconds the conventional gasoline engine kicks in and idles. I wait for the gasoline engine to "turn off" and then I'll put it in drive and go on my way. Is this appropriate? What do you guys recommend? Thanks!
congratulations! car and med school! my son is finishing his second year. what's your specialty? :focus: start the car and begin driving, the engine will take care of itself. drive moderately for a few minutes, especially in cold weather. really no different than any other car. all the best!
No warm-up is needed. Just drive away. You might need to warm-up the inside during those cold Chicago winter days.
You don't need to wait for the engine to stop before moving. In fact it would be inefficient to do so. Simply use a lighter foot for the first 1-2 minutes. If you want to learn more about the HSD, you may want to read the Gen III stages (do a search).
Just get in it and drive. For better mileage, try to take it easy on the gas for the first few minutes. The only exception to this general rule is if you live on a very fast street. If you need to drive like an Indy racer from the moment you leave your driveway, you might want to warm up a bit first. The Prius tries to avoid using much power from the gas engine until it gets warmed up. Tom
You don't really need warm up the Prius during start up in a warm season area. Even in the winter season you don't need to warm up the car till the engine cuts off. Let the engine come on to warm up itself and just sit still for a few seconds to let the oil cover the entire engine and then drive off slowly. I tend to drive off with bar well within the half of the indication bar so the ICE won't come on (although it is on still) and drive off till the ICE shuts off when I am in the first half of the area. Once the engine is warm then I will step on the gas more. I step on the gas more because I adopt the fast heavy accerlation technique and then just try to cruise as much as possilbe without ICE on.
