299,999+ Mile Club

Thanks for the info Txiguy.

BTW. What sort of terrain are you mostly driving. Do you have hills that sometimes push it to "8 green" or is it more flats. Also is this predominately urban driving or is there a lot of freeway involved.

 

When you get it replaced, I'd recommend you ask to keep the old part. That's basically the proof that you went 430K+ miles on the car, in theory you could just put 12V on it and see the odometer reading. In practice it might want some other inputs before it 'comes alive'.

 

Ok guys, sorry for not being able to quote on the phone so I'll go with everybody one by one.

Uart, Denver has actually fairly flat landscape, unless you go into the neighborhoods by the foothills or take a drive into the Rockies. I get a fully green battery at least once in a day when leave home in the mornings, after a flat drive a hill comes and fills up the juice.
Since I mostly work at the airport, most of my driving is highway, I would split it 70/30% maybe even 80/20.
Also keep in mind that compare to a lot of other company drivers I get excellent gas mileage, even in 30s and 40s past two weeks (evenings it drops to high 20s) I still managed to get around 50-52! I don't remember getting this kinda numbers last winter, is it me or the car I still couldn't figure out.

Usbseawolf, afaik those cars are 06 and 07 model years. One of them was actually sent to Arizona last year to do something with the batteries, maybe a recharge?? I know the driver who drives that particular car, I'll ask him next time what exactly the problem was and what was done.

 

I just spent 2 hours taking out the comb meter. It is on its way to Peef a member here that fixes them. Since its in CA it will be about a week before its back in. $125 vs $700 u cant be that. Not as hard as I previously thought. While I am here I had a look at the prius v. Gas mileage is 40 highway. Base is I believe 26000. Very nice lots of room. Just dont know if I want to take a 10 mph hit. For that I might as well by a matrix and save 10000.

 

Taxi Guy, you should know/pass the word that there is a place in Denver that can help with hybrid battery problems, Adopt-A-Part in Boulder.

 

Indeed, I heard about the place but these are fleet cars so we have no say about that. Thanks thou I have many friends driving prius I'll definetely pass the word.

 

391,xxx.
Engine burning more oil than before. Now using lucas oil stabilizer which is making a huge difference. Fuel economy down to around 40 mpg, all highway miles 75mph.

Think i'll change the engine out pretty soon.

 

Forgive me for not looking thru all 45 pages in case you said before but what is your typical day?

 

delivery driver. 300 miles a day. probably 10 miles city the rest highway.

 

ODO picture at your earliest convenience please. Thanks!

 

That's interesting. Any correlation with the drop in mpgs and the start of using the oil stabilizer? Are you using the synthetic, or the heavy duty?

Before throwing the motor out with the bathwater, it would be worthwhile to check all the usual suspects when it comes to poor mpg: 12V, HV battery, brake drag, tire pressure, etc. There's not a whole lot that can be done on the HV battery except make sure that the fan is not clogged -- have you heard it running on its highest setting at any time in the past several months? Also, mpg at 3 bars is definitely lower than mpg at 5 bars, about 20% less. If the engine is charging the HV all the time, that would cause the sort of the drop that you are seeing.

 

Engine burning oil may come from valve stem oil blow-by (temperature damaged/old rubber gaskets), not only from typical wear (pistons, rings, cylinders).
Overhaul to the engine head and off you go for more 400thou, probably.

 

Brownsnoutuk, You said that lucas product made a huge difference, what is your oil consumption now? I'm considering using the same one or the one BG makes. Also I have another question in general, how about using BG or Lucas fuel system cleaners in prius? Am I gonna have some side effects on the ICE?

 

I'm also wondering if the Lucas product is related to the drop in fuel efficiency. From what I remember that stuff is like treacle.

I also wonder that if all that stuff is really doing is thickening the oil that you might be as well off to just use a slightly heavier oil in the first place and save the money you're spending on additives. I've heard some good reports of Valvoline Maxlife Valvoline.com > Products > Motor Oil > Higher Mileage Motor Oil > MaxLife but I think mobil and others make similar high mileage products.

 

My wife's 2001 celica also burns oil like no other and only has 110K on the clock, last couple oil changes I used valvoline high mileage formula and add a bottle of BG additive, still burns but made a big difference. What I'm wondering is the same thing gonna work with prii??

Cheers

 

What type of BG additive is that Txiguy? Some of those "no burn" additives don't really do anything other than thicken the oil. Something like valv maxlife will already have all the additives that it needs, if you want it thicker then why not save the additive money and just use the next heavier grade of oil instead.

 

fuel economy actually improved from 39 to 41 with the lucas. Maybe better compression?

I was burning a quart every ~700 miles, now every 1200.

Original HV battery, Aux 12v is fine.

 

That's impressive, to take the burn rate from intolerable to annoying.

Lucas makes two types of stabilizer, a synthetic and a heavy duty. Do you remember which one it was? Finding ways to cut the burn rate without affecting fuel economy is definitely a hot topic.

Other ideas to address your 40 mpg: try 91 octane. Excessive carbon buildup on top of the heads causes increased compression and hot spots. Such can cause the ECM to retard timing, resulting in lower mpg. If your mpg goes up, then that is likely the problem. Another guy reported fixing it by running a few bottles of Gumout Regane in each tank.

How many miles since the last transaxle fluid change? Fresh fluid can help, and if there is a problem inside, the condition of the old fluid and drain plug will be a good indicator.