Is your grill unblocked yet?

Still fully blocked on bottom Here in PA, even though it's 70 degrees today. Still no issues. I think I could leave it blocked all year according to temps on scanguage.

REV

 

No Scangauge here, so I pulled off the foam pipe covering last week when temps got close to 70F, just to be safe.

 

I did not block this 'winter', never had any cold days.

 

Still fully blocked here. A warm snap has pushed the porch temperature all the way up to 44F. A hint of snow down here yesterday, pouring rain today, both mountain passes closed for avalanche control.

With a ScanGauge and a very cool summer last year, I didn't remove the last half of the grill block until traveling east of the mountains in September. And it stayed out only two weeks. But as usual, our Pacific Northwest weather was the opposite of what most the the country was experiencing.

 

Pulled blocking off yesterday when temps got into the mid 70's.
Will store the material in the trunk's under-cubby.

 

Pulled my grill block completely this morning. Highs will be 70F+ for the next week or more. When doing highway driving my scangauge shows fWT is exceeding 205F. Not sure if that is critical, but the scangauge does NOT show inverter temp and I have no desire to replace an expensive part like the inverter.

 

Is this something that's required to be removed? I don't rember reading about that in the owners manual.

 

No, this is something that those of us who are upset with lower mileage in colder weather do to mitigate the effect cold has. We block off all or most of the air inlet grills to keep the cold air from cooling off the engine too much and causing it to have to run more, lowering MPG. The trick is in remembering to remove the block when the weather gets warmer so as to not overheat the engine or electric inverters. A Scanguage can be used to watch the engine and inverter temps, but you have to remember to watch it.

 

Took it off earlier this week as I saw the temps rise toward 70's. With the warm weather I have seen a nice mileage jump

 

I've still got half the lower blocked here. I removed the other half of lower this week when we hit 70s for the high. Still a chance I'll have to put it back, but I think we're mostly out of the really cold temperature range here, except maybe the random low temp here or there. At this point, I'll probably remove the last piece in a couple weeks.

 

I went full blocking from mid-winter till last week.

Now full blocked down grill and removed upper.

I am monitoring with scangauge-E the water temp and I found that with full blocking ... the afternoon I was reaching 195-198 very quickly and even gliding would not cool it down ... put on the heater and open the window (it was a few 50+ days here in NYC)

Since mid last week I am running lower fully blocked. I found that this is safe if you can monitor your temp till you would need AC (see another thread about why).

The morning gains still worth it ....

If you have no way of monitoring I would not recommend this when average daily temp gets to mid 60s...

 

WOW nice mpg !!! my calculated just shy of 50 ... how are you driving like that

I listen Marley (if I am alone in the car ... that is the only CD ....) So maybe "I am running like lion in Zion" too much

Nice avatar !!!

 

Average high for time of year around 40F, average low is 20F, but the temperatures have been above average, although the mornings have mostly been high 20s or low 30s with just an occasional day in the 40s.

Because of the higher-than-average temperatures I might take off one of the Advanced Warm-up Assistance Devices for the weekend, just to be absolutely safe since I'm not monitoring temperatures.

(Nearly back up to 50mpg this last tank. I'm sure I would have done with summer tires on.)

 

This is your car but you can easily leave it .... Prius III has additional fans to help cooling which engages around 195-198 ... (of course blocking lower the efficiency of that ... )

Unless you are running under heavy load (many passenger or stuff or a lots of uphill ) you should be just fine till mid-high fifties during the day .. the morning (and possibly late evening gain well worth it) also if you drive several shorter trip rather than 50 mile highway each way ....

Again this is your car...

Cheers

 

I keep the bottom blocked year round. I pulled all but 1 piece (each side ) from the top when OAT started reaching into the 50's. Coolant temp isn't the issue as fully blocked it wouldn't get above the mid 190's even in the summer. However, inverter coolant temp rises dramatically. "Normal" inverter temp is ~ OAT +20. I'm looking to keep inverter temp under 100F.

 

Just curious how can you get that info ??? I would be very much interested because heat is a HUGE factor of electronic "ageing"

Cheers

 

I can't do any grille blocking until I get the new tires broken in and all the gas mileage testing completed or I'll skew the results.

I took the grille blocking off the GENII last month when temps were creeping into the high 60s.