First 500 mile tank!

I achieved my first 512 miles tank yesterday...and I put in 10.6 gallons thereafter.

Nothing exceptional, but I like getting 500+ miles using 87 octane fuel; the BMW required 17 gallons of high octane 91 which yielded 350 miles..

 

I don't know what I am doing wrong, I am at 700 miles on the odo and always running in eco mode. I know I don't drive much, maybe a mile and a half a day. Do you think that is causing me to get the lower mpg?
Does anyone have any suggestions? Currently getting 42 mpg according to the car computer.

SCH-i705 ? HD

 

You are doing nothing wrong and given your driving profile, 42 MPG is good!

For the first 3-6 minutes, our Prius is in warm-up mode:

• 45-50 seconds -heating up the catalytic converter, no more than 25-30 MPG.
• ~400-500 seconds - heating up the engine coolant to 70C and going into 'hybrid mode' 35-45 MPG.

Unless you have a requirement for driving more than 50-70 miles/day, you would do much better with a Leaf or a short-range, electric vehicle . . . assuming they handle your local weather conditions . . . AND . . . you can plug it in.

Bob Wilson

 

yes

 

I "try" but seem to average mid to high 40mpg. How are all you guys averaging over 50mpg consistently?

 

well you need to share something about your driving, route, climate etc.

note that cold weather hot weather etc... also if you drive fast that is a killer of mpg similarly to ANY car

 

My bad. I have a ~16mi commute each way. Temp is 45-70 degrees. I drive the speed limit on the highway (65mph) and dont do any hard accelerations ...are you folks that get 50+mph driving under speed limits and using hypermiling techniques?

 

Tire psi to low?, if at about 32 to 35.
Try 40 psi front and 38 psi rear. Do not go over side wall max. rated on tire. 62-65 mph is a good speed, slower is always better, but be safe!
Take a look here. Fuel economy complaints/queries? Please copy, paste & answer these questions, esp. if you're new | PriusChat

 

I just got my Prius pkg_3 yesterday and i have driven over 200 miles. All things considered it looks like my first tank will be over 600 miles. I think i will go get myself a pepsi bottle dump out the drink and fuel up with gas. Drive the car till it sputters, then fill the tank with my Pepsi gas reserve and drive to the nearest gas station. Then i will really know what the range is. I have done this on my motorcycles, and it is good to know how the bike feels when it is about to run empty. I have driven my truck a few times into the gas station and literally glided into the pump with the car in neutral and the engine dead.

Over the last 3+ years i have been practicing, pulse and glide and hypermilling without knowing what the terms are? The only problem i was doing this on a Ford F150 5.4l V8 and only getting 12mpg city and 18mpg on fwy. I drove the thing like a Prius, really light on the accelerator and hardly any braking. My truck gets more respect than a Prius so no one ever bothered me except a few times (don't mess with a full size truck.)

I am loving the MPG on the Prius. Before i would put $15 in the truck drive for 2 hours, put another $12 drive another few hours then before days end go back to the gas station and stick in another $20 so i could limp home. The way i learned how to conserve fuel Pre-Prius was to just put a small amount of gas in the Ford and see how long i could go on the 3-4 gallons. If your not talented, your pushing the truck or paying dearly at the tank. The truck has the optional 36 gallon tanks, so I never filled it up once gas got pricey.

 

600 miles on a regular prius or the plugin?

btw since using the pulse and glide (AKA making the person behind you sad) technique ive gotten my average up to around 50mpg with yakima roof racks. Curious to see what milage i get when i take the racks off.

 

Regular Prius. The first two hundred miles of ownership i didn't have much of an idea on the P&G technique, so my mileage was still good but down. Now that i have it somewhat figured out i will be around 570-580 miles from a tank? I have taken some drastic measures to reach this figure, like avoiding large hilly freeways and taking a flatter, longer route on surface streets, and driving at times on the upper crest of the inclines/hills at 45-50mph on the freeway., driving on the far right lane with the directional on at 40mph so it looks like i am exiting the freeway- i use the directional so i won't get ticketed by CHP for driving to slow or getting pulled over for DUI. Purposely getting stuck in traffic so i can crawl along at 15mph using the battery, not terrible difficult to find slow traffic on LA Freeways and taking off from lights very, very slow at times. Extreme i know..., but i just wanted to push the envelope.

No not too many sad drivers. I get a lot of people waiving at me (with one finger) and a few Prius drivers on my tail honking at me for driving too slow.

 

I'm smiling at how many Prius were sold because they could get an HOV tag.

Bob Wilson

 

I finally made it to my very first 517 miles on a full tank, this is my 4th fill up on a 2014 Prius Three that I took ownership of on 12/20/13. Avg Mpg 57.3 & 19mph. Fill up took 9.77 Gals. My daily commute is 32-40miles round trip. I live in Hawaii so cold weather is not an issue but there is heavy traffic in the morning and heavier traffic on the way home. I think I came to the conclusion that controlling the AC helped me get to the 500 mile mark, on this last tank of gas I only used the A/C when needed and made sure i turned it off when driving up hills, turned it back on when going downhill. My previous 3 tanks I ran the a/c on auto mode the entire time. I also drive in Eco Mode 100% of the time.

I learned a lot from watching the driving video posted by Bob Nagy. Thank you Bob. This is a really great forum to get info and share experiences.

 

I hit 678 miles on my third tank. The fill up was to the top of my filler neck until the gas poured out and onto the ground. I couldn't run it to empty for fear of getting stranded, so I don't know exactly how much my mileage was? Recalling from memory I was around 58mpg?

 

Just a reminder,

From Toyota manual


When refueling
Observe the following precautions to prevent fuel overflowing from the fuel

tank:

Securely insert the fuel nozzle into the fuel filler neck.

Stop filling the tank after the fuel nozzle automatically clicks off.

Do not top off the fuel tank.


This is from me.
Your evap charcoal filter is at the top of filler neck and if that fills with gas it will need to replaced, from my understanding this is not cheap.

Enjoy your car, MPG game is fun. I enjoy mine.

 

thanks. wonder if i toasted my eval charcoal filter? I mean evap charcoal filter.
My 2004 Ford F150 Truck doesn't have charcoal filter? It's just pour-and-go, ditto for the motorcycle. What's up with all this technology, the next thing you know they will write manuals for the car. Damn, i am going to need to RTFM?

would 1-2 fillups all the way to the top ruin the filter?

 

Hopefully no problem! I think if a problem it would send codes.

 

I think the risk is seeing visible gas at the top. I typically use the 'two-click' method but nothing beyond. The filler tube is not what I consider tank capacity as cold gas in a full tank on a hot day will expand and overflow . . . making a stinking, risky mess on the side of the car.

Bob Wilson

 

I'm still hoping for a 500 mile tank...

cold weather and snow are killing my chances chances..

I'm still filling up at one bar blinking so fill ups are 10gal or less.. and I Ithink I'm close enough to cross the threshold of 500 if I'm willing to wait a bit longer...

did a 120 mile round trip to Fredricksburg... set the trip and got 59MPG averaging 60mph... with the cruise control.

I can't wait until my first real "road trip" in the car...

 

Yes it does; it's been required on US-market vehicles since 1971. Usually the canister is under the hood somewhere, though, not at the filler neck.

Edit: Staying on topic, filled up tonight a 557-mile tank.