Finest, greenest, & safest taxicab in the world. The story of cab 2545

I saw it too. I thought the competitors did it?

 

Sounds like you plan to replace the ICE and traction battery. That is a lot, but if $5k + usual wear items gets you another 200k miles it is well worth it.

Please stay in touch with the forum. Yours is an interesting story!
Just a thought -- if you often put the car in EV mode it may be best to change that habit in the future.

 

Was thinking the same thing .... But 5k over that many miles (hard miles at that), it would make for cheap motoring

 

^^^ agree.
Very much appreciate the factual reporting and please keep us informed as taxi service is a heckuva test for any car and your experience lets us normal drivers know what to expect to some extent.

 

This is not a big deal. Just keep adding oil and if the rate increases, you can skip oil change and just do filter change. However, if you catch it at early stage, piston soaks/ring cleaning can still reverse the oil consumption.

I would worry about battery more. Start planning for a replacement.

 

Hi Socrates, another Greek here, Prius owner, not cabbie.
The fuel consumption you are getting is very high, which indicates that your driving style leaves something to be desired!
I never managed to burn more than 5.6 liters of gas per 100km!!! And that was driving crazy fast!
At how many kilometers do you replace front brake pads?

PS: I once asked a genII cabbie about his mileage and any problems (just out of curiosity)! He had 300k kilometers and no problems at all! Yes, that was in Thessaloniki!.

PS2: Are you an owner or a driver?

 

I was a taxi driver. There is no fuel economy comparison between driving in town for 1 or 2 hours as a private driver and a taxi where you are driving in town for 10 hours at least, each and every day. Sometimes you have to push the car a little harder than you'd like, sometimes you have to go a route that you personally wouldn't want to take but the customer does. The HV battery gets hot, then hotter, then hotter still. The a/c never has time to catch up as customers are always opening and shutting the doors or even opening your windows. Sometimes they leave the door wide for a minute or two whilst getting in but letting all your cold air out. They sometimes block the HV battery vent causing the battery to overheat.

A little idea for you if you have a day spare. Reset your trip computer to zero and drive for 10 hours in an around the city, the side streets, the residential areas, only stopping for comfort breaks. Then see what your fuel economy is.And then when you think you're doing well imagine the controller on the radio telling you you should have been there 5 minutes ago and you're still 5 miles away!

There is also a BIG difference between the gen2 and the gen3. The gen2 Prius is capable of super high mileages/kilometers, but the gen3 doesn't seem to be as hardy. US drivers get about 200k miles out of a battery and European drivers much less due to the narrow streets (see pics below). And European brakes are softer than the US versions as Euro drivers like more bite in their brakes. My front pads last 30k miles (50k km) and the discs needed changing at 60k miles (100k km).

So before you question people and their experience you might want to be aware of the full facts. Just a thought.

Big wide US residential street and even your narrow streets are wide for Europe;



Whereas narrow European residential streets cause start stop start stop driving (esp with oncoming cars) which stresses the HV battery more which reduces its life and fuel economy;



Hope this explains where there are differences between US and European drivers and also between taxi and private owners.

 

Just trying to comprehend contradicting facts here.

BTW GrumpyCabbie, you say you replaced pads at 30k miles. What was your fuel mileage?

 

My average over 35,000 miles was 49.9 mpg UK or about 41.5 mpg US. I had a fuelly stat link at one time but can't find it now. Others on here will confirm the above.

 

WOW!!! That's 6.8 l/100km !!!

 

Erm no it's not. UK and US gallons are different. 42 mpg UK is 6.72l/100km, but 50 mpg UK is 5.6 l/100km. (42 mpg US is 5.6 litres/km)

Convert miles per gallon(UK) to litres per 100 kilometers - fuel consumption converter

Having different sized gallons is one reason why the metric system caught on. Having different sized gallons (UK gallon = 4.54 litres, US gallon = 3.7 litres) also caused significant problems in WWII when a pilot would calculate a certain amount of fuel was required, fill up with the smaller US gallon and then end up landing somewhere they didn't want to; usually the sea.

 

You 're right. I made some mistake in my calculation.

But, it seems contradicting that the car would consume 5.6 and it would still eat its brakes at 50k km. I just replaced front brakes (pads and disks) at 250k km. That's 5 times yours.

I don't know my friend, something doesn't add up!

 

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but my Gen2 had all of its brakes (discs and pads) replaced at 56,000 miles (90,000kms) when I bought it. Mine was a one owner car, came from Scotland and had a full service history from the original main dealer, MOT certs etc to prove mileage, so no concerns there. It was also on it's second set of tyres, all at the low mileage of 56,000 miles. The roads in Scotland would account for alot of the wear I would think, I'm not sure after that.

 

And what's the situation like now that the car is yours?

PS: It's not like we have the best of roads here in Greece!!!

PS2: Along with the brakes, I also replaced the front struts, which were worn. I noticed faster pad wear with worn out struts, probably because the prius turns to normal braking instead of regenerating when over road bumps. The new struts have lessened this phenomenon.

 

I have noticed the dealers push for disc and pad replacement when it is not needed. New discs are 23 mm thick and Toyota say change them at 19 mm. New pads front have 11 mm of material and are ok down to 1 mm.
At my last service they said my front discs were worn and needed replacement along with new pads. I pointed out the pads had been replaced by myself 12,000 miles ago and still measured over 10 mm the discs measured 22.75 mm with even ware and no rust.
The service writer said he was only reporting what the mechanic had put on the service sheet. I ask for the discs to be measured again at witch point he went to see the mechanic and came back and said it was only a visual assessment by the mechanic. At that point I told him that maybe they should start measuring the disc thickness with a micrometer to better diagnose the amount of ware to save customer unnecessary work and expense. There was no reply.

John (Britprius)

 

This sounds more logical!