Greetings from across the pond! I recently took delivery of a 2014 Prius+, the UK 7 seater version of the Prius v (lowercase v), and I must say that I am very glad that I took the plunge! Had my eyes on it when it first came out but was put off by the price, thinking I would pick up a used one later. One year on, I find that there simply isn’t enough out there on the market and the cheapest used one was only £2k less than a brand new one (I negotiated almost £4k off the list price for a new one)! At least that proves that they do hold their value pretty well… I’ve had the car now for just over a month and already done over 500 miles on the clock. We are a 3000 miles per year family with our last shopping trolley of a car. So you can probably tell that I like this car so much that I am finding excuses just to drive it! I am averaging around 51mpg (Imperial…) and this is including quite a lot of very short trips to the shops in quite a hilly area where I live. On a reasonably long journey I can easily do 50mpg+ without trying. With some gliding, I was once able to match 68mpg as marketed by Toyota. Still learning the ropes with Pulse and Glide but Pulsing for the ‘sweet spot’ speed is near impossible in London traffic. I have to say though, hills really are your worst enemies on this car and I do still find it very underwhelming. On my first ever hill climb, I really had buyer’s remorse, crawling at snail pace and looking at the MPG gauge (it was on instant mpg, I haven’t read the manual at that point…) showing 12.5mpg! Oh the shock… At least now I know to get up to speed before the climb and only try to maintain the speed whilst uphill which has makes it less detrimental. I have been reading this forum a lot even since placing the order and have learnt a lot from here! The sales person was surprised I knew so much already on the day I took delivery! Anyway, just thought I’d introduce myself and hopefully contribute to this community in the days/years to come! P.S. I have already bought some Mods/Accessories from Japan and plan to post about it in the Accessories & Mods forum so do look out for it.
Our v is a 2012 model, now just over two years old. We're getting 5.4 litres/100 km., which is 52.3 miles/imperial gal. in Nova Scotia driving-not too hilly. I tried the ECO function for the first six months but didn't see any effect on fuel consumption so don't use it any more. Anyway, I'm burning much less fuel than all my friends, which is the main thing, right? Agreed it's not so great on hills-too noisy.
I perform a variation on pulse and glide up steep hills with alternate extreme pulsing (full pedal) then easing off the pedal a little and letting the electric motor do some of the work. This way the engine is not as noisy and it behaves as a conventional auto would if it was changing gear.
Electric motors are always working, along with the ICE. They probably work even more when in "full pedal", assisting the engine flowing energy from the battery...
Thanks for the tip! Good to see another fellow UK Prius+ owner! I am getting the hang of getting better fuel efficiency out of this car without trying too hard to Pulse and Glide. Just do it where possible and makes sense without disrupting traffic. Averaging around 51mpg (Imperial) reported from the car, I am sure it will be lower with manual calculation. Here is the best trip I have achieved yet: This is a 20 mile return trip from the Airport with some hills and slow moving traffic. The car seems to excel in slow moving traffic or even traffic jams !! So very happy with this purchase!
what ... no pictures ?? ;-) I'd sure like to see that interior. I'd LOVE to get a 7 seater if it were available ... especially if it were a plug in .
