I bought a 2008 Prius three weeks ago - which I love - and I'm coming close to running through my first tank of gas at an average of 40-42mpg. Is this normal? And my battery doesn't always show full bars - it ranges from 3/4 full to one bar from the top full and sometimes - when traffic on the island where I live slows to a stop and go crawl - it gets pretty low (two to three bars from the bottom). Is my battery okay? I've also noticed that when I'm NOT in stop and go traffic and roaming around at normal speeds, my gas mileage is much better (up to 48-50mpg) and the battery seems to stay more full. Thanks for helping out a Prius newb! I've found some great tips on this site
Yes, sounds normal. Your brakes regenerate electricity, so you want to have room to save that energy. Almost all cars do better with less traffic.
I don't know what you're supposed to get with a 2nd gen Prius but that sounds normal. About the battery, i think it's normal since my 2014 never reaches full charge and gets to 2 bars with heavy traffic on EV mode. I heard that Toyota made it never exceed 80% charge to prolong it's life.
All sounds normal to me. Owned and drove a Gen II like yours for a while. Gen III is in the driveway now. Learn how to hypermile, plus employ other tips such as raising air pressure in tires, alignments, and throttle bore cleaning as well as employing synthetic oil (Mobil 1) and you should get in the range of upper 40's to low 50's over time. It took me a year to learn how to drive a Prius. Each day I work towards mastering it. One thing that makes a BIG difference is this. The length of your trips. Short trips are bad for the Prius. Long trips are better. Learn about the different "modes" of the Prius as well as the S4 mode. There is a link in my signature file below this post that explains just that. FWIW, you might want to read and study all of the linked pages. I found this information to be very valuable to me when I first got started with the Prius. Best of luck to you and Welcome to Prius Chat! dorunron (Ron)
Thanks SO much - I've learned a lot from these and I'm going to practice the pulse and glide technique on my way home from work just to start. This is incredible information and is really helping me understand my Prius!
Good deal Keri. It never gets old to us old timers to see an excited newbie come here and want to learn stuff.
We all had to start at the beginning Keri. At one time I was where you are today. Hang in there. The Prius is the BEST car out there IMO. There is nothing like it. Avalon is close, as is the Camry (hybrids of course) and don't forget the little C and the V. But the full size Prius is the one to have. Gen III is tops in my book. Will be interesting to see what the Gen IV has to offer. Peace, Ron
