forget the maximum, what's the minimum MPG?

I had a 39 MPG tank a few months ago. But other than that one time, I've never gone below 50.

 

my worst tank was in the winter when i was doing a 6 week training class and i happened to live 1.1 miles away from. we were given long lunches so couple that will daily trips to the gym, i was:

1. going to gym .9 miles
2. return home take shower
3. go to class 1.1 miles
4. return home for lunch
5. return to class
6. home at night.

this was in winter time and my mileage was 41.1 and 39.7 mpg.

now i also delivered to local morning paper for 4 days (work conflicted with doing this longer...really wanted to do one full tank... but...) but this was summer time right after i got my Prius and despite multiple stop and gos, i still had averaged over 42 mpg and i did fill up the night before the first day. that tank eventually recovered to get over 50 mpg by fillup time.

 

I never had a tank under 42MPG. Most above 45MPG. Above 50MPG in the summer.

Others already said, in theory, u can get 0MPG by just let the car run while in park.

 

The worst mpgs I've gotten yet was 34.3 on a 68 mile stretch. Most of it was on an uphill grade, part of which was a 6% grade. The rest was short trips around town (1/2-1 mile) in 15-30 degree mountain weather.

Link to my GreenHybrid.com page

It's the 5th tank down from the top, click on 'more' for exact details. It's been over a month since the trip.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rancid13 @ May 10 2006, 10:31 AM) [snapback]252888[/snapback]</div>

At 34.3 mpgs, my worst mpgs yet in the Prius is better than the best mpgs I could ever get in my old Saturn, which never got better than 30 mpg under ideal highway driving. It had a 10 gallon tank and I was running on fumes by the time I got 300 miles into the tank.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tom_06 @ May 10 2006, 06:49 AM) [snapback]252667[/snapback]</div>

Sorry, I don't understand. What do they mean by "you should use the power button"? Can you leave the Prius on for a week?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mike_m @ May 10 2006, 10:40 AM) [snapback]252897[/snapback]</div>

You have to use the power button to both turn the car on and to turn it off. :blink: Duh, I know. The Prius can be left on for however long it takes to use up a tank of gas while in the Ready mode whether it's being driven or is parked. When the battery starts to get low (like down to 1 or 2 purple bars) the ICE will run and regenerate the battery back up, then shut off, then run again and so on until it runs out of gas. It seems these people didn't realize you have to hit the power button to turn the car off, and pretty much left it in Ready mode constantly, thus the low mpgs.

 

My second and third tanks were in the 30's on a trip to Milwaukee and back. I got 33 something using the cruise, headwind and 0 degrees. Coming back it was a little under 35 (20 degress and less headwind.) I have since found that I get much worse MPG with the cruise on highways, even when it is flat. Last week I got 47 MPG on a trip to Battle Creek, MI and back. I usually get around 50 in mixed drivng in the hilly areas around Iowa City. I am learning more each day on how to improve effciency.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rancid13 @ May 10 2006, 01:53 PM) [snapback]252908[/snapback]</div>

Sounds kind of dangerous. Say they had a garage-under house and all the Carbon Monoxide kept filling up the garage and house. Not cool. There should be some sort of intelligence in the software that prevents this.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Prizzle @ May 10 2006, 11:14 AM) [snapback]252927[/snapback]</div>

The intelligence is "Turn off the car when you're done with it!", just like with any conventional other car out on the road these last few decades or so.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(busyrosy @ May 9 2006, 08:08 PM) [snapback]252499[/snapback]</div>

My weekly commute takes me from Vegas to Ridgecrest, CA. It's a desert commute over several passes, and normally very cold in the morning when I drive. The drive is 240 miles, and I once made the trip in 2 hours 32 minutes from driveway to work parking lot (with a passenger). My foot was glued to the floor the entire way (except for the occasional stop sign or traffic), and I averaged approximately 94 MPH for the trip, although I was cruising at 105-108 during the highway portions. I got 26.7 MPG and nearly ran out of gas from a full tank. It would be tough to get worse highway mileage than that unless you were making the Pike's Peak hill climb repeatedly at full throttle.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rancid13 @ May 10 2006, 01:53 PM) [snapback]252908[/snapback]</div>

Yup, that's what I meant. Apparently they'd gas it up every few days until they complained and brought it in!

- Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(busyrosy @ May 9 2006, 06:08 PM) [snapback]252499[/snapback]</div>

Actually, I haven't tried to get the mileage to be low, but I've gotten as low as 35 mpg, in the winter (at times the temperture's never above freezing), while never driving more than a mile or two at a time. One trip of over 15 miles brings it back up to about 40. Then driving a few miles at a time it drops down toward 35 again. I'm sure I could get it to go down to 25, if I never went more than a mile in the colder parts of winter. Now I'm doing about 48 mpg with mixed trips. This includes around small town and longer trips with elevation drops and rises of about 500 ft.

Dave

 

My worst ever was 45. That was when I was a rookie. It's still double of my wife's Outback. I'm routinely 49+ looking for 50

 

I've had my car 3 weeks, and did my first fill-up on Saturday, averaged about 43 MPG over 366 miles, almost all short trips (5 miles each way to/from work). (My MFD said 44 MPG, so it was close!)

So far I have about 80 miles on my second tank and the MFD is saying I'm getting 48, but the last 3 days I've gone into 'town' on errands after work, extending my drive from 15 minutes to 20 minutes. That little bit of 'extra driving' has had a fairly significant effect on my MPG - usually the first 5 minutes of my trips are in the 25 MPG range, and the rest of the trip is between 50 and 75 mpg when I'm not stopped in traffic.

Presumably my mileage will be worse in the depth of winter.

 

During the winter I camped in my Prius leaving it running parked all night for heat and it still got over 42MPG on that tank

 

29 mpg. Here's how:

Fargo, North Dakota, January and February. Low temperatures 20 to 30 below. High temperatures around zero Fahrenheit. Let the car run for 5 minutes, with the heat on high, before driving it, in order to get the cab up to around zero before driving. Drive 10 minutes to the gym, then 3 minutes to the office, then 10 minutes to the grocery store, then 2 minutes home. Heat on high the whole time so the engine never shuts off, never goes into electric mode even though the battery is always on 6 or 7 bars, or occasionally 8.

 

Worse tank was around 35 mpg. It was on I-80 going from Denver to Evanston, WY with two adults, one kid, and packed full of Christmas presents. Sit the cruise on 75 mph into about a 50 mph headwind. I believe it was E10 gas as well. I think the second tank on that leg was around 40 something. I've told the story in a post before, but a Chevy Lumina that was driving with us with pretty much the same configuration of people and cargo averaged 21mpg.

Haven't gotten anywhere close to that 35 mpg since.

 

Hey, you guys are making light about our everyday experience here in the other windy city, San Francisco! :blink:

If you live and work in the city you would be hard pressed to have a commute over 7 miles, ours is 3.6. I'll clock it one day but I bet most of the time is spent sitting at stop lights!

But, I'm not giving up, I've picked up a few tips on this site in just one week:
1. try inflating the tires to 42/40 or thereabouts
2. consider using vent instead of auto AC, (this will be tough with our regional climate changes, it could be fogged in on our hill and 1/2 a mile away full sun)
3. keep checking in on priuschat.com for the wisdom of the sages

b