What are your thoughts on the Gen. 4 Prius?

Coastcruiser ... you were really down on road noise in your Prius for a while. I guess you've gone deaf or are you wearing earplugs now?

Anyway, the mpg makes up for a lot does it not?

 

sorry, i don't even know how to respond.

i guess all i can say is that everyone should take as much time as needed, and do their due diligence, before making a major purchase.

 

HUH?????

 

I have a dog that will fix it.

Bob Wilson

 

No, actually a case of buyer's oblivosity [sounds much better than "obliviousness", don't you think?]. An extremely rare syndrome, fortunately many of the consequences can be treated.

Seriously, did you actually LOOK at the car before you bought it? If you couldn't look at one, why didn't you check out the many reviews and discussions posted here?

Almost as soon as I got in the car I noticed the lack of a second glove box. The solution, as others have said here, is: carry less stuff.

You didn't notice that you didn't like the Softex? Well, you can always solve that with seat covers. Leather if you want. Personally, I prefer Wet Okole seat covers, which I have had in my last 3 cars. $300, more comfy than either leather or fabric, they are made of neoprene wetsuit material, add a little padding, and are waterproof. Because my Gen 4 seats are black, I opted to save money, not get them, and simply put a towel on the passenger seat for the dog.

Coupling/voice commands? I just work from my iPhone, use a magnetic mount for it, and link to the car's system only for audio from the phone.

Didn't you notice the white interior pieces, or the lengthy discussion of them here? If they still bother you, get the pieces from the Model 2 (which are all black) and have them installed in your car. The $ cost will be a good measure of how much they bother you.

I'm impressed that you are getting 48mpg. I would have to work very hard to do that. My current tank in my Gen 4 is sitting at 66mpg average so far and it involves mostly local trips, lots of warmups. Not sure what I could do to get it down to 48. Maybe put on snow tires.

The front seatbacks "shabby"? Seat covers will solve that. As for the shabby trunk mat, replace it with a rubber liner. I didn't care for the ones in either of my last 2 cars, so I got rubber or plastic cargo liners to put back there. Can't help you with the luggage roller, I don't use one because it gets in the way and is unnecessary for me.

Not crazy about the smell either but it dissipates in a week or two.

There.

 

Hey folks,

I have been MIA from the forum for several weeks, so thought I would duck in to provide a quick 2500 mile update. The short version is that I am still loving it, and the DRCC makes long drives (and even peak hour traffic) a cinch. The mileage has more or less around 60 mpg (+4 to 5 on some days, so nothing to complain about in that department). As for the rest, it's a quieter, nicer Prius, so it just drives (with much better responsiveness and road handling) without too much ado.

 

wait, what??? what about the lack of storage, softex seating, poor tech functions, too many displays, white trims, smelly interior, lack of a spare tyre, did i already mention that?

 

Softex seating are music to my (vegan) ears and I don't need to stuff a kangaroo in the storage for the same reasons . As for too many displays, it's tough to get someone who uses multiple monitors to buy into it. Guess the white trims make up for lack of any Apple paraphernalia (seriously) .

If that sounds facetious, most of that critique I have seen thus far as been precisely that.

 

I don't know how people are getting numbers that average in the 58s-60+s. Assuming this is the average MPG from the day the car was taken off the lot (no resets). Since owning my car, I drove over 5,500 miles and my MPG average for all these 5,500 miles is 54-55MPG. I own the touring version but it is impossible to hit 60s average when all trips are combined.

 

Still, you're not at 48.

Some of the keys are keeping speed down to the speed limit or even below if no traffic is behind you. Manipulating the accelerator so that the car goes into EV as much as possible. Planning ahead so that you don't gain too much speed if you are going to have to slow down or stop anyway. Avoiding hard access or hard brakes. If you must brake, do it well in advance to try to bring the car's speed down early, to a speed that may mean you do not have to stop. No tailgating, leave yourself a buffer zone. Oh, and inflate your tires to the sidewall rating which (a) reduces rolling resistance while the gas engine is on and (b) allows you to run EV more and keep the gas engine off more. Setting up the dash display so you can see how you doing (but don't get mesmerized by it !). Many little things which add up.

You'll learn to be focused yet stay relaxed, so you arrive less tired.

 

Yes, all good points. I get ridiculously low figures with my little diesel FordFiesta compared with others I know. One thing I try to do is leave a few minutes early for things, and generally drive in the slow lane (unless it gets too slow). Keeping a buffer is the other thing you said which is imperative - cuts the stress down dramatically, plus, it's illegal to drive too close anyway (here), not that most people take notice of that. I find that my brakes last for a lot longer than many other people's that way too.

 

Sad that this is the way it is. But it is.

 

My thinking is this. Maximizing the use of EV will increase your MPG in the short-term only. When you utilize the battery more, that battery depletes more frequent and will result in the gas engine being turned on to recharge the battery. So if you average it all out, it is no different than regular driving.

 

Interesting, was Watching Thread, and got no notifications for days in my email, even if enabled....
You can get easily 48mpg or less with a Gen3 if you drive at 130+km/h....

 

Most people think in terms of a steady state, and NON-plugin hybrids don't work that way. They save gas in at least three ways: (1) by shutting off the gas engine in low-load conditions (e.g. cruising at light throttle) where gas engines are inefficient, (2) by avoiding use of the gas engine when high torque is needed at low RPM (starting off from a stop) where gas engines are inefficient and electric motors shine, and (3) by adding power under high load conditions when the power of the gas engine is insufficient (hard acceleration or steep hills). So the gas engine can be downsized and optimized to burn gas efficiently over a narrower range of outputs, since electric motors cover the extremes. Much easier than trying to make an engine that can produce say 250hp (for advertising purposes) run efficiently at the 5-15hp needed to cruise along the highway. But a downsized gas engine still needs to be able to produce say 100hp - the electric motors can't do it all - and will still be less efficient at very low outputs than it would be at somewhat higher ones.

["Efficiency" in gas engines can be confusing because hotrodders talk of efficiency in terms of producing more HP without increasing displacement. Or it can be used to talk of getting 20HP from the same amount of gas previously used to get 15HP. But if you only need 15HP, what's the point? It's better to use less gas to produce the same 15HP. And not forget that one can also reduce the amount of HP needed (aero, LRR tires, slowing down, reducing weight, etc).]

Of course all sorts of items like autostop, electric AC, electric steering, electric brake booster pump help too, but most of them could be incorporated into non-hybrids too.

The battery in a non-plugin hybrid exchanges energy back and forth to try to minimize the use of gas. Sure there are inefficiencies of moving energy back and forth, but it turns out there is a net reduction in gas usage, hence the Prius and other hybrids.

The concept behind running on the battery is that since you save gas by not having the gas engine run at all under those first two inefficient modes, you try to make that happen as much as possible. When the battery gets depleted, the gas engine kicks in to (a) move the car and (b) recharge the battery, which combine to raise the load so that the engine operates in a more efficient load range. If one is lucky, there will be an uphill at that point which would require the gas engine to turn on anyway even if the battery were fully charged.

So your trip becomes a mosaic of segments at different mpg's, infinite while you are in EV, summed by the computer and displayed on the dash, the human brain not being very good at integration. The more you are in EV, the higher your mpg will be.

If you are paying attention, there are many ways you can persuade the car to go into EV when it otherwise might not. A simple one with the Gen 4 on the highway: the EV system is just barely strong enough to push the car along at 55-60mph on level ground, so it will tend to run on the gas engine. But if you notice even a mild downhill, that may reduce the load enough that the car will maintain speed and stay in EV, or maybe there is no traffic behind you so that you can ease off, reduce the load to stay in EV, and let it slow down a bit. By letting off the accelerator briefly and then going back to a load under the halfway bar, you can often induce the HSD to go into EV. If you are on cruise control, that won't happen.

At higher speeds of course there is greater aero drag, which goes as the square (!) of the speed. But this isn't the only penalty. The load on the HSD is also greater, so no matter what you do the car will not run in EV. Of course Toyota could have designed the EV to have more oomph, but that would have cost money (bigger battery) and probably would have decreased fuel economy ratings due to added weight. Kind of like the performance envelope of an aircraft: as you approach the edges things don't work as well.

A simplistic way of looking at the EV thing is what's the point of driving around will a fully charged battery and not using it for anything?

It's fine to do "regular driving" in the Prius, it will give excellent fuel economy driven that way. But to say that "efficient driving" doesn't make any difference in mpg? Uhhh I don't think so. Several people here have reported mpg's in the >60 range, some in the 70's. I suspect they are all using some aspects of what I wrote above.

And of course mpg doesn't factor in the additional savings in friction brakes ($800 for all four I think) and tires ($500/set?) from efficient driving.

 

Unless you live in Germany where they use salt in winter on the roads and your brakes are rusty already after 5 years, front and back - with labor costs, 1300€, vielen Dank

 

Yikes! Or "Gott in himmel!! My sympathies.

They use salt here too. But because I don't commute any more probably I'm on the road in salty conditions less than you are, plus you probably drive more miles. The dealer's techs measure pad thickness when they service the car. The brakes on my 2011 still had more than half their original thickness left after 55,000 miles, which really surprised me. I read here of people getting more than 100,000 miles from a set of brakes. Probably part of it is regenerative braking, part from braking so as to maximize regen, and part from driving to avoid braking altogether. $800 buys a lot of gas.

 

If you DIY, the brake pads, either front or back, complete with a new shim kit, are around $100 a set, through a dealership parts department. So $200 for all four.

 

I wouldn't know where to start....
The rear ones failed first at the bi-annual EU revision tests... Either change them or not drive the car.
The front ones about 1 year later...
Probably thick enough but rust did not allow the pads (already ruined by the rust itself) to brake properly with their complete surface.

 

I bet the suspension is pretty rusty too, in particular the bolts, and weld locations.