Buying a used prius c - MPG from start reads 22.5. Should I be worried?

there should be 3 trip displays. trip A, trip B, and odometer. the odometer selection will show total mileage since new, and "from start" which means since the car was last started.(like ten minutes ago). toggle the trip button to trip A and trip B to see what the mileage is since the last fill up.that should give you a picture of what the mpg is.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

In contrast, The seller could have stopped the car ,turned it off, then started it, and drove around slowly (in electric mode) and it would have shown 50+ mpg.

Take it on a test drive and see what mileage you get when you drive it.....

 

When you select the odometer display, the fuel economy is shown "from start" - in other words, from when you most recently started the car. "From Start" does not mean "from when the car was new". And since the car gets its very worst fuel economy immediately after startup (it has to run the engine in order to warm it up even if you're not moving), it's very normal for the "from start" fuel economy to be poor until you've driven it for several miles (or kilometres).

 

you have to remember the from start is a running average; say you start off heavy acceleration you'll have 15.0 mpg, then you level off and your instantaneous mileage might be 55 mpg but your from start might show 35 mpg (averaging 15 mpg and 55 mpg)

 

It runs low (to high over a trip) like that if it starts with the ICE engaged, and it runs high (to low over a trip) if it starts with the battery engaged. Not to worry. Sometimes my car says 8 mpg since stsrt. You would think yikes, but it builds up.

 

It starts off - engine cold with low MPG, as you drive it and the engine warms up, you will see the MPG rise. You will see this occur on a daily basis.