Best commute to work MPG ever....

46 mph.

 

I just bought an used 2008 Prius five days ago with 96000 miles on it. Today, I drove the car from Albany NY to New Haven CT with total of 139 miles. I got a little surprised when I saw the average mpg of this trip was 54.2, considering the EPA mpg for this car is only 45 HW and 48 city. Furthermore, I only paid $3800 for the car. So far I am very satisfied with the purchasing.

 

No real surprise, that is within the normal variation people should expect from the EPA ratings. Different routes, traffic, weather, speeds, and driver styles all produce major differences in actual results. Nobody's drive exactly matches any of the defined test cycles, and even those results are munged together and marked down significantly to produce the final label number.

 

True. Also maybe that the elevation difference between the start (Albany=161') and end (New Haven = 41') also helped the mpg.

 

Yes, it helped Barely.

My rule of thumb for a lightly loaded Gen3 Prius is that 10,000 feet of elevation change is equivalent to 1 gallon (+/- 15%-ish). By that rule, the elevation difference on this trip saved 0.012 gallon (about 1.5 ounces), improving your trip MPG by 0.25 MPG. I.e. without the elevation change, trip MPG would have been 53.95 instead of 54.2.

 

Hmm, interesting. Since I just bought this 08 Prius two week ago, so far I drove three trips, two from New Haven, CT to Albany NTY and one as reversed. On the two trips from New Haven to Albany, I got 44.3 mpg for one trip (raining on that day) and 55.8 mpg for the second trip (two days ago without rain). I am at Albany now, and will drive back to New Haven on Friday. I will see whether I can get the 54.2 MPG again this time!

 

^^ Rain vs dry road, and head- vs tail-wind (or even breeze) are much bigger factors than the elevation change on this trip.

 

I got renewed my best mpg for my 08 Prius this week. It improved to 50 mpg now!

 

Sorry, it was a typo, 50 mpg should be 55 mpg!

 

08PriusXSJ - Are you also doing the actual calculations based on the gallons you're putting in the tank? It's always fun to see numbers greater than 50 on the screen but the car's calculations are not always accurate and usually they are optimistic. It takes multiple tanks and calculating the actual gallons you've put in against the miles driven to see what the car is really delivering.

 

I owned this car for just two weeks and just filled the tank twice yet. I drove 350 miles per week and used 7 gallons gas. The mpg on the screen and by actual gas fill matches well. The interesting things is that the mpg for both the trips from New Haven to Albany was only about 45 while I got 55 mpg for the returning trips. Could it be the winding direction for this 10 mpg difference?

 

Wind direction? Or winding road direction?

Wind is very relevant. Headwinds hurt, front-quarter winds hurt even more.

 

The length and slope of inclines, wind direction, coordination of traffic signals, etc. could all be factoring in to the 10 mpg difference.

Overall, the performance of your car sounds excellent. Here's hoping your good fortune with the car continues. It appears you have one of those that is above average comparing it to others at fuelly.com and fueleconomy.gov.

Congratulations!

 

Thank you. So far I am very happy for the purchasing of this car ($3800 from a private seller). More more interesting: mpg on repeated up-down road seems to much higher than than on a flat road. It seems crazy but I just felt that way.

 

Not crazy at all. It depends considerably on the actual details of the topography, the speeds involved, and your actual driving style. And weather differences can bullox any comparison attempts entirely.

 

And I thought that the trip to work and back was on roads that only ran down hill and always had a tail wind.

My old Gen 2 2004, 190,000+ miles only gets 30 mpg this winter. In the summer I can get 50 mpg if I hypermile a lot.
The 12V battery is good,tires at 44, 42 psi. Trying premium Shell (Maybe no ethanol) with bad mileage. Premium seems to deliver a little bit better mileage.
The MFD shows good mileage after I start and level out but then usually hovers at 50 mpg up to 50 - 60 mph but much higher if hypermile.
What I am seeing is the fuel economy is low accelerating and better on the level. The mileage never catches up on the short run.

The HV battery looks good, but easily shows 7 green bars. I attribute this to a weak battery. (A cold battery holds less charge than a warm one, and charges full easier. A weak hv battery shows this even sooner)

I probably have an hv battery that is getting weak and hanging in there. My Mini VCI won't connect anymore so I can't read the cells.

If anyone in West Michigan has a working Mini VCI, I would like to run over and have you check it out.

 

20 mpg difference between the winter and summer is a little abnormal. IF IT WOULD HAPPEN TO MY CAR, then may I expect 70 mpg in the coming summer (joking here). I would think that the HV battery is the issue.

 

Are the brakes starting to drag badly? That is too much drop for any single common winter MPG issue.