Updating my friends here at Prius Chat

Excellent. Now that you know what "normal" is, please tell the rest of us.

Find some good tunes, pump up the volume a bit, consider how lucky you are compared to some of your neighbors, and enjoy! For fun, you could get one of those coffee can sized exhaust tips and the engine sound won't bother you anymore. You just need more time behind the wheel to adapt to this vehicle's style of noises. Enjoy.

 

Like this?

 

Years of watching this and other hybrid boards have shown me there are newbie phases of hybrid ownership that many folks go through:

First is the amazed/excited/happy phase to see the big FE numbers one has never encountered before.

Next is the confused/questioning stage of not really understanding how it all works.

Then comes the research/education phase when one learns the tricks.

This leads to the implementation phase of said techniques.

The next phase is dependent on the individual: either you hit the big numbers and are content or you become frustrated; either because of the application of said techniques is too difficult (tons of threads on this) or you don't hit the big numbers you've seen others post.

The next phase is where I am now: turn off the consumption screens and just drive the damn car.

 

I'm glad things worked out for you and got such a good report from the dealer. Don't let me suck you into unwanted/unnecessary things down the road though. 47mpg., isn't to bad to a Gen2. new owner. Since you seem to like to accelerate briskly it's really the thing to do, go a few miles above what your shooting for then ease off and you'll get better mpg's, you'll get the hang of it.

 

I think that accelerating briskly correlates with late braking. And that correlates with green bars on the battery. Tampa traffic tends to generate that, too.

Any time, you feel inadequate because the car sounds kinda wimpy when you mash down hard on the "loud lever" with your right foot, just remind yourself how incredibly primitive the other cars are that surround your 11 year old marvel of modern engineering.

 

Yep! Pretty neat car, eh! BTW, I HATE I-75. I'll often drive well out of my way to avoid it. It's almost as bad as I-4 (aka "Indy on Whiskey").

 

Another relatively new Prius owner. I have a 2007 with 179K miles on it. Bought it in July with 175K. It's in really good shape, drives like a dream and so far I am averaging north of 48mpg (by Fuelly). I have gone through all the stages and am now in perfecting the techniques as well as balancing the "just drive it" with "save as much gas as possible". The latter mode is kind the fun part of Prius. In a muscle car the fun part is going fast and furious risking tickets, accidents, etc. I very much used to be that "car guy". Then in my late 20's I got me a motorcycle and the whole car (aka cage) lost the appeal to me as you could do things on the motorcycle that cars have never ever dreamed of. Then I got a family and a kid and the priorities for what a car is for changed drastically. I needed a reliable 4 door family car with good safety features, etc. So I bought a brand new 1998 Volvo S70. Now that kid is an adult and has learned to drive a stick shift on that Volvo and is using it as his first car. So my "car guy" thing went from high performance, speed, handling, etc. to safety, economy, utility. When it was time to replace that '98 Volvo (and I still have my other 1993 Volvo 940 wagon) I really thought I need to look into a technological leap in cars.

So I started researching Prii, which I always kind of dismissed before. But now I realized that they (the classic gen 2) are over a decade old and have stood the test of time quite well. I also learned that they are not very expensive on a used market because of the battery. I am handy and an electrical engineer, love tinkering, always worked on my cars myself, so I decided this may be an interesting adventure. It took a while for me to find a good specimen, but I finally did find one and I am really, REALLY liking it so far. I have gone through the stages described by Fotomoto and this forum has helped with the education process greatly.

I find that Prius is a lot of fun once I changed what I consider fun. I am now having great fun driving the Prius by pushing my MPG up while trying to "just drive it". I think it's more fun that trying to kill myself by going too fast. Also, I actually feel like Prius has pretty decent acceleration for a family car. It is very safe for merging into highway traffic. I can be an aggressive driver (though I do not practice that normally) and Prius has no problem when I need to be aggressive with it. I think people get taken by surprise in their expensive fast cars when I pass them in my Prius. So much of the driving is in the skill rather than the power under the hood anyway. Most people on the roads are simply incompetent and no amount of horsepower will help that.

So enjoy your Prius, don't worry about the sound of the engine, it's only a 1.5L gas burner and when it goes anywhere above 3500rpm it sounds like it's straining. I try to avoid these situations by reducing the power demand or if I need the power at the moment just understanding that this is the way this car is. I think it's an awesome car and I have had many, many cars over my lifetime. This Gen 2 Prius is quickly becoming my favorite. It is a bit appliance like, but I kind of like that because it's a well designed appliance that does what I want it to do and does not complain. It just works, which is amazing considering how much technology is in there. As an engineer I really appreciate that fact.