I was looking at accessories for my 2022 Prius LE and I came across an Innovative performance chip that's supposed to add horsepower, torque and MPG. I never really thought to see the words Prius and performance in the same sentence, but they managed it. It's only $90 so if it works even a little it would pay for itself in no time. Has anyone had any experience with these? Any thoughts on the subject?
Well, I bought it anyway. It was only $90. It will arrive next week Thursday so we'll see how it does. I drive 120 miles a day on the highway and in the winter with snow tires and cold I get between 44 and 48 mpg. It will be interesting to see if it boosts it up a bit.
I wouldn't put performance parts on a car that wasn't designed for that purpose. You are more likely to break something that is expensive to fix.
The website gives insufficient information to distinguish the product from a placebo. I can't even get any installation instructions without first handing them personal identifying information. A few prior similar product offerings gave enough information to very clearly identify that they were placebos.
Here is a product tear-down and review: https://carperformancechipreviews.com/innovative-performance-chip/ For those of us who had careers in designing and building electronic products on circuit boards, this board is "interesting", displaying several features that immediately jump out to knowledgeable viewers. So, by altering the Intake Air Temperature reading, it is not a placebo. Though some users might end up wishing that it had been just a placebo.
I have heard the module wires into the intake mass air flow sensor or iat and puts a resistor in parallel with the signal wires. They then tell you to disconnect the 12v battery overnight so the system will relearn with their module t-tapped in. I would start the return process early.
I can't say if it's a scam or not, I put it in during colder weather when my snow tires were still on. That always lowers my MPG. however, this summer I have been averaging 53 MPG with a high of 58.5 MPG. I drive almost all highway. I don't know what you all get, but I am pretty happy with this. I am running Bridgestone Ecopia, the same tires that came on the vehicle. Power is good. Better? Maybe, but not noticeable.
Anyone that knows anything about tuning vehicles knows that all of these one size fits all/obdii tuning boxes are scams period. You simply can't tune a modern vehicle that way it's not possible. The ecu is too complex to be altered in that fashion. Changing the iats does nothing if your not compensating with fuel to take advantage and of the denser charge of air except create a dangerous situation. Like in this case running lean and causing your engine to go boom. So to protect the car in these cases the ecu will dump fuel to run the car rich and makes sure a leak condition doesn't occur. This causes worse fuel economy. The Toyota hybrid system vehicles have also been known to have extremely secure security protocols built into the ecu. The ecu itself will only adjust so much before causing issues.
