I'm a new member as well as a new owner of a 2004 Tideland Pearl Prius. Here in New Zealand it's best to buy any car used (imported from Japan) as the price of new cars here is way out of line. A new Prius costs $43,650.00 and that is the base model. You can buy an I-tech (fully loaded) New Zealand new model for $53,750.00 RRP (www.toyota.co.nz). Yes, you read that right. sooo.... on to my question. I keep reading that the mileage decreases in cold weather. Please define cold weather. At what temperature do you start to notice a difference? Here in Auckland the coldest we get is about 5 degrees Celsius (41 F) over night and about 10c or 11c (50 f - 51.8f) at it's coldest during the day. BTW I love my car. For the past year I couldn't decide what kind of a car I wanted. Prius was in the mix with BMW 3 series, Merc C190 and Honda Accord. After a year I finally decided to test drive a Prius. All I did was start to drive it and I knew that this was the car for me. I fell in love right away.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Nexxus @ May 13 2007, 09:43 PM) [snapback]441462[/snapback]</div> 5C is in the range where you will experience a decrease in mileage. Now that said with a JDM model without the coolant thermos your only going to have to heat 4 Liters of coolant instead of 8 like the NA models. So it shouldn't be as drastic a reduction as here. There are lots of threads here on PC about blocking off the grills in cold weather and that really helps. Several Liter per hundred Km's better than with it open. Cheap water pipe foam insulation inserted in the grill openings does the trick. As far as I know there is not a factory block heater for 220 volts, but I could be wrong. That has proven to be a great help in keeping the mileage from dropping off badly and the other advantage is the heater has warm coolant at startup.
Frank and Bill, Thanks for the help. I'm still learning how to drive a Prius (I drive up and down hills a lot and I'm very heavy footed on the up take) so I'm not getting the best out of my Prius yet. All helpful suggestions are welcomed.
You're welcome, Nexxus. Welcome to PriusChat! It's the first "sticky" in the Fuel Economy topic: New owner? Want MPG help? Read this first., great info from one of our own. There is a lot of great information on this site. The Search link at the top of every page is your friend.
Thanks Bill. I have so many questions because I'm not used to driving a hybrid. I automatically think something is wrong when everything is ok. I even called the dealer 2 days after I bought the car and told him that I thought the speedometer was off by about 20kilometrs because I just knew I wasn't going as fast as it said I was. He chuckled and told me that he has heard it before. I did a test with a friend in his car and a mobile phone and found out that yes, I was going that fast. lol I have so much to learn ...
