I just purchased my 2007 Prius a little over a week ago. I have been extremely happy with it, it's everything I ever dreamed it would be. This past weekend, I took a trip (4 hours each way). On the way home, I filled up the tank and I have gotten the best mpg so far. However, the strange part is, the pips on the gas gauge seem to be disappearing faster. On the tank before this I had at least 200 miles on the first half of the tank, but was averaging about 46 mpg. On this tank, I'm averaging 50 mpg, but i'm already below half a tank and only have 180 miles for the tank. Does anyone know why this would be? I have been doing a combination of highway and city driving, but that isn't any different than usual. Thanks for you input. As a new prius owner, I love Priuschat!
It's called the "guess guage" for a reason! You may not have completely filled the tank. You may be driving up or down more steep hills and that does funny things to the level sensors in the tank. Don't sweat it, you kinda get used to the variations after a while. I've got nearly 64,000 miles on my Prius and my current tank I went 168 miles before losing the first pip...never had gone more than about 130 before before it disappeared...it just varies and you get used to it.
I've had my Prius for a couple weeks now and I've noticed the same thing. Sometimes it shows high tank avg MPG but I'll notice the bars will drop off sooner than other tanks where I might get to 140 miles before the first bar drops, and it tells me I'm getting poorer avg MPG. Regardless of what the guage says, the refilled volume of gas has been quite close at matching the avg MPG the computer reports. SO for now that seems to be trustworthy feedback.
Welcome to the site. The Guess Gauge is reliable only on the low end of the scale. At 2 pips consider buying gas. At 1 pip seriously shop for gas. At the flashing pip BUY GAS. One never knows how far the tank can be pushed. If it is pushed too far you may find yourself damaging the traction battery by running it all the way down. This abuse is NOT covered by the warranty.
chances are, you didn't completely fill the tank. The gauge isn't linear, with a full tank it takes almost 3 gallons before the first pip goes down, then it's about one pip per gallon after that. With an incomplete fill, that first pip comes a lot faster.
