Have had our new Prius for 5 days now! Our other car is a 99 Corolla with 77,000 miles on it. I'm using the Prius to commute 10 miles each way to work, my wife either drives 2 miles to work, or one mile to our daughter's school, then takes the bus. But I got to thinking about those short drives to school and the grocery store (less than 2 miles): since a lot of engine wear occurs on short trips, is it better to use the Corolla and "save" wear and tear on the new Prius, or should we just use the Prius on short trips and not worry? I figure on weekends where we're both going somewhere, the person with the longer trip gets the Prius since that means less gas consumption.
You don't get the same wear and tear on a Prius engine. It's designed to cycle on and off continuously as needed. I wouldn't worry about it. Tom
It's worth noting that short trips in the Prius can often have poor milage as well; while the engine is taken care of w.r.t. oil and wear, it doesn't get warm enough to be efficient. By using the Prius on the longer commute, you are more likely to get efficient miles out of it than you would on the shorter route. (My own experience was that a short, 5-minute, hilly commute at 30mph returned only high 30s for mpUSg, while a longer, 30-minute, interstate-hilly commute returned 51mpUSg at 65mph.)
I tend to agree with both Tom and Tkil. First, I wouldn't worry about engine wear. But short trips are MPG killers, especially in the cold weather. They hurt fuel economy in any car, but the effect is probably magnified in the Prius. A fully warm Prius engine usually will shut down when your foot comes off the gas pedal. But until then, the engine wants to run to keep warm itself. It likely will run continuously in a 2-mile trip from a cold start (especially with cabin heat running), even when it doesn't need to for propulsion. A tip for either car, if you're not already doing it: Combine as many of those short trips as possible into one. Then the car is at least semi-warm on the later segments.
To add a bit more, while you will see a bigger mileage hit in the Prius with short trips, you mileage will still be better than most any other car. You drop from super mileage to merely great mileage. Tom
Thanks everyone. Sounds like I shouldn't worry too much about engine wear. I have noticed so far that when I get going in the morning, the engine starts right away, but stops when I get to the first stoplight, which is about 1/4 mile away. So hopefully the short trip mileage hit won't be too much. Of course, mornings here in Houston have been mild this week (mid-50's). So we'll keep the Prius as the primary car, and the 99 Corolla (once the nice car) is now demoted to secondary status...