gas mileage

I've been getting about 35 mpg pretty steady for the months of December and January so far.

Tire pressure is at 40/38 and oil level is right where it should be. I also am using a block heater on a timer, and park in an insulated garage.

Temps have been at or below 0 F for most of the month.

With the gas tank bladder constriction, I've been getting about 280 miles per tank.

Looking forward to some warmer weather!

 

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What do they really get in the very same driving conditions?

By the way, here in Minnesota I've been averaging MPG in the low 40's. Of course, my Prius is already broken-in and I try to keep the number of short-trips down to a minimum.

 

Here in Denver I've been getting around 47 since November...of course the weather here is not as extreme. Miss my typical 52-55 tanks! I guess I can't complain after reading the posts from other pats of the country... 8)

 

I know exactly how your feel, but the phrase "I just picked it up at the dealer" speaks volumes. Your car is not broken in and neither are you - to the Prius driving style.

Last month, I sold my 2004 Prius with 11,000 well broken in miles on it and picked up a zero mile 2005. I went from low 40's MPG (here in icy-cold Michigan) to low 30's MPG and I already knew how to drive the car!

I'm now at 2,000 miles and the new Prius is starting to show some consistent 5 minute consumptions of 50 MPG - even in 20 degree weather. I'd never seen that in the first 1,000 miles even on a couple of freak, near 50 degree days.

So give it time. You'll LOVE this thing when the weather warms up and you're not running the heater and defoggers all the time.

 

Scott the biggest problem is not driving the Prius like a regular car, its stopping like a regular car.

i see it every day. cars driving up to a red light that they know wont change with foot on the gas to within 100 feet of the lineup of cars.

the gas mileage will be good when moving that is why the freeway numbers are impressive. reason? not stopping, no brakes etc. driving style helps sure, but more important is your stopping style.

i get good mileage. i averaged 54.5 mpg in the summer in a state where E10 is required year round. granted im only getting 45-46 now. but short trips and cold weather and winter formula gas all play a part.

try this, drive through town and try not to hit the brakes. now most of the time if you are real lucky you might get through a mile with only hitting the brakes once, but in many cases you know the light patterns and you know you will be sitting at a light up ahead, well gauge the light, if you can make it, go for it, drive like Dale Earnhart. if not... why lengthen the time sitting still at the light. coast... regen is at work. now regen is very inefficient but still MUCH MUCH better than friction brakes which take a lot and give absolutely nothing back.

as for me... i never drive under the speed limit, but at the same time, i realize that traffic frequently will not allow me to get anywhere faster no matter how badly i want it. so driving slowly from one stop light to another is something i do frequently (nice to do this when there are double lanes) because i know i will have to slow down. so instead of wasting a lot of gas to get up to a speed that i know is too fast, i just moderate my speed so i go slower, stop less, still make the same lights i would have anyway (i am not a very patient person and i HATE being caught at the light)..then again i frequently roll slowly through the intersection on very pink lights...i found that going through the intersection late at 20-30 mph will almost never get me a ticket since i have had several cops see me and not do anything. i have had 2 tickets for running red lights several years ago when gunning it to make it across. once when the light turned red after i entered the intersection!

 

If your trips aren't more than 10 minutes on a cold day, you won't get much better than 35 mpg. My first bar is just over 25 mpg on a cold day. That includes a good uphill for the first mile. After 40 miles or so I'm looking at 48 mpg in cold weather. Mileage really improves after the first 20 minutes of driving; even with temps in the 20s.

 

"try this, drive through town and try not to hit the brakes. now most of the time if you are real lucky you might get through a mile with only hitting the brakes once"

This assumes a certain type of city driving...

The city I drive through is stop and go with red lights at EVERY intersection. That means I go an average of one to two BLOCKS (not miles) and have to come to a full stop with fully applied brakes. If I'm really lucky I can go 3 blocks and only have to hit the brakes once...

I'm sure we all know your mileage is a lot worse in this type of heavy stop and go traffic. With the weather averaging about -10 (Celcius, not farenheit) and this type of stop and go driving that only lasts 10-15 minutes (car never fully heats up), I am averaging about 25 mpg on this tank. Quite simply with that type of driving, with full defrosters and heat (necessary, at least to me) the ICE just never shuts off. It is spending all its time trying to keep itself and me warm. I am therefore agreeing fully with what richbyrne is observing and would agree with his conclusion. I can't comment on his "after 40 miles or so..." conclusion, as my commute is only about 5 miles.

 

Thanks to the recent blizzards, the Snow Routes are in effect. So everybody is crammed onto feeder routes that become hopelessly clogged. My normal 10-15 minute commute now takes 35-40 minutes, at an average walking pace.

Combined with the -30 to -40 temps, full defrost and rear defrost, etc etc, I'm lucky to get 27-30 MPG (U.S. gallon). When you compare to conventional cars and especially pickup trucks and SUV's, those drivers would kill to get this sort of fuel economy.

I've known a few folks with the older Common Rail TDI, and the newer PD TDI VW's. Under similar conditions, they get slightly lower fuel economy. And if you think a Prius is bone-chilling under those conditions, take a city ride in a VW TDI.

There is a very good reason the TDI's here in Canada have seat heaters and even steering wheel heaters. You can almost see the icicles dangling from headliner.

 

Tony:

Trust me, if I didn't have to worry about leaving my Ancient Ones behind, I'd move back to the United States in a heartbeat!

I lived for a few years in SLC, and briefly in St. George, Utah. St George really appeals to me, their idea of a "cold snap" is +22 F.

 

Someone far more knowledgeable than I will chime in here soon to explain the EPA ratings more fully, but my understanding is that the EPA city numbers must, like all ratings numbers, be taken in context. I would add that if you do a search on this board, you'll learn all you want to know and more. I've learned almost everything here.

Anyhow for the context of the numbers, I think the EPA ratings fall into two groups: cruising on the interstate at 75 mph with accelerations and deccelerations for passing and braking but no stopping (highway) and cruising into a city (perhaps a small bypass) where you can go 35-60 mph with occasional stops for traffic lights (city). For some people this is city driving. For me, and it sounds like for you too, city driving is stop and go, stop and go, repeat ad nauseum. Couple that with a shortish commute and you have a recipe for poor mileage. As others have pointed out, the accelerations - getting up to speed - will kill you.

I have read some very excellent discussions of how the EPA numbers were achieved, what sort of tests they do, etc. It is clear, from this board if from nowhere else, that people can and frequently do better the EPA rating. They have the type of commute conducive to good mileage. Many do not. Chalk it up to the type of driving/commute. I am careful to tell everyone when they ask about my mileage that it is highly dependent on the type of driving you have to do.

It is important that would-be consumers understand this fully, in my opinion.

Now let's have someone who actually knows what they're talking about -sorry for taking up your time - comment on this (perhaps with some links i was too lazy to look for?).

 

Although I've had my car less than a year, and this is my first winter driving cycle, so far I'd say it delivers superior fuel economy when you compare similar driving environments. Converted to US gallons, 27-30 MPG currently.

I really don't care what you drive, at -35 C or -40 C, you will get poor fuel economy. In a nasty stop-n-go environment - due to snow routing in effect - most cars will deliver single digits or low double digits.

A coworker of mine has a mid nineties Chevy Lumina V6 that she keeps in very good shape. At my urging she checked her fuel economy last week: 13 MPG.

My 2000 GMC Sierra with Vortec 5.3 returned an awe-inspiring 4 MPG under similar conditions: -40 C, stop n go, never fully warmed up.

I had seriously thought of buying a VW Jetta wagon TDI. The Golf is too small for my tastes, and the wagon compares favorably to the Prius. Price is within $3,000 CDN of the Prius. Given the awful reliability of VW's, I just didn't want to take a chance.

A coworker with a year old Golf PD TDI is getting around 25-30 MPG under similar conditions, and has to put up with a diesel motor in cold weather. There has been a lot of misinformation about VW diesels not needing a plug in. Bull, they come equipped with a block heater.

This coworker found out last week when the plug ins at his apartment quit working and he couldn't get started. They had to tow it to the VW garage and let it thaw out overnight. No thanks.

 

Evan:

Good point on the MFD calculated average vs the instant display. You'll go bugs*** trying to figure out what sort of fuel economy you're getting especially while accelerating.

For example: I accelerate at a green light and the MFD claims 28 litres per 100 km, around 10 MPG. I then ease off on the pedal once I reach my desired speed, and the MFD fluctuates between 2.5 - 4.5 litres per 100km.

If I record the MFD calculated average, and then reset the average at each fillup, it's within 1/5 to 1/3 of a MPG compared to carefully filling and calculating from the pump.

At -40, I'm "only" getting 25-35 MPG in severe city cycle driving, stop-n-go with speeds never faster than 60 km/h. I don't know of anybody getting more than 13-15 MPG in similar conditions

 

OK. Why not try a driving technique that is a bit more counter intuitive. I've found that driving harder gets you better mileage. If your Prius is just starting up, it seems the more you try and baby the gas pedal, the worse your gas mileage. So yes it's true that when you accelerate from a stop light you are going to see horrifically low gas mileage, so I start taking the attitude of "what the heck" let's accelerate hard and pull away from the traffic! With hard acceleration you get temporary sucky gas mileage but it's surprisingly not much worse than with gentle acceleration. So the goal here is to put some distance between you and traffic. I find that I kept up with an aggressives driver in a Nissan Z, but as soon as I was about 15 to 20 miles over the speed limit I lifted off the gas and coasted for as long as I could before the traffic started to catch up. They usually catch up as soon as I slow down to the speed limit (most drivers drive above the speed limit). As soon as they catch up I accelerate away up to 15 to 20 miles over speed limit and coast. The goal of this drive hard technique is that you'll get better mileage by getting as quickly as you can to coasting. With gentle acceleration you'll just flounder at 20 to 30 mpg and get little opportunity to coast because the traffic behind you will keep pushing you. With hard acceleration you start off with 6 mpg, but what the heck who cares if you get 0 mpg, because the pain will be over quickly. Then you coast at 99.9 mpg and watch as the traffic in the mirror starts to catch up. If you think about it if you spend half your time at 0 mpg and the other half at 99.9 mpg your average 50 mpg.

So today with the temperature around 30 I averaged about 41 mpg with suburban driving with some hills in my commute to and from work. The only one thing I did to help the mileage was to turn the heater off when I was stopped at traffic light during the first 5 minutes of driving. Then when I started moving again I turned the heater back on. Because when your driving your engine is generating lots of heat so here you getting the heat for free. Ever have the satisfaction of blowing past the traffic going up hill at 60 mpg and feeling like you've got more power still left under your peddal. Its about a 20 minute drive to and from work. So for those out there with mileage they already consider disappointing why not take a risk and start driving a little harder.

My theory is that for those driving in the worst case cold weather and short distances, driving the car with full throttle acceleration might be very close to driving moderately. You'll get the same misearable mileage but more fun driving. For the short distance drivers in cold weather you'll probably have little opportunity to cruise. Even down hill driving will yield lack luster mileage, because you need to get your engine hot as fast as possible so you'll never get into gas saving electric mode. But possibly that full throttle or near full throttle driving might improve things by heating your engine as quickly as possible.

As always drive safely. Make sure you keep a good distance between the car in front and back of you so that you can do this pulse and glide technique.

 

Having some secondary view on the system if informative. I presently have ScanGage and monitor the RPM, GPM (Gallons per mile), MPG, and Engine temps. This give me insight into the engine operation. I am waiting on the CAN View. The engine runs more than the MFD would indicate. At times it shows you gliding with the engine off the RPMs are in the 1Ks and the GPM .2 or .3. That is as the ScanGage tells it, but if I turn off the tunes I can hear the engine, The ScanGage may be off but not by more that a few seconds. Not all of what happens in this car is intuitive or presented on the MFD. The bottom line is that winter is turning out to be a major bummer. There are times when blissfull ignorance is better. Now I know it is me that is the problem, but maybe I can fix that!