19.7 mpg - 6 miles - no bar in the 0-5 minute area of the grid. What happened? This is a photo from a Carmax offering.
Maybe he drove it intermittently before letting it idle while he ran back in the house to get a new Live Strong wrist band
Looks like a MFD malfunction. When my Prius was 5 days old, mine went bad. It stopped showing the history bar graphs is the consumptions screen, and that is what it looked like I got it replaced under warranty, so all is well now
The guy undoubtedly filled the gas tank or hit the reset button, then for the next four minutes and 59 seconds drove really fast up a steep mountain for six miles. After he got to the top he pushed the park button. It then took him a minimum of five minutes and one second (but not more than 10 minutes) to take the picture after digging his camera out from the storage area which was covered with lots of camping and bicycling gear. Yep . . . That's it. That's the ticket.
CarMax? Simple. It never leaves the lot and never runs more than a minute at a time while they move it around. 5 of the 6 miles were probably a test drive and it's been idling ever since.
That would do it too. Six miles over several days worth of very short distance, lead footed, moving the car around the Carmax lot. This guy finally took a picture of the Prius torture.
As gdbelden said -- I've gotten those gaps when I've been sitting in traffic, bareley making one city block in 5 minutes. Is 19.7 mpg supposed be attractive to a potential buyer? Maybe to someone trading in their Hummer ...
Unfortunately, I've seen it before. I just comes from starting the car cold, driving it around like a wild man and then parking it without turning it off. Really, you don't need to have driven it wildly, you only need to have turned it on, moved it a little bit and then parked it in ready for more than 5 minutes. They very likely pulled it from the lot, drove it up to the garage for a photo and left it in idle whilst taking pictures. (I do kind of like the other, more imaginative options a bit better than mine.)
I agree that the visible bar is likely a short drive, maybe no more than around the parking lot, that burns a little gas. Then it was allowed to sit still in READY long enough for the "invisible" bar to register.
I think you give them too much credit. If that car were driven around the parking lot, the bar would be higher simply due to the fact that there would be more "miles" into which to divide the "gallons." I actually use this technique starting my commute intentionally driving out of my way to make sure I do not sit as Priapus warms up. I propose that six minutes prior to taking the picture, the car was moved a little. Since it was in warm-up mode, it sat there and idled. Of course, Free Bird was on the radio so he sat there and listened to it. Then the guy left it on, went inside, got the camera, came back and took the picture. But I do agree that 19MPG is easily achievable in parking lots where the car is jockied around and never gets the opportunity to achieve full warm up and certainly doesn't have the opportunity drive under ideal circumstances to earn some decent mileage.
[Monty Python] Oh well, a real tiny parking lot maybe, but not a very large parking lot. That's what I'm saying. [/Monty Python]
this is what mine looked like when I picked the car up new from the dealer, lot's of idleing while checking under the hood for rats, or getting paid to check for rats but leaving them there, or the blind leading the blind, it idles for hours because the dealer is clueless, like the dudes at carmax
1st bar: Drive up hill with AC on full? Drive your car like a 16 year old with his 1st car? 2nd bar: Piece of cake. Leave the AC on full while parked. Your gas engine will start running and you'll get a bar with zero mpg over 5 minutes.
