35 mpg Prius blues.

OK. But when mine was spankin' new, the MFD soon reported in the 51 or so mpg. I set the front tires about 37 psi, rears about 35, mpg's jumped to 53 IIRC. This with about 100+ miles total on the car.

Gassed up at about 360 miles, I couldn't stuff more than 6 gallons to fill it up. This tank, MFD reporting average 56.x mpg.

then again, I'm babying this car and driving at least 30 minutes per trip. Basically drive it as gentle as possible while mixing with traffic. I'd be pissed if only getting 40 mpg.

Aside from way low tire pressure, stuffing foot in the throttle, or something wrong with OP's car, I've no idea how a Prius could get only 35 mpg average.

--------
But, as izza2me said, I will also be looking at trip miles divided by refill gallons, over time.

 

Florida is different than California. Our hills and dales and thick air and heat and rainstorms and winds and traffic can kill anything from super response.

We are now on winter gas also. It contains less energy than the sumemertime stuff so our mpg could drop a bit. My wife got about 35 mpg for a while in her short trips to work and shopping. Then she began to drive the car differently. She can now push low 50's mpg even for her less than 10 mile trip. How?

She pics the best route even if not the shortest. She warms up the engine quickly (I dont want to know how!) she drives at 35mph even if the limit is 50.

Its not the car. Its the driver has to learn how to maximize the use of the new car. It's not how far you go or how fast you get there. Its HOW you get there and how you get to that speed!

Congrats Izzy on making the transition!

 

I'd never drive 35 in a 50. That's just dangerous.

 

I agree. Go to 55, feather the throttle if you know a slowdown or stop is a mile away. You'll be amazed how far you can go at 55mph and 70mpg or higher. My last 250 mile hilly trip I went 65 mph most of the way, got over 57 mpg. Keep the car in the most efficient modes, and easy on the throttle. I can generally be much more efficient than the cruise control.

 

I'm with Noah on this one too. 35 in a 50 mph zone is asking for trouble...(and this from a guy who drives 55 mph on the freeway.....). I'd say keep it within 5 mph of the speed limit and all will be happy. However, if she is the only one on the road, then by all means, 35 mph is fine.

 

One thing that's helped me tremendously in highway situations is to accept getting under 75+ mpg in certain spots. When I first got the car, I'd speed up about 10mph over the speed limit and try to coast at 99mpg until I dipped to at or a little below the speed limit. Then I'd speed up again. Rinse and repeat.

Now if I'm going on a slight incline on the highway where I need the ICE constantly, I'll try to keep it at 40-55 and give it an easy acceleration. Sometimes it's better to just accept that you won't raise your MPG in certain spots and if you can just keep the bleeding at a minimum, you'll be better off. My last tank with a great mix of 25-35mph roads and 55mph highway got over 56mpg for the tank. I drove like a jerk on this current tank and started off in the upper 40's. I drove reasonably over the past few days and it's approaching 53mpg already.

Just get to know your car and everything will become second nature quicker than you think!

I know this post was sort of off topic, but what I'm getting at is it's very possible to get GREAT mileage without angering other drivers or putting them in danger (driving 35 on a highway is dangerous and cops in my state would pull you over for doing that sort of thing probably quicker than they'd pull someone over for doing 80).

 

again, you dont know Florida. 35 on a city street instead of 45 or 50 is no biggie. A larger percentage of cars now are doing just that, and the drivers that want to go faster just get in the left lanes.

I drive 55-60 on Interstate 4 now. You find almost any speed going on there. The speed limit ranges from 45 to 50 to 65.

Central Florida also just made a large investment in Red Light Cameras and motion detection for speeding. When the speed limit sign lights up digitally with 50 I do 50! Those that zoom past risk much larger speeding fines now on the order of 500 to 2500 dollars!


Now not everyone is caught of course so a lot of folks still go 75 or more. But, I see them on the side of the road with blue lights behind them daily.

It isnt ME making it unsafe on the roads.:attention:

 

Driving style is everything in a Prius. I get mid 50s when I drive my wife's 05 Prius. She gets 48-51 when she drives. I probably have more patience, watch traffic to anticipate it, stay close to the speed limits and do what I can to maintain the throttle position going up hills and lift off the gas as just before the down hill sections. A couple of weeks ago, I drove her to our closest box store, a 36 mile round trip and achieved 60 mph on the way out and 57 back. A couple of days later I moved her car to wash it. She commuted to work only two days and added 83 miles. The computer now read 49 mpg.

A couple of years back I drove the Prius, with wife, our small dog and a full load of luggage, Maine to Florida and back. We visited family in Tampa and Orlando. Drove it to St. Pete, and Clearwater in heavy traffic. Even kept up with a trio of super shiny Audi TTs on an empty southbound stretch of I95 in South Carolina at extra legal speeds for quite a few miles. We put 4,200 miles on the car, and got 50 mpg for the entire trip. We kept track of all the miles and gallons used. It is an amazingly efficient car.

 

I used to live 24 miles from work and consistently got 46-48 MPG average on 2006 model.
Recently I moved and now my trip to work is 1.5 miles, to supermarket 2 or 3 miles average. I started getting about 34-36 miles per gallon and was very worried at first, but when I read forums,I figured out that it might be normal for the short trips I'm doing. Everytime when I go for long weekend trip My milage is better. I recenty gone for about 200 miles trip on highway/mountain roads and averaged 51 MPG.
It seems that bad milage I get is strikly due to short everyday trips. Am I correct? Is there any way to improve that? Except of walking to work...lol?

 

Walk, ride your bike....etc. Congrats on having such a short commute to work.

 

Focus on total fuel dollars and take pride in the fact how little total fuel you use in your commute to work. High MPG is flashy but total bottom line is even more important.

 

i was getting gas mileage only in the upper 30's on my 2008 prius & was terribly disappointed. yes, it was much better than the 15 i was getting on my murano, but not what i had expected.

after reading posts on this site, i had hubby check the tire pressure. less than 30 psi in all 4 tires! holy smokes, no wonder. anyway, he aired them up - not sure whether he did 38 or 40, but my mileage has already increased to 46 mpg within the 1st 150 miles.

by the way, my pressure light had not come on until the day he checked the pressure, so y'all are right - the light doesn't come on until pressure is way low. thanks everyone for all your help! :cheer2:

 

Hello- This is my first time posting to this site. I just took delivery of my 09 Prius one week ago. I've been reading the posts to try and solve my problem, which is: I thought I would get 48 mpg around town and I'm getting 38.1 mpg after 360 miles of driving. I increased my front tire pressure to 42 psi as suggested, I try to use the pulse and glide technique as much as possible and minimize the use of the air conditioner. Why am I only getting 38.1 mpg?? The fact that it's a touring model shouldn't make a difference right?

 

there are many others who know more than me, but what i'm hearing from them & my dealer is that there is a 'break-in' period. i've heard numbers on that ranging from 5000 to 15000 miles.

one crazy thing i've noticed is that when my son drives, the gas mileage increases. i say this is crazy, because he is a student driver & he tends to be a tad heavy footed when coming away from a stop. the only thing i can figure is he gets up to the speed limit quickly then does a lot of coasting when he levels off. well, it could also be that i take him out in 30 to 60 minute sessions. my driving is usually in pretty short spurts, so maybe that is the real reason. they say short trips are killers of gas mileage.

 

dmdiver,

Thanks for the response. I'll give the car some time to 'break in'. I do drive 7 miles to work (14 mi round trip) so maybe this is hurting mpg too.

 

This past weekend. Driving from San Diego-Berkeley. On the way back I was driving and averaged 80mph through the central valley and got 44mpg with 4 people and the cargo area stacked to the top of the window.

 

Any car you drive will have lower MPG with short trips. I live in a very small town and I rarely go more than 10 miles, and, depending on the weather, the first five minutes of my trip are usually around 25mpg and the second five are between 45 & 50. So when I stay in town I get around 40. My old car, a 1994 Mazda Miata, only got 23mpg in the same driving, so I figure I'm still doing a LOT better. Do you know what your gas mileage was with your old car? I'd bet, assuming you did the same driving, that it was getting significantly less than the EPA estimates. Now, when I take my car out of town, to Savannah or Charleston, I get OVER 50mpg (this car LOVES highway 17).

I totally understand being disapointed with the gas mileage. My friends get annoyed when I complain that I'm ONLY getting 40mpg! When the weather's nice I try to walk or ride my bike for the super short (less than 5 min) trips. And I try to remind myself that I'm still doing a lot better than I was before gas-mileage wise!