05' getting 40mpg if I'm lucky

Prius was getting 45/46 in the Summer and 47/49 in the winter here in AZ.

January of this year the car went in for a recall and a couple of other things and since then, mileage has continuously dropped.
I'm now at 40mpg flat and cannot get out of it. I've had it to the dealer twice now to see if they could see anything out of the ordinary and it's all within spec.<not sure if they checked alignment and we all know how the OIL LEVEL spec is.

I will say this, I primarily used the CRUISE CONTROL on my commute to let the car do the work. The bars on the MPG seemed to be stuck at or just under the "50" mark when cruising along and seem to take longer once on a hill descent to shoot-up. This is for both city and highway. Throttle seems to be A LOT MORE sensitive and off<just my opinion since the recall.

I will be checking the oil level of the vehicle tonight and probably getting it to an alignment shop that just does alignments also.

Here are the Q/A's below.

- What fuel economy are you getting and how are you determining fuel economy? (trip computer or manual calculations)
COMPUTER

- What fuel economy are you expecting and why?
45-49
- What are the approximate outside air temps?
105-115
- How long are your trips?
12 MILES ONE WAY
- How much of it is city vs. highway? Roughly what's the average speed in overall and and of each segment? Is there a lot of stop and go driving?
75% highway, 25% city
- What region/state are you in? (if you haven't set your location in your profile)
Phoenix, AZ
- What's the terrain like of your drives? (e.g. flat, gentle hills, steep hills, etc.)
Pretty flat...

- Is your oil overfilled? (i.e. above the full mark on the dipstick)
Not checked
How old is your 12v battery? What is the voltage reading of your 12v battery after sitting over night? (Method Here)
brand new, toyota battery
Have you had your alignment checked? Any pulling or abnormal tire wear?
Not checked
- Are you using the factory tires and wheels? If not, please indicate tire make, model and size (e.g. Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max 185/65R15).
Bridgestone's low resistance. same size.
- What are your tire pressures?
was 40/38, changed back to 32/32 per toyota
- Make, model, year, engine and transmission of previous car? (e.g. 08 Honda Civic Si 2.0L 4 cylinder, manual transmission) What did you actually get on the same trips/commute? (Please give us actual numbers, not EPA ratings.)

- How are you trying to drive (e.g. trying to stay in electric only?) and how hard are you braking?
driving normal.
- Are you "warming up" the ICE (internal combustion engine) by letting it idle after powering on?
No ice.
- Are you driving using D or B mode?
D
- HVAC settings? Are you using the heater, AC, auto mode, etc.? If using auto, what temp is it set to?
max cold at 50% blow
- If reporting a mileage drop, did anything significant change on your car (e.g. accident, hit a curb or big pothole throwing off alignment, oil change/other maintenance/repairs, changed tires or wheels, etc.) or your commute?

 

I would agree on the AC and temps, except same commute last year and now the mileage is considerably down. Temps are comparative to last year also.

 

Brand new battery and Toyota just had the car to review everything. I'm almost leaning now towards the inverter/pump system didn't have either pump installed correctly(doubt it) or the coolant system didn't get purged correctly. I'm willing to drop $120.00 on Toyota to do a flush and re-do the whole cooling system on the car if it fixes this issue.

 

I'd say I'm on my 3rd tank. Toyota service guy also stated that the car has a "re-learning" period after a new battery install but my problems come directly after the January recalls. I'm going to try to purge the air out of the coolant from the inverter tonight to see if that helps based on my other post that is more specific about that issue.

 

Air conditioning is running at MAX COOL with the fan running at 50%. I ran this the same way last summer also on my commutes and have tried to just turn it off on the commute but did not see any difference.

 

Is that near the passenger rear seat?

Thanks

 

Yea, that runs time to time. Runs loud in my opinion also.

 

I'm now starting to think the new battery wasn't broke in properly and when I go to start-up the car in the afternoon, I have only 2 bars showing on the battery display. I'm going to keep the AC off in the car and suffer in the 115* heat to see if this helps DRAMATICALLY.
Thanks for everyone's input.

 

Will do. I'm starting to see the overall issue with how the car works. Age on these vehicles don't help it either. If the fan is indeed pretty nasty, I would think the Toyota tech would have "briefly" inspected this to notify me if this has ANY potential to cause a drop in MPG.

Thanks!:rockon:

 

Thanks for the link.

What really gets me is the service ADVISOR told me flat out that when it comes to these cars, most times the CUSTOMER knows more about them then he does.

Tech went through the checklist but I have a feeling A LOT of owners FEEDBACK falls on deaf ears(ADVISOR) and the communication between the owner and TECHNICIAN is non-existent. I bought the car not wanting to be heavily involved with the car's mechanics but it appears no getting around that.