Future Prius Improvements

Brighter lights on steering wheel buttons would also be nice.

 

dear smsprauge,

the ipod interface is already available and has been sold since august 2007. it costs about $200 and lets you control your ipod with the steering wheel or the lcd screen. you cannot have the ipod interface and satellite radio connected at the same time. i am not sure if this will work with the newer 3g iphone or if it will charge a newer 3g iphone


if you go to your dealer, make darn sure he is installing the official toyota part.
their has been reports of toyota dealers installing some crap ipod interface in the
car, that doesnt work as good as the official toyota part

think the official toyota part number is PT545-00082

rig

 

They read all the forums, too, so they know all the complaints
long since. I'm surprised you got an answer at all, though,
even though it sounds a bit form-driven.
.
_H*

 

No offense to the OP, but I detest those automatic door locking systems. I've driven other cars with that and it is nothing but trouble. If Toyota does of this I hope it is only on high end option packages as I don't need any of it and don't want to pay for it on the average Prius. I'll also turn my headlights on when I want them (astronomy is one of my hobbies and I have had to permanently disable the DRL's in my Tundra since there is no switch to deactivate them. I also had to yank the cargo bed bulb in the Tundra since it automatically turns itself on at times.)

First thing on my list to actually improve would probably be to get rid of the gas tank bladder so that we would have more capacity and wouldn't be concerned about carefully filling the tank. It would also allow us to have more confidence in the gas gauge. (No problem for me so far, but the warnings about these issues have my attention.)

Second would be for Toyota to change their oil change capacities to reflect what the car should actually have to keep the oil between the marks, rather than the erroneous information they've given to buyers and dealers alike. (Perhaps they should expand the sump to a real 4 quarts, because 3.9 is both to close to 4 and is itself about 1/4 quart too much when you read the level.)

Third would be some better 12V battery management and dash warnings to prevent the owner from being stuck with a dead battery--especially due to the danger of extremely costly repairs from improper jumping/charging. This is an area that actually needs some idiot proofing.

Fourth would be making various parameters displayable on a user configurable screen (rpm, amps, coolant temps, etc.)

Fifth would be to extend the bumper cores slightly to reduce potential for major damage in very low speed bumper hits.

 

"i would pay extra for this" indicates that it is not important to him if it is standard or not

removing the gas bladder would probably lose the at-pzev status

 

I'm not really concerned about that status. I am more concerned about the resources wasted on an over-engineered, problematic fuel tank. Make it an option.

 

thank you for sharing your opinions

a good part of the millions of tons of smog we have in this country are caused by cars just being parked, and turned off. that was the whole point with pzev


but the other prius owners in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington would probably be upset about losing their 15 year/150,000 mile warranty.

no bladder = no at pzev = no 150,000 mile warranty on the hybrid system.

the number one problem of the bladder is not the bladder or the materials that make up the bladder, its the prius owners who just sit there at the gas pump constantly trying to squeeze every last drop of gasoline past the first couple clicks. the pump shuts off for a reason, you know.

you do not ever want to top off the car, especially a prius, whenever you fill a gas tank, any gas tank you always want to leave about 10 % of room in it for the gasoline to expand and contract, when you fill it past 90-95% there is no more room in the system for vapors and if you keep filing it to the rim, the gasoline or its vapors will expand and might even shoot that gas cap clean off.

the gasoline pump is a two way connection, think of it as a telephone, it will only dispense gasoline as fast as it can suck the vapors out of your car and that is why it stops.

until someone posts an actual study showing the bladder system taken apart to document their 'restoring your bladder capacity' messages i will continue to think they are b.s. or an accident waiting to happen, or a repair bill down the road.

another good arguement about not topping off the fuel tank is that they try to make it a close ended loop from refinery to tank to car and back. and by topping off your conventional gas tank, the vapors will whoosh out in atmosphere when you open the cap, instead of staying in the gas tank, and being captured.

my opinion is this whole time toyota is incorrect about thier 11.9 capacity they state. i think this does not reflect 90 % gasoline and 10 % vapors. if you take the most amount of gasoline i was ever to put in a prius completley empty (10.75), it is curiously about 88-90 % of what toyota states. coinceidence? or not!

i'd like to see someone actually cram in 11.9 gallons then take their fuel system apart to prove to me that the entire 11.9 gallons is in the bladder and no where else...

 

Thank you for sharing yours. I'm all for them having the bladder and their longer warranty. However, since Toyota already makes a standard tank for other markets and I get NO BENEFIT from the 150k warranty, I really don't care to subsidize their warranty with a feature I don't want or need. It is a wasted option, and worse than that it is a problem. Now if Toyota wants to offer me an extra 50K on my warranty for saddling me with the bladder...then I might consider it.

 

If the bladder system does in fact work to reduce smog, etc, then I'm happy to have it, even without the additional warranty. I'll just get gas when I need it. Seems pretty simple to me.

 

a lot of other car companies will only sell pzev or at-pzev cars in carb states, toyota is pracitally the first car company to actually take it nationwide.

 

do you live in a state that grants access to hov lanes? yes/no?

at pzev/pzev is also a requirement for the excemption stickers. no bladder no stickers, regardless of what mpg you get.

 

ignore this post. i was asking about the camry hybrid, and it had a bladder too

 

Not that I'm aware of. And it wouldn't matter anyway, I've rarely found HOV lanes useful in the states I've lived and driven. I've also noticed that any time I wanted to use the HOV lane I had enough occupants to do so making it a non-issue for me. Where I've lived the HOV lanes never made much sense--another waste of resources in my experience/opinion. However, they might make more sense in California or elsewhere.

Does anyone have the claimed reduction in evaporative emissions that the bladder supposedly saves over the life of the car? I'm curious as to what the assumptions are. It's been a long time since I did tank breathing emissions calcs.

 

That was two excellent lists. I especially want the following items:

 

That doesn't explain the physical system well at all. The gas pump nozzle uses a venturi system to activate a check when the nozzle's venturi port is covered by liquid. Generally with normal vehicles what limits a fill appears to be two phase flow/froth in the fill line, a different matter. When the gasoline reaches the fill line port, vapor must escape upward through a line now choked with froth. Vapor is going up/liquid is going down and overall capacity of both is greatly reduced because of froth--very different from a telephone. Also, when liquid is backing into the fill line a seal leg is trying to form if further liquid is entering the tank. The self venting drain condition is important to liquid drain nozzle sizing in industrial applications. (Designers who forget to size the nozzle for vapor disengagment end up with liquid level where it is not supposed to be.)

There is no loop to the refinery. The refinery has nothing to do with it and the gas isn't coming back after it is burned.

Perhaps what you meant is that non-attainment zones have recovery devices on their nozzles that will send the vapor back to the station's tank--and excess liquid too if I understand correctly. The gas station is not a refinery. I typically don't fill in non-attainment zones so the nozzles I use usually lack this vent return feature.

I don't top off so I'm not sure why you are going on this side detour, but again the explanation doesn't work. Prius owners who have had occasional trouble with fills do not appear to be even close to limited to the subset who top off. In any car if you've topped off, you likely aren't going to be opening the cap and filling again until near empty so I can't see any validity to the claim that it differs in regard to "the vapors will whoosh out in atmosphere when you open the cap." Why would they open the cap more frequently? Doesn't make sense.

The problem with topping off in most vehicles is partly that you do make the system more sensitive to thermal expansion (especially in the heat of summer), but more so that topping off often relies on ejecting a bit of liquid gasoline at the end--perhaps several times. Of course, if you are using the Stage II nozzles then the liquid is supposed to return to the station's tank.

I have no idea, but this is not an unreasonable guess. With an iffy gauge and risk to the Prius system in running out of gas, the Prius is not a vehicle that I ever plan to risk pushing a few extra miles on. (I've never run out that way on any vehicle I bought...but I have run out in several second hand, domestic made vehicles with ~1/4 tank due to bad gauges/rusted tanks, and a defect in one brand new Pontiac.)

In cold weather the bladder might shrink 10% (I would have to work through the material and differential temp...did some back of the envelope but it was based on guesses.) The gasoline in underground tanks is likely to be considerably warmer than the surrounding air on such days so what should be a 10 gallon fill might only be 9.

It is unlikely that the full volume will be usable on the bottom end either. So when you state it was "completely empty" how much was actually left in the tank even if you thought you had run out? This would be difficult to determine. There might be a gallon in various places after the pump loses suction, although I hope there would be less.

The complexity of the Toyota bladder system and vent path make it potentially vulnerable to various complex problems in its vent system. I've done a lot of design/troubleshooting of process vent systems and see all sorts of potential pitfalls. As a result I only fill on level ground at a very slow rate. (The venturi aerates the gasoline entering the tank, and all that air has to make it's way back up to the nozzle as well. If you fill at a high rate, the vent system is receiving a larger load both from the displaced air, and the venturi air.)

 

they try and make the vapor recovery system a closed ended system. the pump sucks the vapors out of your car, they go underground, and then the giant gas tank comes in for its daily delivery, sucks your vapors out, and then delivers gas to the stationp, goes to the refinery for more gas, the refinery takes the vapors, and so on and so on

i would like to see someone spend the 285.00 and buy the 2006 - 2009 fuel tank and prove to us that the bladder can hold 11.9 gallons of a liquid, say boiling water, or anything, i dont care, coca cola maybe. warm or cold, and post an actual chart

when you fill the prius you have no idea how much is in the tank, and how much is outside the tank in the maze of hoses, does the 11.9 gallon capacity include 10.75 in the bladder and 1.25 gallons in the hoses? how warm does it have to be outside for the bladder to stretch to say 11.25 gallons?

if he hates the bladder so much because of a 1.25 gallon discerepency in what the manual says, yeah go ahead and trade the car in for a TCH or HIHY then

if the bladder can actually stretch to hold the actual 11.9 gallons, then we would of heard stories of someone actually putting in 12.2 gallons of gas in, and not have it gush out on the street.

the bladder is a non issue. just forget about it and fill up when needed. most of its problems like i said result from people
thinking they need to 'burp' it, and then find out later that their charcoal canister needs to be replaced

how much does a charcoal canister cost to replace? is that worth trying to squeeze in every last drop?

maybe toyota should redesign the bladder so you can open a door under the seats so these anti bladder people can watch
the gas go in, kind of like when you sit and watch the washing machine fill up


please let us go back to the topic which are improvements, let us not entertain ideas that are actually a step backward.