Is Gen4 an Aztec of 2010s?

One thing currently bugging me about the 3rd gen is the inevitability of EGR clogging: it's starting to seem like death and taxes. Not much you can do to circumvent it, a real bear to deal with, and potentially expensive to remedy. There's a current thread where someone managed to extract it, but just threw up his hands and bought a used-but-newer one, can't even clean it.

And this was one very specific item mentioned in the early 4th gen press releases.

 

Vail pass is over 10,500 feet in altitude, and 7% is the legal limit on an interstate highway.

 

Urgh. Enough with EGR clogging please, we dont have to have it in every thread. EGR clog is common in diesels, happens on almost every single one. On Prius, much less so, stop going crazy over few posts. Or any other gas engine that has EGR - all of them do now.

EGR gets clogged from dirty in exhaust... Prius has this as a good point unless engine itself is spending oil, then make sure to check it out and clean once every 50k-80k miles or so. It is not that big of a deal in Prius, it is really annoying in diesels, but we learned to live with it and clean them every few years. I just had to clean mine in my diesel, after it clogged completely. But this is styling thread, not EGR thread.

 

The only thing that has an impact on the altitude/power equation is turbo or supercharging because the root cause of the loss of power is loss of barometric pressure - less air mass per unit volume. If you go from 14.7 psi to 11 psi, you lose the same amount of power no matter the method of fuel application (25% loss). However, if you have a 10psi turbocharger you might be going from 24.7 pis to 21 psi (10% loss).

 

So, at least with my 2004 at high altitude, the battery is fully depleted within the first few minutes of the climb. I've started at the bottom of the east-bound Eisenhower approach with a fully-green battery just be be at one bar before half way up. Even if this is "fixed" in the G3, the ICE is still providing all the climb energy, just preserving a reserve in the case you need to pass. The amount of energy available for use in the battery is just a few percent of the total climb energy. For example, the climb I just mentioned would require a to-the-ground output of about 6.3kWh. Assuming you don't start with an absolutely full battery and assuming the G3's "fix" preserves some energy before it's totally empty, it might have something like 0.3kWh to actually put to the ground - just 5% of the total. That's not much of a boost.

 

try that in an aztek.

 

of course, it's a chrysler. you're lucky you made it home alive.

 

I've never noticed the battery getting depleted on a protracted uphill climb, with out gen3.