Lower milege

I am averaging around 49 mpg in 30 degree temps. 52 mile roundtrip commute each day. 10 sounds high but I hope that is the case. There are several people out there that have historically tracked their mileage. Attached below is a link to the historical mileage for a 2004 in Seattle.

http://priuschat.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=2030

 

Mileage drop in winter can be way over 10 mpg! Last winter I had a tank at 38 mpg. My normal summer mpg is over 55 and virtuallly always over 53.

But some of this is in your control, and I am staying up around 48 mpg this winter. Of course this is partly due to our global warming and winter temps 20 deg above normal mostly!

You can find plenty here on how to improve winter mpg. Search on radiator blocks, block heaters, and how to use the car's heater.

 

LOL! Good one Evan! I was wondering what the question was too!

Walker1, here's the facts... http://prius.w8kc.com

It has mostly to do with having to run the heater and defroster - and we've read about "winter-grade" gasoline, but I'm not sure if there even is such a thing.

 

Previous Discussion

 

No. The cars heater might be the main reason. It all depends how cold it is where you are and how much heat you take from the heater.

There are lots of reasons for low mpg in cold weather and these should be well explained in the referenced threads. Which dominiate depends on what you do, how fast you drive, where you are, what kind of fuel you can buy etc.

There's not much that cold doesn't affect and which has an impact on mpg: engine, battery, air density, etc. Read up on this. All has been covered before.

But if you are down south you have much less to worry about. Things start to get bad under 50degF, but not really bad till you are under 32 deg F. Then super bad at 0 deg F.

 

I'm just a few miles north of you in Jupiter, and it was almost impossible to average 50 mpg coming to work today. Remember, the colder it gets, the longer the engine takes to warm up. The fluids and oil are colder, and thicker, and the computer runs the car richer in warm-up mode than normal (remember the choke on your carburetor years ago?), and everytime the engine starts out from a light it often has to warm up again somewhat. Just be glad its only going to last a couple days, not a couple more months!

 

Let us see... cold weather. While the coldest winter I have ever experienced was in Lake City Florida when it snowed twice. Good thing I was a damn Yankee and had winter clothing. Those houses are not insulated and have no heating to speak of. The air gets denser and is harder to move through, more resistance to movement. The car heats up more slowly, harder to get to full hybrid mode. The car cools off more quickly at a stop light. Wishing you all the coldest the next few days, you will figure it out.

 

The heater is a small part of it depending on how high you set it. Winter gas is real. If you are keeping track of things you can tell to the tank when you go from Summer to Winter gas and back. Looking forward to that sweet summer gas. Fish are jumpin’ and the mileage is high!

 

I agree.

I drive the heater OFF, but I'm getting low mileage.

We need more energy to warm things up.
Install engine block heater, block the grill and warm air intake mod will help you some mileage degradation.

Ken@Japan

 

I keep hearing about drivers getting mileage in the 30s. That seems incredibly poor. We have two of these cars and have never even come close to that. 45mpg without even trying is the low end for us. At present, and with 200 or so miles on this tank, I am showing 55.7 mpg. My commute to work involves 25 miles on a 4 lane parkway and another 35 on the Interstate (one way). I set my cruise at 55 on the Parkway and 60 on the interstate and stay in the "slow" lane on both. In rural southern KY there are hills and so there are long climbs and decents. On this terrain I can't seem to be able to beat the cruise control by "feathering" as some have suggested. I mean it pays to cancel the cruise under certain circumstances [e.g. approaching an exit at the end of a long desent] but generally speaking I have found the cruise to be the most effecient means of achieving higher mpg given my route to work. The temp here has been in the 20s in the morning and in the 30s and 40s late in the day. I run the cabin temp at "Low" (65) to as high as 70. Suggestion, pay attention to the ongoing feedback provided by the energy/consumption screen (I like the consumption bar graph for quick glances). This feedback will shape your driving habits accordingly. If you are self monitoring in this way and still getting mileage in the 30s to low 40s under these conditions, consult the service center at the dealer.

 

I believe those who are getting in 30's are doing repeated short trips.

You know the first 5 min bar on consumption screen is 20-30 MPG after cold start. Then, you finish a short trip. You have no chance to achieve 50 MPG or something repeating such short trips.

Ken@Japan

 

Ken is right. The bulk of the people getting bad mpg are doing short trips in cold weather.

I go 12 miles to work and the car only gives me 48 mpg because I use a block heater.
Without it last winter I was sometimes down around 38 mpg.

If I just went 20 miles to work my mileage would easily be over 50 all winter!

If I drove 5 miles to work my mpg could be low as 25 mpg.

There are four other groups that I can think of that would get bad mpg:

People in heavy city traffic doing constant stop and go.
And people out west that routinely drive at 80 or more mph.

The above are especially affected by temperatures. I get well over 50 mpg in summer no problem, with my short commute.

The final two groups are probably more year round type problems:

People in mountains where the battery isn't big enough to help with the down hill energy losses, so there are major braking losses.
People in places like San Francisco with very steep hills, so regen braking is not able to do most of the braking. Again large braking losses with little regen recovery.

 

So what I should do is get up earlier, go somewhere else then go to work? OK not but it is tempting but I will do my part to keep my over all gas consumption down. Daxx I hate sticking it to the oil companies!

 

DANG,... This really makes me want to get my EBH installed. The overnight lows have been low teens to single digits most of the last week or so. My trips is much longer on avg, so I wouldn't see such a dramatic increase.
Last tank was 49.2 so with the EBH, I should easily get over 50. Trouble is, no garage and the temps & wind are expected to be brutal again this weekend when I can actually do this work.