Need MPG Help - Can't seem to crack 40MPG

Your short trips are whats killing you. The Prius is having a hard time warming up. If you can, take some time and take a hour or better highway trip anywhere and see the MPG on the consumption screen. It should be in the 50's. If you have access to an outlet, an engine block heater would also help a lot.

Wayne

 

Have Toyota check the suspension alignment, specifically that the front wheels are toed in equally, and not too much. Check also that the rear brakes are not dragging.

If the engine oil is sufficiently overfilled, that could decrease mpg. It would be rare to find a dirty or defective engine air filter in a new vehicle, but it is a very easy thing to check.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigmahma @ May 20 2007, 08:34 AM) [snapback]446062[/snapback]</div>

I think you have a car problem. I have a 2007 with less than 1000 miles and have NEVER got less than 51 mpg. My current average is 55.6. I also do a lot of short trips and often have my wife along which is a combined weight of over 300 pounds.

In my experience, you should be able to get at least 45 mpg without even trying.

 

On such short trips I usually get 40MPG as you do. Sometimes when starting early morning with temp 50F I get 35MPG on such trips. My overall milleage is higher because outside of the city on longer distances I am able to do 50MPG. I try to drive as efficient as I can but maybe not exactly P&G all the time. 3000 miles on my odometer.

- Piotr

 

If you only have 500 miles on your car, it might need a break-in. I only got 35mpg on my first two tanks of gas. I bought my car in Jan. 2006 and I live in New England, so that was also in cold weather. If you drive mostly short trips, unfortunately you aren't likely to hit the 50s or 60s. The first five minutes are the least economical. I also do a lot of short trips and my daily commute is 7.5 miles each way. I generally average around 42-44 mpg. My best average on a tank of gas, when I was on a long trip, was 51.3 mpg. So even with mostly short trips you should get into the mid-40s, but I would wait until you've gone through a few tanks of gas before being too concerned.
I've been keeping my tires at the factory pressures up until now, but I think I'm going to try 42/40, or maybe 40/38, and see if that improves my mileage. Also, FireEngineer recommended an engine block heater, and he is the expert on that, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make if you live in Florida. I'm going to install one before next fall.

 

I have my car since April 29 with about 500 miles. I got an average of 42lon dealer tnak of gas.


I have 41 miles on the new tank of gas, with an average of 43.1 mpg so far.


I too have been mostly doing short neighborhood trips, with a lot of stops along the way. Errands and such.


I am not going to freak out yet. I also usually have the ac and stereo on.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bulek @ May 20 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]446123[/snapback]</div>

I now get 43-44 mpg after 6,400 miles. Mileage was in the low to mid-30s during the coldest times of winter, even dropping into the mid-20s mpg range. No garage, no heater, sits out in sub-zero all night. But now that it is warming, the mileage is rising. I'm glad to see there are more 40-50 milers commenting because it gets pretty dull reading about 60-70 mpg and P&G, stealthwarp, tire pressures that exceed sidewall ratings (or whatever) instead of just getting in the Prius, turning it on, and going - knowing that nearly anything consistently in the 30 mpg range is better than just about any other vehicle on the road. Besides, these are truly fun cars to drive without agonizing over a .5 mile increase here, a 2 mile increase there. Just some thoughts.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigmahma @ May 20 2007, 08:17 PM) [snapback]446338[/snapback]</div>

If I were you I wouldn't worry about pulse and glide yet, drive it like a normal car then as you learn exactly how it works move on to the advanced techniques. Plus it is hard to p&g on a cold engine.

 

Have you read the following topics yet?

New owner? Want MPG help? Read this first.

"Why don't I get the EPA Mileage?" by efusco

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigmahma @ May 20 2007, 08:17 PM) [snapback]446338[/snapback]</div>

driving 72mph? Thats your problem. Try ease up on the gas pedal and try to learn pulse and glide driving technique.

 

You've already had a number of suggestions but mine is the following.: warm your car up for 10 minutes and the hit the reset button on your consumption screen.

Find a flat back road with as little traffic as possible and with few if any traffic lights and hover around 35-40 mph for lets say 10 mins. If you get anything less than 50mpg I say your car definitely has a problem. Most would get about 55-60mpg in these conditions.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(chuck kershner @ May 21 2007, 12:07 AM) [snapback]446278[/snapback]</div>

Hmm... I am even more glad seeing this . It's just my personal opinion - after two months of trying I did not find any joy by controling myself with all the proposed techniques. Looking at MDF too often seems to be distractive and dangerous. Speeding up and slowing down (P&G) seems to make other drivers nervous, they probably think this hybrid stuff is crap - the car can't drive "normally". I found however fun in other aspects of Prius - driving smoothness and silence. In addition CVT makes all of this even more pleasant experience. It's so nice to accelerate rapidly when you want to or drive 100 MPH when possible. I prefer this approach than "oh crap... I had to pass this car and now my MPG went down... maybe it will go up again if I drive 20 MPH the rest of my way home". No, no... it has to be relaxing experience and believe me the car really does have much more to give you than just mileage.

I think there is lot's of valuable information from experienced Prius drives on this forum (especially hypermilers). I know much more about the engine and internals much more than in case of my previous cars. I also use it whenever it is convenient.

From the other side the forum brings incorrect expectation to new users. I think as for any other car one should expect a bit lower mileage than car maker publishes... and I get exactly this for now. When you however read the forum and see all these 60s and 70s you can get easily disappointed. I know, there are these stickies with "why I don't get what I was suppesd to get" but it's just a few posts while there are bunch of othere reports with extremly high mileages. I don't know... maybe "hypermiler" should be more visible in signature ... maybe we should have more visible sticky saying clearly you can get 60-70 only under certain conditions such as temp, slow driving, jumpy drive aka P&G, EB heater, etc.

I hope nobody feels offended . I wish you to find a pleasure with whatever you find the most important just for yourself in Prius.

- Piotr

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bulek @ May 21 2007, 07:03 AM) [snapback]446542[/snapback]</div>

I agree almost completely with you, my goal has always been to be in the 50's, mostly because that is where I planned my comparisons with my wife on the gas savings paying for most of the car. But most of the "hyper milers" also do not use the heater or a/c, and they also only achieve in good weather (mine seems to really like the 70 - 80 degree weather the best). Seriously though the P&G technique is overrated, unless you have a good feel for the car and also understand if the road isn't flat or going downhill it can be extremely inefficient and your glides will be too short to get any benefit. I only glide down hill.

 

I'm finding that short trips are murder on mileage. On the weekdays, with my 25-45 minute commute twice a day almost all highway, my cumulative mileage (on the Consumption screen) climbs, but on weekends, with a lot of 5-10 minute trips on city streets, my mileage plummets.

My one trick is to go to my furthest errand first and spend the rest of the day coming back towards home.

I wish the ICE side had more intelligent thermal management where it would know when to reject heat and when to retain it. I read some report from a government lab in the 90's about an intelligently insulated catalytic converter that would remain at operating temperature for 24 hours after the engine was shut off. This means that if you drove every day, you would never have to run the engine just to get the cat to temperature. Not only would this improve your mileage, it would cut your already low emissions (of CO, NOx and hydrocarbons) in half or more.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(morpheusx @ May 21 2007, 06:57 AM) [snapback]446552[/snapback]</div>

Score one for Houston's legendary flatness! Pulse and Glide rocks here. I started off seriously concerned about the potential safety issues (and discourteousness) of P&G, until I realized that most drivers don't maintain a constant speed anyway. On streets marked for 35 MPH, I can pulse up to 40 and glide back to 33 or 32 and still blend right in to normal traffic. When my SoC is good, I can make it "stealth" at about 36 and hold it almost indefinitely. When I can do that, I get 100+ MPG bars on my Consumption graph.

On the other hand, I do realize that I am particularly enjoying driving as a sport, and that others just want to drive. If you are in the latter camp, you will get better mileage than drivers of any other vehicles, and you should enjoy it. Just ignore what "hyper-milers" and we "hyper-miler wannabes" are talking about!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tochatihu @ May 20 2007, 07:41 AM) [snapback]446104[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for the possible tips as to what might be wrong. I just hit 750 on the ODO and my lifetime MPG is 46 mpg, not exactly stellar, considering I'm trying to get good MPG (Driving around town, linking trips, coasting while pissing off people behind me to every stoplight/sign)

Everyone else says "just drive it" as though the possibility that the car could have a problem is so remote it would be impossible! Fact: cars roll of the boat and truck with defects, yes, this includes Toyotas, and yes the Prius.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vdubstress @ May 23 2007, 12:05 AM) [snapback]447832[/snapback]</div>

I noticed a remarkable change after the 900-950 miles from 47 to 56mpg. Engine break-in and practice were the reasons. Don't worry about it.