First off, welcome to Prius Chat!!! Ya, the computer is a little higher than real world in every type of Prius out there. It's actually a little worse in the regular hatchback. Again, welcome, and learn lots!
New Prius C3 owner here. Flew to Yakima, WA to pick up a 1-year-old Prius C3 with just under 23K miles on the ODO last week and have driven it about 500 miles. So far my figures are: First fill-up: 52.9 MPG (Actual miles driven/gallons) Avg. morning commute: 62 MPG Avg. afternoon commute: 55 MPG So far I'm very pleased. Mileage is (on average) 20-30 MPG better than what I was getting with my 2005 Passat TDI wagon, which gets great MPG on the highway, but suck in the city and weighs 1000 lbs. more than the PC3. Have been trying to pulse and glide as much as possible. Streets and highways here in the Seattle area are generally rolling hills, so there's ample opportunity to coast. According to my figures, the PC3 should save me between $115-125 per month over driving the heavier diesel wagon. Cheers, everyone!
Welp, my Prius C just turned 5,000 not long ago. My fuel economy calculated by hand compared to the computer calculations have still been spot-on, so I've ditched the notebook for the time being. I thought these pics might be of interest to folks in this thread:
New Prius C owner here. I've had mine about a month so far, purchased it as it was the most fuel efficient vehicle I could find to use for delivering pizzas with. Sure I might be crazy buying a new expensive car for this, but my Rogue wasn't exactly the ideal vehicle for the job. The Rogue was getting about 23mpg and had some expensive maintenance due later this summer as well as an out of warranty leaky A/C unit. I've put a little over 1600 miles on the Prius C in the time I've had it so far, and the B trip which hasn't been reset yet lists it as getting an overall 54.8 mpg in that time. I believe this to be fairly accurate as fill ups are only slightly over 7 gallons after every 400 miles. Seeing as the computer might not be the most reliable source to go by, I'll start keeping manual records at the next fill up (filling up about once per week). My line of work isn't exactly conductive to hypermiling, no feather weight on the gas pedal and so on. I do find that always making round trips gives more accurate average numbers, for if half the trip is uphill, then the other half of the trip is downhill to make up for it. I find the best numbers are obtained in mixed environments, some stretches at 45mph while recharging the battery combined with nice slow 15-25mph neighborhoods to burn off the built up charge. Trips under these conditions often show on the computer in the 60-75mpg range.
I am a California native, but have family in Pickerington and Washington Courthouse, became a Buckeye fan when visiting and was given tickets to a Ohio State/Michigan game. That's all it took, great team and incredible fans
Or should I say go Gators since the OSU coach used to coach there? Oh wait, as a Seminoles fan, I can't do that either... yet another reason not to cheer for the Bucks.
I have had my pc3 for about a month and a half and wanted to see how close the display was to actual. I live in southern California and drive about 70% streets and 30% freeway. I had to fill up today and this is what I found display showed 54.1mpg but I calculated 53.6mpg. Cost $32 for fill up at $3.83 per gallon. Will continue to calculate by hand to figure out an average difference on display to actual.
I've found that the car computes mpg as anywhere from 0.5-1.5mpg higher than actual at the pump. Others have found higher overestimates. I'd imagine it depends on the weather some, but mostly on the pumps you used on the previous two fill-ups - use the same one each time for the most accurate readings. The greatest difference between reported and calculated would be when your last fill-up shut off earlier than it should and the one you just got shuts off later, meaning you started out with less than a full tank and ended up filling over a tank's worth. The general consensus seems to be that the car overestimates, but not by a lot.
I've had my Prius C two for 2.5 weeks. First tank 54 mpg, 2nd: 51mpg, 3rd: 52mpg. This is running 60% highway miles. These are actual calculations. The computer is 1-2 mpg off on the high side. Lovin' it!!
Picked up my Prius C a few months ago, racked up over 2,600 miles on it so far (my daily commute is 65 miles). Seems MPG is affected by a lot of things I never knew about before buying it (wind, temperature, inclement weather, tire pressure, break in period, highway versus city, speed, inclines, etc...) and I have learned a lot since buying it even though I feel I still have much to learn. I've been averaging 56 MPG (10/90 city/highway) and it seems to be pretty accurate.
