I bought used 2005 Prius in May. In October I bought brand new Cooper tires, shortly after that the weather changed drastically, I have noticed drop significantly in mileage. It give only 26 mpg. I work only a mile from home. So maybe I am not giving enough time to warm up. Any thoughts?
Yup, my thoughts are that 26mpg is about right for driving one mile at a time on a cold engine. That's just how it's going to be. On the bright side, you're probably using less gas than most of us, anyway. Not to mention that you could walk or bike that kind of distance and use no gas at all.
I live in Chicago and my milage in the summer on average is about 45-48 in the winter i average about 38. Just the change in temp will do this. 26 seems a little low though
Depends where he lives. It was a high of 30 degrees F here. My five minute drive didn't go above the 25 MPG mark either to or from the supermarket. I should buy a banner ad for this board that says "Cold weather + short trips = horrible MPG", because so many people seem to forget.
I work at two different places. The days that I travel to the job that is farthest from my home (I'm doing about 25-45 min of city driving depending on the traffic) I get great gas mileage but the days I workclose to home and travel only one mile to and from, my mileage drops significantly. I think it has to do with the fact that the car hasn't warmed up in that span of time. That's what I understand from reading these boards in the past.
Sounds about right for that short of a trip in colder temps. The only way to increase it with the short commute would be to use an engine block heater. From what I have heard, it would bump up that first 5 minutes to 35mpg+. What was the mpg on you previous vehicle in this commute? My wife's commute is 2 miles and she would get about 40mpg. When she started driving a 4-door V6 car, it gets about 12-13 mpg in same commute. Chance is other vehicles would be getting low-mid teens in 1 mile cold commutes.
