Prius beats Jeep worth the extra new car cost

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(regenme @ Mar 11 2007, 07:30 PM) [snapback]404005[/snapback]</div>

Don't call service. It's right where it wants to be. It prefers like a 60% charge, that's what's best for the battery.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(regenme @ Mar 11 2007, 09:30 PM) [snapback]404005[/snapback]</div>

Just a word of warning: because of the bladder nature of the Prius fuel tank, it is highly unlikely that you will ever fill up the tank to the full 11.9 gallons that the tank is quoted for. Especially when the car is new and it's cold out, I'd be surprised if you get more than 10 gallons in at any one time. This is important because some people here have ran out of gas after doing the calculation, "OK. I have 11.9 gallons in my tank, and I'm averaging 50 miles/gallon, which means I can drive 575 miles before thinking about filling up."

As long as you trust the gas ("guess") gauge and fill up before it gets too low (I like to fill up by 2 bars), you should be fine.

Enjoy the car! It's a lot of fun!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Betelgeuse @ Mar 12 2007, 12:17 AM) [snapback]404030[/snapback]</div>

The most I've ever put into my Prius at a fillup was 11.5 gallons. I think I was REALLY driving on fumes that time, and the pump I chose must have had a very high cut off.

 

No need to take it in for service. Your battery is normal.

And I'd use the consumption screen rather than the pump and a calculator to compute mileage. Because of the bladder how much you put in is going to vary with the temperature, the pump, phases of the moon....

 

You've come to the right place. We ALL love the Prius!

You'll see your battery SOC go up and down, but don't be alarmed by anything you see on that screen (even purple 1-2 bars). I routinely get green bars because of some long downhill sections in my commute, but you really don't need to give it a second thought.

I've never, in 8 months of owning the Prius, put 10+gallons of gas in the tank at once. Usually it's 8.x and about 400 miles. I still find it amusing how quickly the tank fills up while other drivers sit around and wait!

And for minute-to-minute calculations, the car's computer is fine, but keep a spreadsheet of fuel use if you want accuracy because the calculations take a few tanks to average out to "correct."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(regenme @ Mar 12 2007, 06:44 AM) [snapback]404132[/snapback]</div>

Search around this forum and you will find many good threads on the state of battery charge (SOC). In short, the Prius tries to keep it's battery part way charged so there is always power available, but always room to store regenerated energy from braking.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ Mar 12 2007, 06:10 AM) [snapback]404161[/snapback]</div>

Yep. About the only time that won't happen is a long downhill. On those rare occasions when it really gets charged, even although all other conditions are met, it won't go into EV mode. For that reason, I wouldn't mind having a larger (greater capacity) battery pack. Then you could take advantage of going down long mountain passes to recover more of what's lost on the way up.

Dave M.

 

Welcome! Yes, for more info on the guess gauge, the bladder, etc, the search tool is a wonderful, and under-used thing ... as evidenced by the fact that many of the same topics gets re-written & redone up the wazoo!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(regenme @ Mar 11 2007, 10:30 PM) [snapback]404005[/snapback]</div>

Congrats! My new prius never gets 8-bars either but I think that is normal. Also unless you mean trip odometer, you probably got less than 51MPG as the car is shipped with a little bit of gas in it when you purchase it, so unless you bought it right off the delivery truck with a couple miles, it was likely driven around some before filling the tank right before it was sold to you. Still I am getting 47mpg on my first 2 tanks and happy!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(regenme @ Mar 11 2007, 10:30 PM) [snapback]404005[/snapback]</div>

Don't bother with the calculator. The computer will give you a more accurate MPG reading everytime. It will automatically reset the mielage at every fillup, but you need to manually reset the consumption screen if you want to read mielage for each tank.... er... bladder of gas.