Prius Plug-in and Volt Pros and Cons

There's two ways to look at life...
1) An eternal battle of "all against all."
2) A complex community of interlocking interests.

 

And there's the old stalemate breaker... agree to disagree and move on!

 

Two different vehicles, each with a different fit in the car-ecosystem. One is not better than the other in any over-arching way.

 

I wish I had seen this earlier !

I personally went through a long analysis of the Volt versus the PIP. A friend of mine wanted to buy either one too. After a long analysis we concluded it was best for him to buy a volt and me a pip.

Why ? 90% of his driving is less than 30 miles....Most of my driving is greater than 75.

I needed a better hybid, he need a longer range electric.

Hope this thread stays open !

 

I found some data on the Volt/Prius by the INEL.

http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/phev/fact2013toyotapriusphev.pdf

http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/EREV/fact2013chevroletvolt.pdf

It seems to echo what everyone has memtioned. The PIP is more efficient pretty much across the board in EV/HV mode, but the Volt can go much farther on a charge. Interestingly both cars get ~75mpg@45mph, but any faster/slower and the Volt uses a lot more gas.

 

mostly entertaining thread, maybe even more so before it got cleaned up

Bill - I did question this when I owned my PiP as I was at 90% EV.
However after 3 1/2 weeks in my Volt I've used no gas - just 3/100 of a gallon at 500 miles when the Volt ran "maintenance".
So 900 miles, no gas yet the Volt monitor now says my oil life is 97%. That would imply a need for an oil change sometime during the 2nd year.
Given I will have to use some gas (before it gets stale) that oil change may come even sooner
Are you seeing something different ?

 

Does PiP or Volt have different oil change schedules? Is it measured? I wonder because it could ultimately be cheaper to not drain and refill the oil if the life of the oil is still good.

With my regular Prius I was hoping for less oil change because it's a hybrid. Now while maybe a regular car goes every 5,000 miles it was nice to just have one every 10,000. I assume PiP and Volt may have the same schedule, or do they actually measure EV distance and say "You don't need one yet!"

 

pip does not. but i'm not going to change my oil now that the free ones are over, i just don't use the ice much, anymore.

 

my point was the Volt is supposed to measure but given I've used no gas and the "oil life" reading has still been declining I'm not so sure unless there is an age component to it.
What I'm seeing would imply a minimum oil change interval of a bit under 2 years if you used no gas and of course you do need to use at least 8-9 gallons in that time. So some slight savings over a PiP but nothing notable

 

For those who constantly err on the side of caution, change your oil. But personally, I've never had a problem with engine wear since I switched to synthetic oils, often going up to 20,000 miles between oil changes.

 

You will very likely be changing the oil every 2 years, as recommended by the Volt maintenance schedule. My 2011 Volt is now 3.7 years old with 91,000 miles on the odometer (32,000 of them in hybrid mode) and it has had only 1 oil change. The car computer says the current oil still has 16% oil life remaining.

Most of my engine use is for highway driving for 20+ mile stretches which is easier on oil life than stop/start city use but since you drive on a higher EV% on fewer miles than me I think you will get the same 2 year end result. This is common for Volt owners.

Don't worry about stale gas. You noticed the engine maintenance mode that burns about .03 gallons to heat up and lubricate the engine at least evey 6 weeks. There is also a fuel maintenance mode which ensures that the engine runs to use any gas in the tank that has an average life of over 12 months. The fuel mode will end when you put enough fresh gas in the tank to bring the average gasoline age substantially down below a year old.

I personally have never seen either maintenance mode on my car. Fuel maintenance mode is so uncommon that people celebrate it as an achievement award when it happens.

 

thanks both of you
I'll take advantage of their freebies getting in at least one right before the 2 yrs expires.

Jeff - re the gas - are you saying I shouldn't have to intentionally burn any ?
Two of my 3 fill-ups in the PiP were due to the 6 month rule...

 

Right, the Volt will keep track of this for you automatically and, if needed, it will force you to use only hybrid mode until you add enough fresh gas to the tank to lower the average age to be well under 12 months.

The PiP has an engine maintenance mode which runs the engine every 124 (200 km) miles. The Volt engine maintenance mode requires the engine to run long enough to come up to full operating temperature at least once every 6 weeks regardless of odometer miles.

I'm not aware of any automatic PiP fuel maintenance mode.

The PiP maintenance schedule calls for the oil to be changed at least every 12 months or 10,000 miles. If you think that is too frequent because you rarely use the engine then I would at least change it every 2 years. I'm guessing some components of the oil might go "stale" or begin to separate out like they do for gasoline.

 

that's a good question, i wonder if synthetic can go 'stale'?

 

The oil itself should last an extremely long time. Problems come from the impurities it captures through normal use.

 

agreed, that's why i see no point to changing it until 2o,ooo on hv, which i probably won't hit before trade in.

 

I don't know if it goes stale or impurities accumulate, but some oils are said to become acidic over time. I'm not sure if it relates to sulfur content reacting with water from condensation, but it's probably a good idea to change it at least once a year, regardless.

 

Don't you have the free Toyotacare until 25k miles? So the oil would be changed for free at 10k and 20k miles? Or is it different in differen't parts of the country? It might not be necessary but if it was included in the cost of the car why not take advantage of it.