FWIW, I found that I get better mileage using cruise control on the highway. I don't do the "warp stealth" thing either, but it seems that cruise control is more gentle about making adjustments to the gas pedal than my foot, and that seems to help the mileage a great deal. I started driving in the right lane and just going along with traffic in that lane, unless someone is driving very slow over there. I tend to get 45-50 MPG on the highway without any special driving technique, other than CC. That, and trying to be more conscious about not accelerating towards red lights and stop signs, seems to be giving me the advertised MPGs at around 46.
The article doesn't talk about playing games at all other than a very brief mention of pulse and glide later on. It talks about a lot of practical things and a thorough read is what you need. You can't have it all...you can't drive 75-80mph on the freeway...which means you're doing a lot of slowing and speeding back up on any freeway I've ever driven on..and expect to get 60mpg. What's your priority...getting where you're going 3 minutes sooner or getting 45mpg? Take your pick...if it's higher MPG and saving money then pump up your tires, stay a good following distance behind the vehicles ahead of you, stay at the speed limit or slightly lower. If that 3 minutes is your priority then you're going to sacrifice mpgs. Your lack of understanding of how the EPA numbers are derived and then being disappointed with your FE when you drive in a way far outside of the way the numbers are arrived at is a lack of educating yourself, not a problem with the car. We can offer lots of help...but only if you're willing to listen and make some minor adjustments...and maybe actually read the articles we point you to instead of assuming you know what it says.
Yeah, a forty mile commute is a bitch, in'nt. Now that you're stuck with the wrong house, oh sorry, wrong car, the things you can easily do to improve the MPGs are: - keep the tires inflated to 42/40 PSI front/rear - if you use "B", stop using it - slow down (yeah, I know) By the way, if you don't like the Prius you're gonna hate the Aptera. You'll get run over on the ramps, and crosswinds will blow you off the freeway.
You certainly don't have to drive like that. I drive my Prius pretty hard (70-80 on the interstate, and faster than most traffic on other roads), and I still AVERAGE over 50mpg. I don't know how you are getting such bad numbers?????????? ... Brad
The original post to this thread sounds like a joke. Is this a joke, mfarmer1? Are you for real? Or are you pulling our leg. Please tell me, you are pulling our collective leg.
Pulling our leg or not, the thing I like about the Prius is that you can get in and drive it like any other car and getter better gas mileage than the average car. AND is you so choose, you can drive resourcefully and get much better mileage than your average car. The Prius gives you this option in a greater way than any other car. E.g. yesterday I chose to drive conservatively and had my best mini-trip ever, a round trip of 340 miles to JFK airport to pick up niece. I set the cruise at 55 and enjoyed the trip--- 70.1 average on the way there, and then after my neice joined us in the car along with her luggage and driving in rain almost half the way home the total trip average was 66.1. PA P
Geesh, it's just a car. Sorry to barge into your little commune here and question your religion. And yes, I've done that with several different computers while diving. They just work and are all basically the same. I have over 500 dives under my belt and don't need to study up on all the idiosyncrasies of every new gadget. I have over 40 years of driving under my belt with never a ticket (even at my apparently in this crowd insane need for speed) or accident and have owned 20+ cars never having an issue with the advertised epa estimates, even back in the day when those were exceedingly bogus. I've never even a read a single owner's manual of those cars unless I needed an answer to something. Bottom line again: You should be able to hop into a new car and just drive it in 2008 without having to play games with it. Stupid me for thinking you could get the advertised epa while driving the legal freeway speeds in a state where that's not too smart, or actually using that pesky little ac contraption. Silly me, I don't recall getting my hypermiling warp coasting tips and tricks booklet with the car to help morons like me actually get the mileage this car is supposed to get. You know, I did hear about the superiority complex of Prius owners akin to the attacks on people who drive SUV's before I bought this car. I thought it was nonsense. Apparently not. Thanks for the advice Siddhartha.
Sell it asap while you can get top dollar. Don't wait until next year. You can probably go right back to your dealer and get close to what you paid for it.
I work all different times of the day and night depending upon the needs of my contract clients. I swear, I'm driving like an old lady off the freeways too and not getting the mileage. I've never hit 80 in this car even once and here you are doing that and still getting 10+ more mpg than me. BTW, my drive is from RB to CV and/or downtown as is yours. I take the HOV lanes, try to keep it at 70 and still get 38 at best. Not for much longer however, I'm not going to keep driving like this for no tangible benefit. Hey, maybe I should really push this car to be the anti-hypermiler just to see how bad the mileage can get? Thanks Ron!
Pump up your tires and keep your foot off the brakes - as in don't use em. That'll fix your MPG woes.
Keep in mind that some Prius Drivers don't flush their toilets after using them so that they can conserve water and that they want to "DEMAND" that we all live in "high density population centers".That shrink is probably an OCD specialist. I'm bored with my Prius after 2 months and may dump it for a VW GTI. The gas isn't that much more expensive and it's worth it for the farfegnugen.
Pretty fair retort, I'd say. To be fair (I have to, because it deals with me), you are talking to people who not only like the car, but really like the fact this car represents the start of new era -- not slow cars, but fuel-efficient and gas-free. Well, now, I don't think that's quite right. The Prius is not just any car. You DO have to know some different things about it. Still, once you know how to turn it on and turn it off, you should be able to drive it like any other car. Legal freeway speeds? I didn't recall San Diego freeways were posted at 75 or 80 mph, though I do recall many people drove about that fast. Around here the limit is 55 in populated areas. We're just so boring. On the EPA mileage thing, again: You have been getting just under EPA mileage before, so why complain when you are getting the same percentage with the Prius?
Maybe there is something wrong with that car. You've never been BETTER than 38? How many miles have you put on that car? Have you had the alignment checked? Are the tires even inflated? This one would be worth seeing. We know that you'd give it your best effort, at least. I would be interested in seeing how bad the mileage gets -- so long as the car really is in decent shape. I'll be waiting and watching.op2:
Speed limit is 65 on all freeways in California and sometimes is posted at 70. Where do you live with a max speed of 55? That was the law nationally until I believe 1988. I track the mileage by filling up the tank and dividing how many miles were driven by how much gas was purchased. Look, I didn't expect fun and games in this car, I knew it was not going to match up to better vehicles, but I did expect better mileage, especially since the estimates were so dramatically reduced from years past. I was willing to drive this car locally as a point a to point b car strictly for business. I had heard stories of 60+ in these things, so I took into account that I'm a "hard" driver and expected to get the 45-48, not 60. I simply cannot fathom what one must do to get 20+ more mpg than I'm getting. As far as our dependence on foreign oil...I suspect many who drive these cars are the reason we are so dependent. In fact, my hunch is that many here oppose drilling for oil, oppose new refineries, oppose nuclear energy, oppose coal, oppose everything except conservation...which will not make us energy independent. Drill here, drill there, put a nuclear power plant in my backyard, I don't care if it means we can tell SA and the rest adios. In fact, if tomorrow everyone in the US had a Prius, my guess is that gas would be even more expensive if we continued on our current lack of domestic energy production as although the demand would decrease, so would the production to keep prices constant. That happened here with the water companies: they pleaded with us to conserve due to the dire water shortage. We complied. The result? They doubled and tripled the water rates to make up for the fact that they were selling less water.
The commute is fine. I don't use B. What is B anyway? And yeah...well...thanks. The tires were almost at that pressure, about 1 lb light each. Hey, if I get 150+ in the Aptera, I won't care how it runs. Besides, I've been promised a flying car since I was a kid, and well, it will be the next best thing. It will be more of a toy and probably good for advertising as well.
I was a Celica owner for years until I took the plunge into a 1988 Jetta GLI. When I test drove it, the salesman laughed at me and told me to DRIVE the car. Whoa! So, I blame him for my leadfoot today and my poor Prius mileage. I had forgotten Farfurwhatever!
I swear...I've been a good boy. I've really tried. I've done the coasting thing for as long as possible, I put a tad bit more air in the tires as they were already pretty high, etc. I saw some guy saying he got 58 mpg with 5 people in the car over a long trip! Don't ask me where the luggae was. I have just a laptop bag, and it's a 11.1" laptop only weighing 2.7 lbs. I'm 185. I just don't get it. I do only have 1200 miles on the car, maybe that's the problem. Maybe I need to bump it up to 90+ for awhile to clear out the pipes or whatever. hehehe
I was skeptical about it until I drove it. No religion on this end, I'm a leadfoot...one who is getting 12 mpg better than you are in spite of it. Even the one I test drove and pushed hard to make sure it could accelerate up hills on the interstate and hold speed like I wanted was running in the low 40's over a 12 mile loop. (And I had not read the manual or any hypermiling tips at that point.) And let's be honest, you didn't come in here asking some innocent questions. You came in chest thumping, insulting as many as you could with your first post. There's your problem. Assuming something is basically the same that isn't. You wouldn't jump in a car with manual transmission and drive it just like an automatic (despite your protestations to the contrary.) "What do you mean I have to use this other pedal to shift?" "Why can't I start out in top gear?" If you hadn't used one before you would be in for a surprise. ABS and other technology require that the driver understand how they differ in order to use them to advantage. I mentioned not just the dive computer, but the gear as well. I have hundreds of dives myself and I've also seen what happens when divers aren't familiar with their gear. Folks eyes sure do get big when they run out of air from misreading unfamiliar gauges. And folks who don't read the cautions about dive computers tend to do stupid things with them and end up getting bent...or trying to bum a computer midway through a trip because they didn't check batteries before they left. If you've got a problem with dive gear behaving differently than you expect, you check out what you can, then ask for help from folks who know more about it or who can repair it. If you instead refuse to do basic checks or understand how the gear functions, while insulting those who could help, nobody is going to feel sorry for you. Instead they are going to conclude the user has a problem. They don't know whether or not the gear has a problem, but they are sure about the user.
