What Is Your WORST Prius Fuel Economy?

On my 2 mile commute with soft tires and a lead foot I can do 37 but on a trip mid 40-low 50s (cause I do the tires before a trip and have less lead foot stuff.

 

43.74 MPG on day the after Christmas 2009, on a trip to Door County, WI. It was windy and snowy and averaged 19°F.

 

My worst MPG was 34.45 mpg (at the end of an entire tank) driving from nyc to boston in what was a remnant of a hurricane. Down pours, driving winds in excess of 45 mph 2 years ago. the part that killed my mpg was on I-95 from exit 70 to and through RI exit 8 the hills are steep and very little down hill.

 

The very worst i have seen on my Prius is 45.2 MPG

 

40.31 for an entire tank. Winter and nearly all trips < 5 miles.

 

I don't see any follow up resposes. Did this mpg continue?
Something seems really wrong and I'm sure many of us would love to know more.

 

Hi. I have a Gen III with just a bit over 3000 miles on it. My gas mileage has been dropping steadily since I bought the car. When I first got it I was getting about 45 mpg in combined driving. Since then each successive tankful has shown less mpg. I just filled the tank and the gauge is showing about 33.5.

I also noticed that the battery rarely goes above 2-3 bars (unless I'm driving on the highway). I suspect the car is running on the gas engine most of the time causing the low mpg.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem? Is there something I'm doing wrong in the way I drive? Help! I'm getting ready to take it back to the dealer and see if they can find a problem.

Thanks.

 

Do you have a lot of short trips, many traffic lights or stop signs, and/or hills?

 

51.7 mpg per the MFD. It was in the winter of '08/'09 in mountains of West Virginia. Because of the bladder, I only track two types of mpg: the per tank MFD value and the cumulative value from a spreadsheet.

 

I can see 37mpg if I run my heavy 17" performance wheel/tire combo and drive at speeds above 75-80mph. Generally I have to drive fairly aggressively to hit this number. Otherwise 39-40mpg is pretty normal for this setup.

 

I've gotten 32.8 mpg I think it was. It was the middle of winter, I have a 3-mile commute, and the thermos (engine coolant storage tank) wasn't working right.

It wouldn't pump the coolant when the ambient temperature was below freezing. This is actually a fairly common problem among Gen II vehicles. The dealer fixed it so it no longer makes weird noises in cold temperatures, but I'm still not sure it's working right in cold temperatures. But now I have an EBH and that helps the morning commute tremendously, so for that reason alone I won't get a tank in the low 30's again.

 

My LPG-powered Toyota Prius system starts to work when the engine reaches 15 degrees Celsius (after 2-3 seconds) and it consumes on this time some gasoline. Because of this, the gasoline tank manages to stay in my 45 liters tank about 4-5.000Km / 2.300-3.100 US/UK miles, while the consumption for LPG (including the one on gasoline) is:
-in Bucharest/city is around 6L/100Km = 47MPG(UK) = 39MPG(US) = 3EUR/100Km!!!
-outside city 5L/100Km = 56MPG(UK) = 47MPG(US) = 2.5EUR/100Km!!!

My car was just converted into a LPG-hybrid, see the topic here.

 

I was looking at my various MPG recordings from tank to tank just today to finish my 200,000 mile write up and the worst tank I saw was 36.21 MPG. Which is pretty bad all things considered.

Of course it was in winter and probably into a headwind but I don't remember specifics. Most likely some kind of 10% ethanol mix. Ethanol is just a bad bad bad idea for about 1,000 different reasons.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Hi guys,

I just got my 2007 touring Prius. So far according to the display I'm averaging about 35mpg. I've actually been driving pretty slow and really trying to get the mpg's up during my commute. My dad has the gen 1 Prius, he drives faster than I have been driving and he averages 50mpg. It's been hot the past few days but he tells me the AC should not be much of an effect.

My father is a long time EV hobbyist, actually was president of EAA for about 10 years when they had presidents. He'd regularly win EV rally's for distance so he knows how to drive efficiently so I don't expect his numbers. Despite what this sounds like in the past when I drove behind him with my Subaru I was very impressed with the accelerations he would make and speeds he'd drive at. He still always maintains over 50mpg. I remember him griping about getting into the very high 40's once.

I'm getting a strong sense something is wrong. I mean it could be me, but if I have to try harder than I already am I'm going to make other drivers really angry on top of it I would not be happy about my purchase. I've toned down my driving 200%

I've tried accelerating slower and faster to get the miles up, but neither seems to work. I've read that about 1/3 throttle accelerations are optimal then just keeping constant once at speed. It's not working for me. I'd love to have someone with the same car reset the mpg then drive around say 5 miles, then do the same with theirs to see if it's me.

All tires are about 41-42 psi.

I am in the Bay Area Ca, The car is from Texas, I do not know what gas it was filled with, nor do I know what type of oil is inside. The Lexus dealer that sold it to me told me he changed the oil and filled up the tank.

The only imperfection on the car was a small scrape by the rear right back wheel, I wonder if I should have the alignment checked. According to my father this might be a factor.

I am very mechanical, if anyone knows anything I can check or has any ideas please let me know.

I've only driven the car 3 days now but I do a bit of driving.

Thanks!

 

One weekend with my son, we decided to try to get the lowest mpg marker...

Turned on all the lights and equipment...


Jack rabbit starts, running it against kids in their mustangs/whatevers from the light, fast lane excessive speeds on the 5... mostly not legal driving I'll admit.


Got it to 11.6 mpg...

Had to fill up the tank in less than 100 miles in the county, it proved it was no sports car... and it didn't hurt the car at all to be driven like that...

Still, the following month, I did everything I could to reduce the petrol use, and I got over 500 miles out of the same amount of gas...

I was quite impressed.

 

I had the same probelm when I bought my used Touring from Toyota. You need to hit the reset button and in a few days your displayed MPG should be 'normal' between 49-55. 35 mpg is not normal and a result of the prior owners driving it really poorly.

Hit the RESET now!

 

I reset it already twice, I'm worried it's just my driving... I noted that resetting it on the highway while at 99.9mpg gets a high reading for a while, but it's back down to 35-36mpg now. The first time I reset it was before it was driven by me and it was at a stop which gives some really dissapointing numbers right away.

I was driving quicker than I am and still averaging 28+mpg in my former 99 TD E300 Mercedes. I do expect much more than I'm getting from my Prius considering the comfort, weight, and size difference.

Has anyone had MPG issues caused by alignment?

Thanks again,

-Dave

 

Hmmm that is odd. It worked for me... I would bring it in to Toyota, something is wrong.

It's not your driving. The worst drivers still get 42 mpg.

 

I mentioned my concern to the service department at Redwood City Toyota they did not seem to care. To thier benefit, it was a very hot day for the service guy to be stuck in the outdoor booth there and I might be in the same mood if I was him. :target:

I'll ask at Putnam in Burlingame, they seem nicer since they really took the time to talk to me about a knocking noise in the rear while driving and suggested possibilities. It could be because they get to work inside with AC:smow:

I have a friend who I think has the same car, I'll try to get his opinion and see if he'll drive mine. I'd hate to bother Toyota if it's my fault, but I really think it should be doing much better on the MPG's.

 

Hi Dave. When I first got my Prius (S/H from a dealer) I was initially getting worse MPG than expected. Surprisingly the (at the pump) calcuated MPG was significantly better than the displayed MPG. Over time the displayed MPG got more accurate, I guess it adjusted to my driving style or something.

BTW. What size and type of tires are you running?