Winter Mileage

I always see the mileage drop in my Audi A4 in the winter time. I know when they switch over to winter gas as that's the 1st hit to mileage, the second hit comes as the temps drop. It's only a loss of 3-5mpg in total, but that equates to a drop of 15-20%.

 

The anti-Prius (2001 Nissan Pathfinder LE AWD) got about 14 l/100 km in summer. It got about 17.5 l/100 km in winter. (glug glug).

Pearl does about 4.7 l/100 km summer, 5.4 l/100 km winter. Even with rad blocking she struggles to keep warm. There just isn't a lot of waste heat! Poor car! That's what happens with ambient temps. in the -20C range.

The oil companies don't like me any more. Though they never sent me a Christmas greeting when I was driving the anti-Prius either.

 

As the others describe, cold weather causes an MPG hit in any car. The effect is probably exaggerated in the Prius because of its idiosyncratic warmup cycle. Many of us block the grille and use an engine block heater to help get and keep the engine warm.

 

So we have had a hard winter here, common temp range is -10 to -20. Today is -15. On short trips, i get 7l/100km which is terrible for a prius. Tank average has been 6.2l/100km. I have grille blocking but I also have snow tires which are worse for mileage. If i drive the car more than 20 mins and it has time to warm up, I get "prius" mileage. but given how cold it is and my 2005 has a little 1.5 liter engine, it struggles to stay warm.