New Prius Driver - Asking for Help with Technique

[squatch81]

Originally Posted by Matt Herring

Squatch: I do quite a bit of neutral shifting when gliding...especially when going down hill.

Hill What is this Hill you speak of?
The elevation varies less than 6 feet between my house and work (25 miles away) with only 1 small town in between. My driving is typically about 95% highway/back road travel (55mph). My mileage is upper 40's to lower 50's in the summer, lower 40's in the winter per tankful. I do not use pulse driving techniques because I feel the risk of being rear ended by inattentive drivers outweighs the fuel savings.
I do not have any instrumentation other than what the factory supplied, so my observations are primarily seat of the pants (wallet).
Ironically, my best tankfuls ever was when I was working nights in a city 50 miles away for a few weeks. Half my driving was at 55, the rest at 65, temp in the 70's. The dash display said I was averaging 55mpg, but when I filled the tank it worked out to 56 mpg on 2 consecutive tanks.

[Daox]

I'd highly recommend using super highway mode as a technique. Its like P&G, but very gradual and can yield great mpg on flat terrain. Of course, you'd need to get a scangauge to use this technique.

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by squatch81

Hill What is this Hill you speak of?
The elevation varies less than 6 feet between my house and work (25 miles away) with only 1 small town in between. My driving is typically about 95% highway/back road travel (55mph). My mileage is upper 40's to lower 50's in the summer, lower 40's in the winter per tankful. I do not use pulse driving techniques because I feel the risk of being rear ended by inattentive drivers outweighs the fuel savings.
I do not have any instrumentation other than what the factory supplied, so my observations are primarily seat of the pants (wallet).
Ironically, my best tankfuls ever was when I was working nights in a city 50 miles away for a few weeks. Half my driving was at 55, the rest at 65, temp in the 70's. The dash display said I was averaging 55mpg, but when I filled the tank it worked out to 56 mpg on 2 consecutive tanks.

It seems our commutes are completely opposite! Which is why I hesitate to give specific advice on driving techniques because everybody's daily drives vary so greatly.

I drive 35-45 mph roads on my commute for 11 miles one way. There is decent elevation change throughout the commute...for about 8 miles I am either going up or down...the other 3 miles is fairly flat. This allows me to use neutral coast prior to 41 mph which keeps the car in 0 rpm when accelerating downhill past 41 mph.

I understand your reasons for not using heavy P&G on the highway...I use it though. If you get a decent stretch of highway without any cars around you try pulsing up to 65 mph then taking your foot off the GO pedal for a 3 count...you will feel the ICE bump and your MFD mpg bar will go full. At that point you can very, very lightly feather the pedal and still get a small amount of acceleration while keeping the mpg bar at full. If you get a chance to do this on a new tank watch the difference in mpg gains on your MFD vs. your regular driving gains on the MFD on a new tank.

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by Daox

I'd highly recommend using super highway mode as a technique. Its like P&G, but very gradual and can yield great mpg on flat terrain. Of course, you'd need to get a scangauge to use this technique.

As Daox said...get a Scanguage! It will pay for itself very quickly!

[Lazarus]

Matt,
How come your not using the EBH? I see on your last tank you only used it 4 times. Is it because you have to get up early or you don't have a garage. I know you can't use it at work but they make a huge difference on the short commutes.

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by Lazarus

Matt,
How come your not using the EBH? I see on your last tank you only used it 4 times. Is it because you have to get up early or you don't have a garage. I know you can't use it at work but they make a huge difference on the short commutes.

At work is the only place I can use it...no viable plug in location at home right now. The only excuse I have for my limited use of the EBH at work is...lazy.

I'm at work 10-12 days over two weeks...so that would give me 10-12 opportunities to use it. My last tank I used it 4x in 15 possible days...so yeah...I'm being lazy.

The plug in setup at work is a hassle...if you look up my personal thread on my Prius I detail the process I go through to plug in (pics included) which involves actually running an extension cord down the side of the building from the second floor.

Bottom line...I need to get motivated! Work is sucking the life out of me right now...5 or 6 days a week for 11-12+ hours a day. I can tell you this...when I'm driving the car I'm hypermiling my tail off. I have seen some very good mpg runs on my commute given the temps/snow...and I've only used the heat in my car 4x since November!

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

Hey Matt,

Do you use your EBH religiously? I was wondering what was the max temp they get the coolant up to.

I'm experimenting with transaxle preheat and was wondering about the effectiveness of the different options for the engine.

Thanks.

Orange: I recorded some temp data over the past few days to give you an idea of start up temps using the EBH and not using the EBH.

Day 1: Ambient temp 28 degrees. 4 hour EBH time. Temp settled at 92 degrees on start up.

Day 2: Ambient temp 16 degrees. No EBH. Temp settled at 30 degrees on start up.

Day 3: Ambient temp 12 degrees. 4 hours EBH time. Temp settled at 56 degrees on start up.

As you can see the EBH is generally effective in mild winter days (20-30 degrees). In frigid temps (12-16) there is not a huge difference in start up temps. However, I did notice my engine temps climbed much faster in 12 degrees ambient temp when using the EBH than not using it in 16 degrees ambient temp (it took me 2.8 miles to get to 150 degrees without the EBH and 1.9 miles to get to 150 degrees with the EBH).

The highest I've ever seen my engine temps get to on start up was about 130 degrees but it then settled in the 100 degree range...ambient temps was around 40 degrees.

[davidglover]

Helpful Thread, just got a 2005 and want to optimize, Thanks!