Prius MPG
 

So... about a month ago I bought my wife a used Prius...315,000 miles and she's been averaging 50mpg... and climbing as I've gave her a few tips to do better... she's not doing what I call major hyper-miling... but driving somewhat efficient. I'm curious why the top 10 list doesn't have more Prius's... or at least higher mpg's than what's logged. I can't believe my wife is more efficient than most of these logging their mileage...??? oh.. and the gas we've been putting in the car is really close in calculation on fuel economy.

BTW.. no mods to the car yet, but I will be installing a grill block and more panels underneath the engine bay along with insulation to help retain the heat as much as possible without causing the engine fan to run. I don't want to lose too much MPG in colder temps.

Any ideas why not really any higher mpg's with the Prius shown on the top 10 or so list?

I'm pretty sure I could get 60mpg driving my wife's car and not drive like a granny...

Most people just drive them comfortable in the knowledge that their lack of effort will still be rewarded with 40+mpg combined.

If you're using your mpg readout, it could be inaccurate. If you're doing per tank fill-ups, you need to record distance and fuel over 5 fill-ups. The bladder in the pre-2010 Prius makes them notoriously inaccurate when trying to do a per tank mpg calculation.

Out of about 100 Gen 2 Prius drivers I have encountered, most get low to mid-40s.

Watch for oil consumption. Check it frequently until you get a handle on how much you're burning. If the warning light ever flickers on and off, add oil immediately. Do NOT overfill.

I get 50 MPG when the display says I get 52.

Not sure why people would be more prone to ignoring a flashing CEL or low oil pressure light in a Prius than other vehicles. Both require immediate shutdown of the engine.

There isn't a ton of wiggle room with the Prius. It already automates many hypermiler functions (EOC, driving at high engine load), and those it doesn't (driving without brakes) it negates with things like regenerative braking. Therefore its a lot harder to get massively higher MPG than the EPA rates it for. Thats kind of the beauty of the Prius. You don't have to try to get great mileage out of it. Sure, I can probably get 50-60 mpg in my 2004 Civic, but I can almost not think and get 50 mpg out of my 2004 Prius. Just set the cruise and let the Prius do the hypermiling for you. Granted, you can put the extra effort in and eek out another 10 mpg. But, with the car itself, you're most of the way there just by owning it.

It's pretty amazing. In my experience, most Prius drivers are not "car people". They see something intermittent on the dash, and they think, "Hmm... car feels fine. I'm sure it's nothing."

Encountered a young man who had the red triangle. Went to Autozone, no codes. Continued driving for 2 weeks with it in and out of limp mode. Finally, he heard a gunshot go off in the cargo area. It ran better after that moment, but once stopped the car wouldn't start anymore.

On a 250 mile, mostly 70-80MPH highway trip yesterday, I averaged 52.9MPG on the display (which is generally about 2MPG over the pump) in my '05. Only mods currently on it are LRR tires at 44PSI up front and 42 rear. I don't baby it, either, if I need full throttle to help facilitate a lane change, I give it full throttle.

I got several 60+MPG tanks when I first got my Prius. Part of it was a commute that was nearly perfect and the rest was me trying to see what my new toy could do. Now, like Daox said, I just drive it and get ~50MPG.

I should probably clarify that my experience with Prius mpg has been limited to the Phoenix area, where A/C is used 8 months out of the year... :)

My Prius only does the shopping 1-3mile trips, so it's mileage would be at least a bit higher in 'normal' use.

I find hypermiling in a Prius frustrating. The car makes too many decisions for me. I struggle to get more than ~55 MPG trip mileage in a fancy, high-tech 2nd gen Prius, but can get 70+ MPG tanks in an old Civic Wagon all summer without even thinking about it.

What kind of driving are you doing? A Prius can be tricky above 40mph, outside of just keeping average speeds down while using cruise control/driving with load, but below there, P&G is easy and gets really good mileage.

I find the same. I'd rather EOC and know that the engine will stay off and the trans will stay in neutral.

I'd love to see what the aerodynamic Prius shell would do with decent 2.0 and six speed though, and a RWD chassis designed for handling:thumbup:

Mostly rural roads at 45-50 MPH. I've gotten over 70 MPG in a Prius, but I can't seem to do it consistently.

I drove 77mpg on the interstate on a 55-mile trip and averaged 50mpg. Absoluntely no Mods to it. My wife who doesn't hypemile is averaging 52-54mpg and she doesn't drive slow in her routine driving. I'm positive if I drove it 45-50 mph that I'd likely be over 70mpg in it... and possibly higher... with Zero mods. I know I'd make some gains with a warm air intake, grill block and a few other mods.

Also, I met a guy who I bought one of my solar panels from that easily gets over 70mpg in his 3rd Gen Prius. He does hypermile it, but he's not one of those slow people that has a bunch of angry drivers behind him. He just drives it intelligently. A skillful foot in a Prius can blow away almost any other car on the road in MPG.

I'll get to drive a 2008 Prius this week. I'll try harder. :)

It takes practice to be mindful of what the car wants to do and be able to make it bend to your will within those constraints. Little things like coming to a complete stop for a few seconds with a warmed up ICE running to allow it to enter the full hybrid stage can make all the difference. To be honest, you're probably almost better off driving it like a normal automatic and not trying to force the car to do something if you don't have the time to become familiar with how the car behaves. It was designed to get good mileage when driven like a normal car, trying to hypermile it the wrong way can clash with that programming.

I usually just set the cruise if I'm going over ~40MPH with no stops coming up. Like roflwaffle said, below ~40MPH (where the ICE can turn off) is where you can really play.

Indicated 61.5 MPG on a 42 mile round trip. Rural roads and small towns, no city or highway. I think I could do better with a manual transaxle in place of the hybrid stuff. :)

61.5 mpg seems like a good run assuming no mods on that Prius.

What kills me is short commutes and I live in a hilly area. My lifetime average is 45mpg. I really have had to work for this. I havn't done any mods yet. I use a ultraguage and I find that is is pretty close to being accurate once I calibrated it.

The fuel tank bladder makes for very interesting tank to tank fill ups. I find that it will ding me with a low mpg one week then my next fill up I'll get way better than expected. Basically evening itself out. Kind of annoying.

My last encounter with a Prius owner in the wild was someone who came to my auto parts store for...something. Probably to read OBDII codes, since I had to get in the car and power it up...mpg read 35.xx. I kind of wondered how...

I remember someone on here recounting how he was at a gas station and a girl was bragging about her Prius' fuel economy, then asked the member what his "piece of junk" got. He had her look at his MPGuino or whatever and felt rather satisfied.

I actually had a tank that was below 30MPG in my Prius. 2 bikes on a rear rack, doing ~80MPH with hills and I think a decent headwind. That was also the only time it wasn't able to maintain the speed I wanted while going up a particularly long and steep hill. Battery was drained from going up previous hills and even though I had the cruise set at ~80MPH, the speed slowly started to drop. I wonder how other cars would fare when pushed to their equivalent limit. I've had it at or near redline for minutes at a time going up hills, never any problems.

Just increased tire pressure and an upper grill block.

I've experienced the uphill on a drained battery going up to Big Bear. All these bros with their lifted trucks were not pleased, " I'm trying guys!

Out of curiosity, who has used a warm air intake on their Prius? I would assume they got a 2-5 mpg lift. Anyone?

It's my wife's car and she likely won't be fond of me modifying it like I have on our Honda's... but if others here have gotten a worthwhile lift, then I'd doubt she will care if I add it.

I've done a full grill block, and normally run 3/4 block which raises the intake temps a bit.

Not sure how much improvement it makes considering the Prius has a CVT of sorts that can keep RPMs low and engine load high.

Ok... well I'm looking at buying another Prius and not sure which Gen to buy... I'm considering either a 2005-2009 version... or 2012ish version...I hear 2010 and 2011 are oil burners.... maybe poor quality materials in those engines? Lots of complaints...
I'm just not sure which gen to go with as I wonder which you can hypermile for best results...

I like the Prius C. But I've never driven one.
I've driven 2nd and 3rd generation Priuses. I'm not sure which I like better. I haven't had much seat time in a 3rd gen. The 3rd gen officially gets better MPG. I haven't driven/hypermiled one enough to compare my MPG to the 2nd gen.

From a friend who has done a lot of work on Pri, he says the 2nd gen is the way to go. Its more reliable and doesn't sacrifice much in the way of MPG. It is smaller though I believe. The 3rd gen got a good cost reduction done to it and has seen some issues. So, if you're looking for reliable I'd stick with the 2nd gen and find one with low miles. My 04 is right around 140k and still going strong with only a burned out LED tail light (which did require replacing the whole assembly). I wouldn't be too hesitant to find a 3rd gen though. I doubt they have THAT many issues.

I wouldn't go any older than 2007. That year was a mid model refresh and they included more options as standard features. I've heard of people complain of squeaks and rattles in the 2010-2011 years. I've got a 2012 and no issues, though the interior feels very cheap and the door armrest is not located properly. Love the car though. Marvel of engineering.

I agree on the 07+. My in laws have one, and it does have a couple nice features that mine doesn't despite being a lower trim level.

This thread caused me to check the top 10 hybrid list... To discover that I'm on it. :D

I have a 2005 and a 2007, and both use some oil between changes. I sent the oil from the 2005 in for analysis, and the oil consumption isn't based on wear. Because it seems to be related to load when driving, and because the car that was beat on a little more (2007) uses more, my guess is that it's from plugged oil return holes in the pistons/sticky oil rings. The 2ZR-FE had a TSB for it, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it on other engines.

http://www.rav4world.com/tsb/2011/T-SB-0094-11.pdf

Knock on wood, my wife's plug-in Prius doesn't burn a drop of oil with ~12k-15k OCIs (~10k-12k on gas). My feeling is it won't be an issue as long as I use a decent synthetic and don't go too long between oil changes.

In terms of quality, the 2005 is better than the 2007, but that's mostly because it's a higher trim level (V versus III) and because it's been treated better.

I don’t know exactly how... but I had cleaned the EGR valve and oil consumption stayed the same after many tanks of
Fuel. I have changed the oil a few times with short oil ntervals... 3-4K miles each time... and now consumption seems to have slowed quite a bit. I’ve driven 650 miles and the oil level has barely moved. Previously it would have used 1/2 quart in 650 miles... I’ll have to keep an eye on this as I’m a bit skeptical on this and how it could be improved.

I figured out the oil burning mystery... on long road trips where the engine stays warm it doesn't really burn much oil... but the city driving and with the engine cooling and warming many times... this is when she burns it. Just an aged engine, but she runs like a champ otherwise.

My mechanic owns a prius as well and said that when using B-Mode extensively down hills or just in general it can cause the engine to use of oil. Something to keep in mind if using the B-mode down hills.

I’ve only used B Mode once... I don’t live in the mountains, I just have either worn rings or carbon filled rings...

I'm at about 80,000 miles with practically no oil use observed on 12,000 mile oil change intervals. Then again, 3,600 (30%) of those miles are EV with the engine off. I'm also avoiding wear from from the harshest driving conditions by using EV mode; the short trips where the engine doesn't come up to full operating temperature.

I've only used B-mode once in my PiP while coming down from Yosemite. I was able to fully recharge about 3 kWh back into the battery and still had a lot of downhill to go. B-mode uses engine compression to bleed off speed, which reduces the burden on the brakes.

Redpoint5

I looked at the Gas and Electric Vehicle Cost of Ownership Calculator...

My Civic VX seems to destroy the Electric Vehicle comparison. Yes my VX costs more to fuel up, but the extremely low cost of ownership trumps the electric car so badly that I'd have to own the electric for over 30-40 years years to break even... and that's assuming no battery replacement, which isn't reality.
In a ten year period, my cost of ownership in total is $11,250.00 using all points you have in these calculations. Note: I do all of my own maintenance, but to be honest, there's been very little. I probably saved a few grand doing the work myself.

That's why I created the spreadsheet, so that people could get a reasonable estimation of cost of ownership rather than go on their hunch, which usually is just something a person says to feel justified in purchasing the thing they had wanted all along.

Depreciation is by far the #1 cost for most people. You fight depreciation by owning a low cost car in the first place. The tradeoff is missing out on some of the improvements in technology and infotainment.

Generally though, when comparing an EV to the same year equivalent ICE, the EV will cost less over the course of a rather lengthy period of ownership. If someone commutes long distances regularly, the EV more quickly pays back the premium paid to purchase it.

I do all my own maintenance too, and don't own an EV. My vehicle cost of ownership is a fraction of what most people pay since I never buy new, do my own maintenance, carry liability only insurance, and buy reliable vehicles.

Heck, I've got my bike hanging from the rafters of the garage right now in preparation to check valve clearances. Something a bike shop charges $700 to do (on a $2,000 bike).

Here's the link to my thread on the subject so we don't derail yours:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/vehicle-total-cost-ownership-calculator-36087.html

Understood and actually like the calculator as it really does take all into consideration.