Priuses(?) on the Highway

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Daox

This is pretty much what I get as well with my 2004.

My sister had an ALH and I worked on it several times. I would not go that route...

My ALH was rock solid for the powertrain for the 245K miles I had it.

The body on the other hand.... not so good: two fan resistors, a couple window regulators, trim breaking, moonroof leaks.

The cost of the routine maintenance was also way higher for the diesel. 120K of schedule maintenance on the Prius was about $600. For the TDI it was $1900 (I did all the work on the Prius myself. On the TDI I did everything except the timing belt)

[JacobLeSann]

Thanks all. Helps a ton.

Stick with Honda, then? I know my whole car is clapped right out. Not purely my fault, previous owners were abusive and beyond.

Any personal recommendations on which Civic is the best to use as a Hypermiler build? I doubt I’ll find a stock VX anytime soon. Seen a few stock HXs but at rather high prices. I think this CX hatch should be good enough. I’ve also seen a ‘91 Civic EF CX hatch, but I don’t think it’s very efficient or anything without the HF setup.

Think I’ll send this inquiry to a Honda forum

[Isaac Zachary]

Good question, and I'm not sure of the answer. Maybe an older one with a lean burn engine. Have you checked out the Aero Civic?

As far as the Prius goes I'm not trying to scare you away from buying one. They can be a great car. I went and bought a 2006 Prius last year with a bad HV battery, bad 12V battery, bad catalytic converter, bad wheel bearing, burns oil and has a damaged front end from hitting a deer and yet I still love the car. Little by little I'm getting it fixed up. If you're not afraid to work on one and realize that certain repair items are going to be expensive yet if fixed properly will last another 15-20 years then go for a Prius. But if not, stick with the Civic.

[JacobLeSann]

I’m only like 20 years old so I’m definitely pinching pennies in all regards. The space available in a Prius and the ability to get decent mileage without any real effort is attractive. Fixing stuff for $$$ is not. I got an offer the other day of $50 for a whole civic shell, and I think that shows why I’m partial to them. I have seen some clean and low KM Prius offers, Including a 100,000km JDM import for $7000 CAD. I’ve seen lower offers with higher KM, but have no idea how smart that would be. I wouldn’t really know what all to check (and how) if I were to buy secondhand. If I could get a nice and clean Prius running as it should for less than $4000 CAD, then maybe.

Speed limits here on the highway are 100 KM/H. I pulse and glide between 80-90 KM/H, and up that to 90-100 KM/h when I’m in a bit of a rush. What would you estimate your Prius can do at those speeds? In town limits, the speed limit is 50 km/h, but I prefer to hop on my bicycle in town and leave the car parked, so it’s really highway miles mostly.

Ever run your Prius in the cold and see how hard the MPG drops? I’m in Manitoba, and it gets to below -40 Celsius sometimes in the winter. Snow and ice suck too.

I love the Aerocivic, for its function. Beyond that, I find it really painful to look at, lol. Certainly the cheapest route to modify the car. I think aeromods can actually look great on a Prius, but they definitely look....interesting..on cars like a civic hatch. In the end, I’ll probably copy Basjoos’s work anyways. He used a ‘92 CX. I’m looking at a ‘93 CX, so could be good.

[Isaac Zachary]

When it's almost -40⁰C here my fuel mileage around town drops to around 20mpg in the Avalon hybrid (should be about the same in the Prius). But the cold doesn't seem to have as much of an effect when cruising down the highway.

[JSH]

A 2nd gen Prius should do 60 mpg at 60 mph without trying.

The thing about the Prius in the cold is the warm up. With mine the MPG display would show 25 mpg for the first 5 minute interval and then jump back up to regular mileage. If you are jumping on the highway and driving miles that isn't that much of a difference but if you are doing a bunch of short trips around town it can be a big hit (just like with any gas car). A block heater and grill block can help a lot with that .

I'm partial to the Prius. I've had two and they were rock solid cars. Some of the lowest cost cars I've ever owned and it is a large and roomy car that is very practical. Buy it, drive it, and expect to get 50+ mpg without doing anything.

If you want a ecomodder project to play with it likely isn't the best option because they are so good as they come.

If you want a project you can do a bunch of mods to a Civic and get the same mileage as a stock or lightly modified Prius. Is the goal to save money or try to see how much you can beat the factory MPG rating?

[Isaac Zachary]

About block heaters. The stock block heater only helps a little. I'm going to change mine out (both cars) for circulating tank heaters that are at least 1,000W. I'll probably go for 2,000W heaters though since I have a 20A outlet. I've used that's kinds of heaters on other small cars with excelente results. I also might use a 1,500W block heater and a 500W heater of some sort to heat the traction battery.

[Autobahnschleicher]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

It's much more complicated than just "engine runs harder", but frequent oil changes seem to prevent the problem all together.

First, these cars have low tension rings. Add to that the oil relief passages behind the oil control ring are small. When those passages and the oil control ring get clogged the piston now turns into an oil pump that pumps oil up into the cylinder.

One solution is to change the compression rings out for high tension rings. That way they always force oil through the oil control rings and relief passages as they scrape down and not up into the cylinder. But then there goes your efficiency because now there's more friction.

Another solution is to take the pistons and drill out the relief passages so that it's less likely for them to clog.

Or just change your pistons and rings every 100,000 miles or so.

But the easiest solution is to just change the oil by the manufacturer's true recommendation. Oil gets dirty and degrades over time and miles. So keeping fresh oil in the engine prevents deposits which prevents oil relief passages and control rings from clogging.

However, it seems like a lot of people change their oil yearly, if that. So they go 15,000 miles or so between oil changes when the manufacturer recommends yearly or every 10,000 miles whichever comes first under optimal conditions. But the thing is that very very few drive under optimal conditions. Optimal conditions are summer weather flat road trip conditions. If you drive short distances, over mountain passes, in stop and go traffic, you're a trailer OR in cold weather the real oil change recommendation is now every 5,000 miles or 6 months, whichever comes first.

The problem is that there is now an epidemic of oil burning Toyotas with less than 200,000 miles because hardly anybody changes their oil by the manufacturer's true recommendation for the driving conditions. And at the same time there's a group of people that have nearly half a million miles or more on their Prius or other Toyota because they've changed the oil faithfully every 5,000 miles (or 6 months, whichever comes first).

That's the exact same issue my car used to have, and it's also a Toyota, but with a 1ZZ-FED engine.
However it does that even at the actual reccomended intervalls.
In my case I had to overhaul it and noticed a few things:
1. the oil drain holes where completely clogged
2. the oil controll rings where seized
3. besides the piston, combustion chamber and ports, there where no deposits anywhere in the engine.
The valvetrain side of the cylinder head was clean, and so where the block and oil pan.

This seems to be a common occurence in toyota engines for some reason.
I would assume the cause to be high oil temperatures as well as high temperatures in the ringlands combined with insufficient oil drain holes and wrong material choice for the oil controll rings.

[JacobLeSann]

The goal is to save money, but my more whimsical goal is to get 55-60 MPG on average. I have fun working on cars but realistically I have a bunch of other stuff to do and don’t always have the time. I only drive when traveling in the summer (long trips, warm weather, mostly highway) and my winter commute is about 20 km of highway driving and 3km or so of town driving. Both situations would be good for a Prius, I’d think. Though, it gets pretty brutal come winter, so I’d hope the battery does well. The space is great for traveling and cargo and CVT trans is actually better for me as I do really suck at driving manual.

I’ve seen some reports of it being a rock-solid car as you say, and others saying it is problematic. If it is indeed problematic, then I’d save more money with my Honda’s. I pay the lowest insurance and find parts cars for like $50-200. Have the most clapped-out civic ever and it still has no check lights of any sort.

If I can find a way to fix up the battery and other things without spending enough to buy a civic, I’ll get me a Prius. I’m very interested in the MK.2, and somehow I like the look.

Edit: What’s a good price for a Prius? How many kms is too much for a used one? I’ve found some with ~200,000km for $4100-$8000 around me, which seems high. I also found an imported JDM 2004 model with ~100,000km for just over $6000. I want something cheap, but at the same time I’m tired of ****boxes.

[redpoint5]

Anything now is too overpriced as all used cars are up 30%. It's not the time to be buying unless absolutely necessary. Now is the time to be selling excess vehicles. Looking at freebeard here, but that's like calling the pot calling the kettle black.