How to give fuel milage a "boost" ?

[Ashly]

Background:
2006 gen II Prius: 70,000 miles: Barcelona Red

-I am a full time student, I drive my Prius around campus most of the time and take periodic trips home (3 hr. drive to the Northwoods of WI)

Hello Everyone,

I am a semi-newbie owner of my Prius, however I have been a bit dissappointed in my milage. I have read other posts to become more educated, and I do practice things like not using A/C and predicting stops well ahead of time, accelleration techniques..etc.
I am currently averaging about 46-48mpg and I would love to see that number above 50. I am not interested in "hypermiling" or anything like that. I just want to "bump" my milage a bit.

Any simple ideas that could help me?

Thanks,
Ashly

[JimboK]

This is a good starting point:

New owner? Want MPG help? Read this first.

[Ashly]

Thank you,

But I have already read this. I am generally educated on the basic "learning curve" of the Prius. Just wondering if there is anything not mentioned in this article that is a simple thing to do?

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by Ashly

I drive my Prius around campus most of the time and take periodic trips home

Guessing by "around campus" you mean short trips (a mile or less). This will limit high mpg as by the time the car is warmed up...if it even gets to that point...you are shutting it back down.

Make sure your tires are properly inflated. And by properly inflated at mean at least to sidewall rating. I'm running about 10% over sidewall rating but that is up to you.

[TonyPSchaefer]

Hey Ashly and welcome to PriusChat
I think Matt's hit the nail when he addresses the "around campus" point. Those short trips are really going to kill you. Without knowing the exact situation, I hesitate to try and provide specific input, especially since you've already been reading up and seem to know exactly what you're doing. There is one other thing to keep in mind: the GenII Prius is EPA rated at only 45mpg. So you are still meeting and exceeding the EPA rating.

[donee]

Hi Ashly,

Due to the warmup cycle programmed into the Prius, route selection can help a bunch. Start off on a route where if you stop in the first 10 minutes of a trip, its only momentary, and not into the wind. If you get stuck at a light after 2 or 3 minutes of travel, for 5 minutes, the car just has to burn the extra gas to rewarm up. If this happens over and over, well, that is how people get 40 mpg in a Prius. Around here, the lights are the longest on the routes to the Tollway. So, then one is getting on the tollway with a cold engine. And the Prius will run at a higher fuel consumption for the first 5 minutes on the highway. As highway travel is high consumption (in a Prius) anyway, this is a double wamy. Before I changed my routing, I could predict the point on the highway where all of a suden, no change in speed, the mileage just jumped up 10 mpg. Now, I avoid getting on the highway without first driving the car for 10 minutes on secondary roads that have short stop lights.

Grill blocking will help a bunch when your around campus. Do a search on it.

Remember to take the blocks off in mid summer for long trips. If you use pipe insulation like many of this, you can pull them off and put them in the glove compartment.

Until you do not take trips less than about 20 miles continuous at a time, you probably wont make it up over 55 mpg.

When I was in college, in Champaign, I never drove around campus, even when I had a car. The bus system, and the bicycle paths were just excellent there. Its too bad we do not have more such situations around.

[fuzzy1]

... I am currently averaging about 46-48mpg and I would love to see that number above 50. I am not interested in "hypermiling" or anything like that. I just want to "bump" my milage a bit.

You will be doing mild hypermiling, whether or not you like that term. That term should not be defined by the uninformed detractors who portray it all as dangerous.

In addition to the links posted above, browse through the Basic and Intermediate methods listed at CleanMPG - Beating the EPA. Skip the Advanced stuff for now. Another thread has methods specific to Prius-2.