New user introduction

[chuckknight]

Hello, all.

My name is Chuck and today marks my 1 week milestone. 1 week with a Prius. Loving it so far...this is a masterpiece of automotive design! It was purchased used, but owned by the dealership from day one...it was their owner's car. To say it had been babied would be an understatement...it's immaculate.

But, first, a common question. Fuel economy is not what I had hoped, despite being excellent. Averaging 44mpg, but it's actually trending *down,* rather than up. Yes, I've read the PDF (mostly) and tried implementing a few changes. MPG goes down, every time...and it's not correlating to temperature or tire pressure, either.

It's also not trip length...I live in the country, so everything is either within 3 miles, or 30+ miles away.

I'm obviously doing something wrong.

Another question that may be related... I've noticed my battery indicator is almost never in the green. It's always around 1/2 to 2/3 full, but it has only peeked into the green twice, for under 1 minute each time. Is this bad, or is this normal? My mpg is excellent when it's in the green.

Sometimes it's easiest to just talk to someone, directly. Is there anyone in my area (north-east of Dallas) that could talk me through this transition?

I'm so glad to have found this forum...and look forward to participating. Maybe in a few months, I'll be able to answer questions, instead of just asking them!

Chuck

[TonyPSchaefer]

Hey Chuck. Welcome to PriusChat!!

Let's see if I can pick some of your questions off.
First, it's only been a week. I didn't break 55mpg for a full year. But three years later I almost hit 75. Give it time. You have to learn how to drive the car and the car has to learn how you drive it. Seriously, the Prius has a "memory" of driving style and it will adjust to your style. But it takes about 1,000 miles.

Second: Don't try so hard. Often when I'm near the end of a tank and I want to make the mileage go up, I will try too hard and end up hurting my mileage. Just drive it. Especially for now while you're still figuring it out. (I realize that might sound offensive and condescending but I mean it as a friend.)

Third: I rarely see my battery in the green. Don't expect it. It's no biggie.

Grad a brew and get comfy. There's a lot of really good information here at PriusChat. But be careful, it can be addicting.

[darelldd]

Well Tony went and took all the easy answers...

Welcome to the club. And I will repeat one of Tony's brilliant answers: Don't sweat the mileage right now. Just drive the car, and enjoy whatever you get out of it. You'll figure out several things with time - one week is not enough time to figure out what your mileage really is.

The green part of the battery indicator is sort of reserved for capturing lots of regen when going down a big hill. In normal use, you don't see the green bars, so that's normal. If the car kept the battery at green bars all the time, where would you stuff extra regen when you were able to capture it.

And in closing, I'd like to mention that Tony rocks.

[M8s]

I was the same way in the weeks after we got our first Prius. I was actually disappointed that I wasn't getting 55 to 60 mpg - heck, I wasn't even gettng 48 mpg. Then one day a buddy and I went to a distant golf course and, due to highway construciton, he routed me through some 50 - 55 mph side roads. I got 55.4 mpg and was beside myself. What the guys say is totally correct - just drive it and the magic will happen after a while.

The blue bars in the battery are the Prius's "happy zone" and it tries to stay there as much as possible to ensure a long battery life. The green zone is just headroom for those times when extra free energy can be captured without loss of momentum. It's best to just not think about the battery charge so much. It does a great job of taking care of itself.

Enjoy the ride and welcome to PC!

[chuckknight]

Well, I'm delighted to hear this. Just drive it, huh? Seems too easy. And, just for reference, no offense was taken...sometimes the simple answer is the best one!

Now, about the other part of my question...face to face contact.

My understanding is that there are Prius owners groups all over the country. I'm near Dallas (100 miles) so it seems logical that in such a large city there should be other enthusiasts, yet my searches have come up empty. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Does anyone know of a Dallas, Texoma, or southern Oklahoma (I'm 10 miles from the border) area Prius club/group? It would be fun to get together with others of like mind.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Chuck

[TonyPSchaefer]

Check out meetup.com and search for Prius or hybrid or something like that.

[The Electric Me]

There is a very deep well of information and opinon as to how to maximize your mileage when operating a Prius. Off the top of my head a thread called "You will not get 50mpg if" comes to mind.

It kind of all depends on how involved and active you want to be. Unfortunately I have some issue with the premise "just drive it". I myself have heard that information and opinion. It's valid. You can just drive The Prius and the Hybrid Synergy Drive and the computer will give you far better gas mileage than a conventional automobile. But if you want more? Or aren't happy with your gas mileage results then investigating and applying some techniques will be in your best interest and can make a difference. But again, I think it all comes down to how involved YOU want to become.

If it keeps trending down you might have a problem. So do what you are doing, check out Prius Chat for information...it's in here...and stay attentive to what is going on with your automobile and also ask yourself what mileage you would be happy with and how much or many of the techniques and modifications you want to apply in your driving life? The answer to that is different for everyone.

If you ask you are going to get TONS of advice from tire inflation to hypermiling techniques that range from relatively mild to imo sometimes frightening.

I don't mean to be cold I'd myself give you some opinions as to how to improve your mileage, but others have already done that so much better than I could hope to do, I'm just leaving it for others to reply in this thread and/or for you to discover within this forum.

But in a nutshell, keep an eye on that downward trend, Just Drive It, if you want, or investigate some techniques. Bottom line continue to enjoy.

Good Luck, and watch that trend. Outside of weather change, it being colder, the mileage shouldn't continue to trend downward forever or too drastically. Determining that there is nothing going on outside of the norm, is an important first step.

[chuckknight]

I went on another fairly decent length trip (35 miles each way) today, and averaged close to 50mpg. It's literally all over the place.

One trend I noticed is that I get better gas mileage controlling the car manually, rather than putting it on cruise. The difference is minimal, but measurable.

Chuck