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Switched Oil from 5W30 to 0W20 after 193 miles, watching mileage.

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Fuel Economy' started by CrazyLee, Dec 22, 2014.

  1. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    did you go with the exide?
     
  2. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    Yes I did. It was the larger size which I like since I seem to have a penchant for draining the battery.
     
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  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    that was a smart move, going with the larger one. good luck with it, they seem to be getting good reviews.
     
  4. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    You could have saved yourself the trouble by buying the correct battery mount plate, the one for SKS.

    If your charger was one for a AGM, it would have charged to 13.5 V, maybe think about investing in a newer charger as your current charger may never fully charge your new AGM.

    The only way you will get "lots of sparks" is if you're too tentative or you have a massive current draw, if it is that latter, maybe you need to investigate further. It might be the reason batteries are not lasting.

    You don't actually need to remove the regen brake module, you can get the old battery out and new battery in with this in situ.

    Water in the battery compartment and/or in the spare tire well is a known problem. There should not be water in either of those places and just drilling holes every where is not the right fix - more of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approach. The are a number of good threads detailing the correct fix. Exstudent posted these links in another thread which you will find useful:
     
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  5. Easy Rider 2

    Easy Rider 2 Senior Member

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    And that means almost nothing too because, like I said before, the color change usually is because of additives and not because it is becoming contaminated with carbon.

    Just to clarify:
    Even an AGM will not maintain a 13.5 V resting voltage; that's the float voltage after charging is complete and immediately upon disconnect.
     
    #45 Easy Rider 2, Apr 21, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 21, 2015
  6. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    xstudent, thanks for the links that explained the problem. It looks like a nasty problem with an easy solution. Toyota ought to provide us with FACTORY RTV! Plus a nice manual on how to apply the goop. LOL
     
  7. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    The Exide battery looks promising. The mileage looks better driving around town. I'm seeing a lot more over 50 mpg's than I was before. The weather turned very cold yesterday so I'm only getting about average 36 mpg. I'm off to a ball game and I will see what 70 mph on the Xway looks like. I have always seemed to get better highway mileage than city driving.
    I haven't checked the voltage yet though. I have to look in the left (driver) side hatch pocket too. It may be soaked to the gills.
    I'll check that and tire pressure. I run 40/38 right now. I won't change that so as not to mess up my testing.
     
  8. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    It has been a while since I last logged in. Very busy here in West Michigan, between doing all the spring time stuff and cleaning out my old TV shop and getting it ready to sell. Last Monday we sold it. Now I'm back to the spring time stuff.
    I did up the tire pressure to 42/38. 44/40 is next to see what it will do.

    I just checked the battery voltage and it is at 12.72 volts. It did get back some of the fuel mileage but I didn't get it all back. I get 40 mpg around town and 46-47 on the road at 70 mph. The goofy thing is when I went to Detroit on April I got weird mpg figures. Like 60 mpg when the MFD said 48-49 mpg.

    Date Miles Gallons MPG Price
    4/28/15 278.00 7.634 36.42 2.229
    4/23/15 366.00 6.033 60.67 2.489
    4/14/15 286.00 7.175 39.86 2.509
    4/10/15 185.00 3.574 51.76 2.239
    4/8/15 276.00 7.113 38.80 2.109

    The high numbers are on the road mpg's The low ones are in town numbers.
    If I hypermile I can do well. I think the 60 mpg figure was at 70 mph +
    Although the MFD numbers were more like 48-49 mpg.
    I guess I like mileage of 60 mpg. I'll take it.

    I think I may need the Grid Charger. Some mornings the SOC is 2 purple bars.
    Within 3-5 miles the battery is 7 green bars.

    Any ideas? My last check of the battery via the mini vci looked good.
     
  9. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

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    This is normal for the HV battery to to discharge when cold starting. The car is powered mostly by electric when cold to keep emissions low by removing load from the petrol engine. As soon as it warms up the battery gets recharged.

    John (Britprius)
     
  10. Easy Rider 2

    Easy Rider 2 Senior Member

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    How many miles on this 11 year old car ?

    That one time you calculated 60, you probably had a bad pump nozzle and didn't get the tank full.
     
  11. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    ^ One way to verify that: if you're logging every tank, if the next tank was lousy mpg, that adds to the case of bad pump on the previous fill up. What you can there is combine the two tanks, calculate them as a single fill.
     
  12. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    The mileage is 157696 miles. I can't believe just how many miles I drive each week! I'm glad I am getting the mileage I am. My old Chevy Venture van, which I put over 258,000 miles on, only got about 25-29 mpg.

    I'm saving big time!
    The theory that the pump malfunctioned is belied by the pip meter, it is always 10 pips each fill up. Sometimes the factors are temperature, wind direction, traffic flow, hills, my speed, and the gas quality itself.

    The gas gauge is a mysterious device tucked inside the tank and somehow shows the 10 pip fill up even though the bladder is scrunched down too low, limiting the total amount of fuel pumped in. Maybe the Prius guru's know what's going on there. I usually get 7-8 gallons of fuel. If I upgrade vehicles I'll get at least a 2010 Prius.
     
  13. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    After 9,545 miles (Final miles, 160226) I put the 5W30 Pennzoil Platinum back in the engine with a new Napa Gold 1394 filter. I didn't see much difference in performance with maybe a better warmup of the engine and less fuel usage. It probably was not worth the difference anyway, but I thought it would be a good test.
    This was a two "maintenance request" entry on the MFD.
    My engine was good to me, I only had to add 1/2 quart in the middle of the run.
     
  14. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    I have noticed a big difference in fuel mileage if I stop the pump right after the first click off or if I tease the tank and squeeze all the gas I can get in. Since the small amount we get on a bladder tank, 5-8 gallons, the percentage difference is larger than with a huge tank of normal gas guzzlers, 20 gallons. It may be like 5 to 10 mpg more or less. If you want to get good mileage, first squeeze in all you can, then at the end of the tank of gas just stop at the first click off. That works every time.
     
  15. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    The bladder tank's varying capacity is confounding your efforts to accurately calculate mpg, tank fill by tank fill. You can however take comfort that in the long run, averaging several tanks, the variations will cancel each other out.

    Thanks for the report, on your switch to (lighter for you) 0W-20 oil.
     
  16. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    The Prius is running good now, especially since I went to near St Louis, MO to my brother in law's place. I drove at 70-75 mph and it seems that the mileage rose to the "usual" 50 mpg. I think the Prius likes to be run harder, keeping the engine cleaner because of higher air flow through the intake. I have never have taken the air filter box off the engine to clean the intake so it is only a guess.
    I enjoy the ability to get 52 mpg on a regular basis on the highway. In town I get 48 mpg but I have fun by hypermileing a lot to see just how high I can get the mileage.

    My latest thing is coasting. Because the battery is so small it only goes for 1 to 2 miles before the ICE kicks in. By coasting I don't care anymore as the ICE rarely kicks in because the battery power weakens.

    Just press hard on the throttle and zip up to speed. I usually go 2 mph faster and back off so the coast is showing Regen charging (Green lines) on the MFD. Now just slightly press on the throttle and the lines go black indicating coasting. It is amazing how far you can coast in a Prius!

    At low road speed (25 to 40 mph) most people don't know that you are hypermileing. If someone charges up my tail pipe I'll gas it to give them room.
     
  17. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    This technique you are describing is called Pulse & Glide. It is indeed amazing just how far a Prius will glide along with no power input from either motor. Glad you have discovered how to P&G. Keep up the good work.
     
  18. geekwithoutacause

    geekwithoutacause Junior Member

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    Exactly. Color doesn't mean ANYTHING.
    I also think you are wasting your time with the 0w20 experiment. The biggest thing for engine health (when it comes to oil) is to change oil and filter when it is supposed to be changed. Even the quality of oil won't matter. They all meet the specifications. I used to dump the cheapest there was in my corolla but did it frequently and used good filters. Still ran fine w no oil usage when I sold it after 19 years and 230K on the clock.
     
    #58 geekwithoutacause, Jun 28, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2015
  19. CrazyLee

    CrazyLee Member

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    I am back with my oil story. I had my oil changed at my local Toyota shop, @ 165421 miles. It was about $33.00 it took almost 2 hours!
    I asked about full synthetic and they said $59.00 No thanks.

    Anyway I also wanted to not jack up the car and do the "dirty" deed of changing the oil and filter.
    Since I drive the car a lot I also didn't want to do it in the winter, so I'll stay warm in the Toyota lobby.

    They checked my VIN # against factory warranty repair and came up with a steering shaft warranty replacement part. I'll go in next week or so. So it pays off to stop in for an oil change.

    One reason why I went to Toyota is I wanted to tickle their funny bone and get some service records recorded. I read that they will give some preference to customers that do that.

    I seem to be getting better mileage, the local speeds show much better mileage, upper 50 60 mpg. I'll have to drive it at higher speeds to see what comes up. Before the oil change I was getting an average of 47 mpg.

    I guess I have just about bored everyone's ears off about low fuel mileage. I still am missing 4-5 mpg but I haven't found out why. My Mini VCI died so I have a new one on order. Hard to guess if the "disgronificator", Mini VCI won't respond.
    (disgronificator
    A mythical - but expensive - automobile part which unscrupulous auto repair shops say is "missing" or "damaged" in a car brought into the shop by an automobile-ignorant customer. (Usually a woman.) More likely to be discovered to be "damaged" when the unlucky car owner is towed to a shop far from home. (Other spellings: disgromificator, dysgromificater, dysgronificator, disgronificater, etc.) Hartman Web Site Words Page :p


    I did find a nice 2 pack of Throttle Plate cleaner with MAF cleaner at Walmart the other day.

    It is made by CRC. Price was under $8.00 I was looking for some MAF cleaner and the throttle body & intake cleaner came along for the ride.
    Nice instructions from PC Toyota Prius: How to Clean the Mass Air Flow (MAF) Senor - PriusDIY.com


    A final note. I noticed my Prius was pulling harder to the right. I was thinking that my alignment was going bad. I regularly check my tire pressure but I decided to check the air first. The left side tires were very close to being right, 44 front, 42 rear.. The right side tires were decidedly low, 28 # on the right front tire and 19# on the right rear tire. Once I aired the tires up, I found that the steering was good again.
     
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  20. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    hmm, low tyre pressure could contribute to mpg issues.