Different Driver ruins average MPG... GRRRRR

Off-topic, but kinda topical: a few years back my wife and I were outa town, and our grown son, still at home at the time, was "home alone".

A couple of years later I was looking at our consumption on our electrical utility's website...

 

Over 65 kWh/day in March in Vancouver? I highly doubt that was do to excessive A/C use. What in the world would have caused that? Electric heating?

 

I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned in there somewhere!

 

Natural gas heating.

We normally turn off lights when we leave a room, with a vengeance, and try to be similarly cognisant with appliances like the home theatre, etcetera. Our kids, not so much. I've noticed for example, when the grand kids are over, the lights are always left on in the bathrooms, bedrooms.

Our son when he was living at home (he's moved now, seeing his own bills, wising up I think/hope, and was just very slack about turning off lights.

We were only outa town for ONE week, btw.

 

My teen just got his license back and has been driving the Prius since Monday, lost a whole tank of gas in one night somehow, screen says about a 34 avg. Oh well it was a decent enough car.
I was able to tell in my spreadsheet, the days I had switched back to the prius from other cars, my mpg would dip as I adjusted back to Priusness

@Mendel Leisk you have a good down trade on your consumption. I have been combating my bill for the last year and a half with good results. I never could figure out why every light had to be on in the house (3kids). Have converted to all LED smartbulbs/switches, just took the human out of the equation.

 

We had two "cable boxes" constantly on, for years. Always quite warm to the touch, never a good sign. We cut the cable, I got into DIY antenna building, that's helped a bit.

Another one, and beside being a power leach I suspect it hastened it's demise: our subwoofer, which supposedly powered down when the amp was off, was always hot enough that it was uncomfortable to hold your hand on the backing plate. It failed, and I ended up getting it's guts replaced, for practically the original purchase price. But hey, I liked it's looks, and you just couldn't get them anymore. Long story short: after the rebuild, I hooked it up via a powerbar going into an outlet on the back of the amp, that's ONLY powered when the amp is on.

And yeah, in general, with just me and my wife now, we're very careful with the lights, and they're pretty much all the CFL, except a few incandescent, where the cheapie lampshade needs to clip on. One thing, I have a newer fluorescent pit lamp, and and older one that I use an incandescent bulb in. The incandescent bulb pit lamp seems a lot brighter, even though they're supposedly similar. And just being used for a few minutes, no big deal.

Actually, considering we use a block heater on our Prius, almost without fail, our bill is still surprisingly low. Try to run it (400 watt) for 2 hours before the first drive of the day, and that's maybe every second day, at the most.

 

My advice: Reset the odometers and get on with your life.
My G3 is a work car, and when I first got it, I began to see how far into the 60's I could leg a tank average.
I tried all of the usual hypermiling tricks except drafting and grill blocking and I used to get aggravated when the people with the hammers used to come and take my car away for service.
Then?
I just got into the habbit of topping off the tank after they brought the car back, and resetting the trip odometer.

Trust me, a 600 mile tank average is a clean, honest way of measuring your performance, and if you were really that OCD about your mileages you'd be keeping a log book of your tank mileages from which you can calculate a REAL estimate of your real world efficiency.

Anybody that has spent more than 5 minutes in Priuses knows that the MDF readings are about as accurate (and honest) as Vee-Dubbaya's emissions record.
The MDF always lies, and it always favors the house when reporting it's mileages.

Coincidence?
You tell me.

Reset it and forget it.

 

My other driver decided to do body modifications to mine

 

That will buff out.

BTDT.

Good luck!

 

I averaged a little above 69 mpg when we switched cars so DW could get solo HOV after we moved closer to my work. It's now in the 50's but not directly comparable as she can't charge at work. However, I'm averaging 33 mpg in her Sonata that she averaged 25. It's safe to say the PiP mpg is going to stink from now on.

I absolutely hate backseat drivers. I don't like people telling me to drive faster or what lane to switch into or I could get there faster if I take this route. I hope you do your spouse the courtesy in interest of harmonious matrimony to let the matter drop. She tolerates me wasting her time by driving slow. I tolerate her wasting natural resources to get somewhere faster when we're not late.

 

Burner covers are right up there with pillow shams, anyway. No loss. Well as long as you don't burn the house down.