FNG here at Prius Chat from Minnesota...

Hi,

I'm an industrial Designer from Pine City, Minnesota...

Started doing research a year ago on hybrids and found one for my retired mom...

loved the design so much I bought one too...

I've been lurking here for a year... just decided to be polite and intro-

Thanks,
Tuck

Welcome. Pull up a chair and sit awhile. Count your blessings for having a Pri while so many others go without:mod:

How do you like your Prius in the Minnesota winters?

Hiya Tuck,

Nice to have you aboard. Good folk and good info here. Hope to be hearing from you again!

Ray

Nice to have another Midwest introduction.
Keep up the good work.

I love it...
I was amazed at how much snow it would go though... and how well the traction control worked.

The car starts -30 below ferinhite... sitting out side with no block heater.

Overall I'm pretty impressed...
a lot of friends gave me heat for buying a prius...
now almost every one of them want one too...

I dunno...
I guess the fact is there is no other mid sized car out there that gets this kind of mileage...

Tuck

Whether in so cal OR MT ... the block heater is KILLER. You GOTS to get the block heater. It makes a ton of difference.

Edit:
If you're from Minnesota, why'd you join the Florida National Guard?
Actually I came back because of a real question. The Motor Home drivers where I work (including 4X4'ers, Toy Box haulers, Sand cars, etc) all despise hybrids. 100% of them ... and there are over a dozen. Their take is that, "I don't care HOW much I have to pay for gas ... I'm not changing my lifestyle". How is it that you managed to break away from that mold?

Florida National Guard... haha... nice.

You know.... I joined for the one weekend a month, it gets cold up here.

I have a buddy that works at a stone plant-
100 percent of them despise hybrids too- but were talking about high mileage cars the other day... point blank my buddy asked why not a prius. Crazy... but they all scoffed...

Its interesting for sure...

So I'm guessing the block heater makes a difference in mileage huh?

Only about 10-20 more MPG for the first 5 minutes and some of that carried over to the next 5 minutes depending on your driving style. And nice heat in the winter too.

Wayne

Here's a question about lower MPG and Minnesota winters.
I have a 2007 #4 purchased in Aug 07. I've averaged 48 for the 13 months I've owned it - 52-54 in the summer and 42 in the winter. I'm not a technical person - what are the options to improve winter MPG?

Talk to the Fire Engineer (earlier poster) and he'll put a block heater in for you, at a modest charge of course. It could possibly make your winter mpg a lot closer to your summer mpg (others on here will know better than me), just for that warm up period 1st thing on a cold morning. We're lucky it doesn't get that cold here, but I still have to go through a full winter so I'll know more on mpg deterioration next Spring.

The block heater will help. I used to see about 25mpg for the first 5 minutes, now get 50mpg even in 70 degree weather.

Also, speed makes a HUGE difference. I used to drive 70 mph all the time on I35, but would average 35mpg in winter, 45mpg in summer. Cut that to 60 mph and now I see over 55mpg all summer - not sure on the winter numbers yet, but I'm sure the slower speed and EBH will help.

BTW, the EBH install is a piece of cake. Just read the posts on this forum which are excellent and buy the $50 part.