If your car is less than 45 MPG then try this

English isn't your first language, is it?

 

You're doing well.

 

The accelerator pedal is a hall-effect system with double redundancy. If there was *any* problem in the signal due to a loose connector, or anything else for that matter, you would get a "Triangle of Death" and a DTC sould be set. If you don't believe this, try unplugging the connector and the going ready.

It works be generating 2 different voltages for each possible position of the pedal, and these voltages are never the same. The Hybrid ECU compares these 2 voltages and if they are not within a small tolerance of what the slope formula says they should be you get a DTC, or most likely a sharply reduced power output as it assumes the lowest common denominator.

But I've heard that chanting various phrases while driving can also improver your mileage, so maybe if you chant while looking at your pedal, this will improve mileage! :-P

 

I have yet to get the mileage people talk about here on PC so I'd love to know those chants

 

Likewise it also helps to jump in a circle on one foot before entering the car, but only on odd numbered days.

Tom

 

I hope most of these remarks were made in humor, otherwise I detect a fair amount of nastiness to an honest observation.

 

i only wish that i could speak and write a second language as well as you do, and i had no problem understanding you. as far as the connector is concerned, i think peef probably knows what he's talking about and yet, you definately observed a very large change in fuel economy. it's interesting.

 

I've read several posts from these guys and I feel they are in honest jest. In all honesty I'm going to check try what the OP suggested when I get home from work this evening and will post any results. I normally attribute my low mpgs to nyu driving but ...

 

There are literally thousands of factors that can alter mileage, many are not obvious, and they can change from drive-to-drive. What I can tell you is fact; even if the throttle was somehow getting erroneous info to the HV ECU that somehow escaped fault detection, the driver would definitely notice the car lurching around and not responding properly to his/her foot.

I have never heard of this happening in any drive-by-wire car. The original Prius had potentiometers in there instead of the zero-wear hall-effect system. They were known to fail on occasion, and they always set a code and sometimes resulted in the car not "going" when the pedal was pushed.

See if you can think of something else that changed around that time. It may be something you will not be able to determine, such as a bad tank of fuel. A little water in the fuel can cause mileage to fall.

More esoteric things such as a lower outdoor temperature can cause mileage to drop. Even the length of your trips can have wild effects. A short trip not allowing full warm up, followed by a normal one will drop mileage due to the hot water from the thermos not being there to help preheat the ICE.

 

You'll find me on my knees by my car, with a flashlight, checking that connection...

 

Please be sure to hop three times and whistle Dixie before praying on your knees !

 

I have a big urge to say something lewd here, but it would probably affect my mileage, so I'll just keep it to myself for now... =)

 

You seem pretty sure about how this works. Where did you get your data?

 

are you meaning the chanting data?

 

Toyota technical documentation.

Tom