New 2010 II Prius Owner

Welcome aboard! Great questions:

1. Got to take the certified with a grain of salt... but you are covered with the warranties. Unless you had a certified hybrid shop, you probably won't do much better.

2. the OCI is 10K miles. Unless this car has good records, I would have it changed pretty soon and then stick with 10K unless you fit into the severe maintenance schedule (see owners manual).

3. I keep mine in ECO mode all the time. It does cut down on your AC/Heating effectiveness to help with the FE. Select the mode you are most comfortable. with (try them all upfront).

4. Perhaps you not use to the engine/motor sound. It could be that you State of Charge is low by the time you hit the entrance and the engine has to work harder. What does the battery icon look like?

5. There are many videos/threads on the subject. Would suggest not worrying about it for a couple of weeks till you get familiar to it. It can be a distracting game.

Enjoy the ride!

 

Welcome aboard!

spiderman gave some great answers to your great questions.

My thoughts on some of them:

2) Total agreement with spiderman there. Not sure if the dealer can help show you the repair record of the car.

3) I have kept mine in ECO since day one. My understanding is that the difference in the modes is how the gas peddle is mapped, along with how the AC behaves.

4) Sounds normal to me in some ways. The Prius is an economy car with not lots of soundproofing, so engine noise in acceleration does have that racing up sound.

5) Like it was suggested, get use to driving the Prius a bit first. Took me about 2 to 3 weeks to get the hang of getting the best mpg's.

Would suggest getting on Fuelly to keep track of your mpg's. Wealth of data is given with your fill-ups. And you get to share the data with others so we all can learn how to get the most out of our Prii.

 

Watch this video about five times it will help a great deal to improve MPG

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Cleaner link to the above video link....

 

Agree! I was surprised after my short test last week that I was still able to get 44.9mpg driving like an "idiot". And the pulse and glide was a big part of it, even though I didn't try the glide portion intentionally during the test.

One thing I did learn in my test' was to be a bit more "aggressive" in acceleration in some parts of my regular commute.

 

Since You Got some great answers I will only comment on the FE
As for MPG
1 Drive the speed limit.
2 Drive like u have no brakes.
3 Learn to anticipate stops and slowing ahead.
4 Tries at 42/40 PSI.
Best of Luck to You!

 

Good advice till #4.... YMMV. but the general wisdom is one should never exceed the PSI on the sidewall on the tire. On my 2012 P2 it states 40psi as the max.

Been running 40/38 since early April and happy with the ride and the mpg's so far.

 

Actually, I would less say 'Drive like you have no brakes' and more like, "Drive like you can't always accelerate..."

The most common problem I have seen is people will not only overuse their brakes, but in situations, will hammer their accelerator again after already braking.

 

This is the way I tried to drive in my short test. And still got 44.9mpg in a 2012 P2.