Week 3 - My 2007

Well this weekend took my 2007 package 3 for a "road trip" 200 miles round trip. Friday morning started out with my first glitch. Got in and started up the Prius to leave for work and I noticed the monitor battery indicated the two lower bars in the purple. I about freaked out as I had only ever seen it get to mid bar. Everything else seemed normal and drove to work "monitoring" the display. The engine seemed to be running most of the time and slowly the battery display started coming up and by the time I go to work (13 miles) the display was at 70%. 5 hours later on the trip home to pick up my gear to head out for the weekend, everything was back to pretty much normal.

So what was the deal with the battery monitor? Can't seem to find anything to tell me what happened, nothing in the owner's manual about this either. On Thursday night when I parked the Pri, battery monitor was around 70% when I shut down mid evening.

Stopped and got fuel, gauge indicating I had 2 bars left on the fuel indicator. 6.3 gallons, MFD reported 47.7 mpg with 301 miles. The book says 11.9 gallons for full tank, wondering if the fuel gauge is off and not tracking correctly? First tank of fuel was also 6.3 gallons and I got fuel when the gauge was at 2 bars remaining, 320 mile off the odometer.

Trip was uneventful and overall the trip was very enjoyable. I really like the ride and smoothness of the car, and 48 mpg is really a nice feature! I also have a 200 Celica GT 5 speed with nealry 200,000 miles and get around 34 combined and Idrive that little car pretty hard, I love its sporty feel and acceleration. My other Toyota is a 1998 4runner SR5 with 170,000 on the odometer ... when I baby it 18 mpg but I took it on long trips due to the comfort level and all the toys I have in it for long trips and then I could squeeze out 22 mpg.

I will be taing the Pri on my next road trip at the end of the month to soCal from Seattle area. I will be looking to get gas at my normal stops the first couple of times I fill up but it will be interesting to see if I can get throguh Oregon without having to fill up! I will report information on this trip as most of the driving will be I-5 around the speed limit (60-70) so it will be interesting to see what milage I get. The uphill climb on the Siskiyou Moutains of southern Oregon/Northern California. Most of the trip on I-5 is pretty much flat so it will be interesting to see what type of mileage I get.

What sort of concerns should Ihave with the indication of the battery monitor being at the lower 2 bars that one time? Each day after last friday has been normal 70 % battery status except that one morning. All other things seem to be normal. After engine start, I don't see any upper numbers in the 40-50 until the engine warms up say, 10 minutes of driving. I have learned to just let the car do its thing until its warm. It has now become a bit of a game, to see if I can coast on a slight decline without using the battery, just enough polressure on the pedal to keep the arrows off around 40 mph, seems to be zone there. so far the highest MPG I have seen on my MFD ( not after reset) is 49.8, then I have a hill or two and I slip back into the 48's LOL never thought I would see that! I was really excited to see 37 in my Celica or 24 in my 4runner!

 

Thanks for the posts guys, very helpful, knowing that what I experienced is normal ops and the issue of the fuel tank, I did see some issues on searches so knowing more to search under helps. So what is the deal with a fuel "bladder"?