ECO Mode in fair weather

only if it helps you accellerate slower, thus increasing your mpg's. some find they do better in regular and even power mode.

 

Eco mode makes it easier to get into some glide states, which will reduce your gas consumption. If you aren't having trouble with that, Eco only helps with the AC and heat (not necessarily just the fan though).

 

Just make sure the engine is off before going into neutral or else it will stay on. Don't shift into neutral at a speed below 42mph then allow the car to accelerate above 42mph.

 

It is. First, the engineers at Toyota worked hard to make it so you couldn't blow up the car. Most controls on Prius are commands to a computer, not direct linkages to anything actually moving. Second, if you look at would happen (see: Toyota Prius - Power Split Device ) if it actually succeeded, it wouldn't hurt the car. Switching to reverse doesn't mesh any gears the wrong way, it just tells the car to apply an (alternating) field to the motor to get it to turn in the other direction, this means that at most, it would slow the car and then have it reverse. Sudden changes just don't work. Unsafe on a highway obviously, but no risk to the car.

 

From what i gathered over my relative short time owning Boom and being on Prius Chat, it seems that gliding in the C is much harder that the Gen2 Prius and EVEN then Gen3. I use the peddle to glide on short p&g style glides. Then I tend to shift to N on longer glides like when using coming up to red lights a ways off.

 

Everything I write below is purely my view from driving the car and reading PriusChat and a few other pages. I feel that until the day I buy a ScanGuage, this is all pure theory and I don't really know.

I've not spent much time in the Energy Monitor screen, but it seems in the C there's almost no tolerance for the car to be able to display "no arrows" while moving. I think this is more than just most C drivers being Prius newbies. This said, it appears that a commonly accepted substitute for "no arrows" on the Energy Monitor is "no reading" on the HSI. I personally don't find this difficult to pull off and in fact it surprises me these days how easily I can do it. In any case, in my view "a slither of green" on the HSI isn't the end of the world should it occur and this is much more informative than the Energy Monitor.

I do tend to stay in ECO Mode - but this just means the relevant pedal position is x, when for Normal mode the relevant pedal position would be y. This said, ECO Mode is going to allow you to more easily make finer adjustments around point x, so does provide some advantage in making it easier to get close to the right spot.

For me, the known downsides from using N are enough for me to not use it - and most importantly to me, at all times I want to know that if for some reason I need to get out of the glide, this can be done with nothing more than a flick of the ankle.

 

It is my observation that the ECO mode changes the programming and allows easier entrance to glides, longer use of glide, and turns the squelch way down on the gas pedal. Once you adapt to the difference, it can be your friend.

Of course, it also turns the squelch way down on the heating and cooling.