My first 30k

I purchased my 08 Prius in August with 70k on it and have driven it 30k miles so far. My experience with the vehicle has largely been very good. Although I'm still very surprised at the number of people who laugh at those who drive the prius, especially driving it in the winter time, as I am seeing more and more of these vehicles on the road up here in North Dakota. It always seems to be the people driving a '94 F150. I averaged 47mpg in the summer and its about 42 so far in the winter.

I am only 6' and I find the vehicle a little uncomfortable. My knees always seem to hit the steering wheel getting in and out but I can't really complain as it is a small vehicle. The main thing is the seats feel a little hard, not comfortable driving around 300 miles. The only other complaint I have with this vehicle is the bladder in the gas tank. I think that problem is magnified as I fill up with gas every single day. Since the temperature has dropped below freezing I haven't been able to get my gas gauge to register full. I do all the tricks I have read on this site, but you just must not be able to get around the shrinkage of the bladder in cold weather. I do wish the Prius had a tachometer and engine temp gauge, I understand why it doesn't, but somehow those little gauges make you feel more at ease knowing the engine is running properly. I know I can get a scan gauge and I'm sure it would bring up my mpg some, I just don't want to mess with that at this time.

The vehicle came with regent touring ls tires, so I ran them down to the nub and put on some Michelin energy savers. It was a bit of a gamble as winter was setting in and i could have gotten the defenders, however the defenders would have probably cots me around 500$ more in gas over the life of the tires. So even though I didn't know how well the energy savers performed in winter I went with them anyways. They have performed as expected. I didn't expect superior winter performance, but I am pleasantly surprised so far. If you drive "the Prius way" these tires are absolutely adequate in winter in North Dakota. I can't put a number on how much these have improved my mpg, as winter had set in just as I had them installed. The 40 degree temp swings with constantly changing winds that are associated with November in this state makes it to difficult to put a number on it.

I do have one question though. Does anyone know of a good oil filter wrench that makes getting this oil filter off easy. My wrench is a little to big for the space they give you to try to unscrew the oil filter and my hands are to big. I like the position Toyota put it in but the space is just too small to make it easy to remove.

 

Ya I do have the steering column almost all the way up. I hate driving with it all the way up but it's pretty close. I also have blocked the grill for the winter time using the tips I have found on this site and I don't use an engine block heater as it is garaged the whole time. It's not a heated garage but I just don't see the necessity of that amount of money/work with a garaged car. My gas mileage is mainly low because I drive highway for an hour then have an hour of stops 10 minutes apart. So I have to turn the car off every 10 minutes for as little as 30 seconds to as much as 20 minutes for about an hour and then get back to highway driving for an hour. There is really no way around it. I have gotten as high as 51.5mpg, but I have also gotten as low as 41 too. It all just depends in the wind and how fast i have to drive to stay on time for all my stops. I'm not really complaining though because its way better than the 30mpg in my last vehicle.

 

I do have a few cap wrenches but they never work with the Fram filters because of that grip they have on the end. I might just have to change filters then so I can use that style wrench if that's the only one that works really well.

 

Wow, I was just at a dealers parts dept picking up some coolant. I guess I should have thought about that earlier, it was just habit with my old vehicles to pick up an oil filter when I got my oil at Walmart. I use mobile 1 high mileage, will these filters be good for about 6500 miles, as that's my usual oil change interval?

 

Ya I will be going to get the Toyota filter when it's time to change my oil again. I never thought to get my filter from Toyota as I use to drive older crappy cars and it didn't matter. Plus I'm paying over 6$ for the fram high mileage filter so ill be happy to get it at Toyota. On an unrelated note, I paid 21$ for a gallon of diluted coolant at the dealer today, seemed pretty spendy for a 50/50 mix, gonna cost a little bit of money when I change the coolant this spring.

 

Yes I'm an independent contractor for a courier service, which is why I drive my own car. I usually average about 6500 miles a month, depending on how many work days are in a given month. And yes it is very easy to drive 250-300 miles a day when you travel to multiple cities. I do save my car payment in gas, but that doesn't mean it still won't be an expensive vehicle to own, that is yet to be determined. The last vehicle I had was a 98 Camry that I bought with 150k on it and I took it to just shy of 400k before I decided to purchase the Prius. I bought the vehicle for around 4000 and only put 1000 of unexpected repairs into it. That's not including wear and tear items like batteries and an alternator, etc. that was a cheap car to own.