New Prius in the mountains

Hi everybody:

Traded our '08 Civic Hybrid for a 2010 Prius this week.

Up to this point, the Civic Hybrid was the best car we've ever owned but I must say that our new Prius is already outperforming the Civic by a large margin.

Long grades that completely discharged the Honda's battery only deplete the Prius battery by 2 bars or so.

Can now climb these grades, with 3 passengers, at 55-60 mph without straining the car.

AC is much colder.

Heavier feel, less road noise, much more interior room and storage.

Went to Chattanooga, TN for a short overnight stay. Filled up before the trip and the indicated fuel economy with two adults and one child was 60.1 mpg driving west.

Trip back brought it down to 53.5 mpg We let the car idle some with AC running because we were trying to understand where the attractions were and the temp was 99-100 degrees. Even so, the Civic would not gain mpg over 60mph. Seems like the Prius mpg will continue to climb at higher speeds if kept in the proper economy range.

I'm used to driving the Civic for maximum economy so this may have helped with the Prius mpg. Having said that, the Prius just seems to be a large improvement in all areas. We'll have to see about reliability - the Civic Hybrid was completely trouble free.

 

Yes - The battery would always deplete to one bar or at least down to the point that the IMA would not kick in. We're talking about long 7-8% uphill grades of several miles. The battery always quickly recharged on the down hill side of these grades.

The Prius just seems to be more robust and handles these mountains with much less effort. When the Honda hybrid was new I tried to follow a Prius across the mtn. and it ran off an left me - couldn't keep up.

I still think that the Civic Hybrid is an excellent vehicle but the 2010 Prius that we now own seems to be superior in every aspect.

We took another short trip yesterday - about 90 miles round trip - with 3 adults and 1 child. Mixed 45mph local roads and 65mph 4-lane with long grades up and down. Did a little better than 50mpg.

The Civic needed about 20,000 mi or so before the maximum mpg was found. Is this typical with a Prius? Also, the Civic came with low rolling resistance tires which were awful. When replaced with a better tire the mpg went down about 3-4. Our Prius has tires with a more conventional tread and it seems that Toyota doesn't use the LRR tires to boost mpg.

 

Thanks for that info. The Civic OEM tires were real stinkers - almost no tread pattern and terrible in heavy rain. Also very rough riding when the tread was quite worn - my wife hated them.

Just manually computed our 2nd fill up. Almost exactly 49 mpg.

Trip meter indicated 52.5 mpg. I've read that the trip meter is often higher than the actual. Is this the case for most owners?

 

We may have experienced the beginning of this problem. IMA battery depleting more quickly that in the past - Fuel economy not quite as good - Slightly slower top speed when climbing our longest 7-8 deg. hills - Struggling to maintain what had been average mpg, etc.

On the day we bought the Prius we were in Gainesville, GA to have the software patch done on the Civic Hybrid. Arrived an hour before the service apt. and stopped by the Toyota dealer that is about 1/4 mile away. Looked at a new Prius, had Civic serviced and returned to the Toyota dealer. Drove out in a new Prius about 2 hours later.

I still think that Honda makes some of the best cars around. Hope they can deal with this problem in a way that is fair to the customers. When we bought the Civic Hybrid the full tax credit was still in place and gas prices took that big spike soon after. The approx. $4,000 premium to get the hybrid was amortized in about 12 mths because our other vehicle gets around 20 mpg. Since we had over 70,000 mi. on the Honda when traded, we were looking at the typical "trade or drive till it dies" situation.

I hope the Prius lives up to its reputation. Met a gen II owner at church who can't say enough good things about their Prius.

One question: Another Prius owner started a conversation with us at a restaurant and said that, aside from the larger gas engine, the other big improvement for gen III is a battery array with cells that can be replaced individually. I'm sure somebody here knows about this - Used the search but may not be calling this by the correct name. Thanks everyone.