Mpg decreasing

In the past I've used some good old fashioned cardboard. It holds up surpisingly well, you can bend it a little or curl it to stay in place and it is easy to cut to size. I've typically been able to get through an entire winter with the same piece. If you do have to replace it, it doesn't require a trip to Home Depot...

 

Do remove the plastic thing on the front and place it in front of the radiator or slide it behind the fan etc and let it rest on the hoses ?

 

Where do you live? I am trying to debug my own prius problem ( I have never gotten over 41... some say it's the altitude. I don't know what to do. I only have 1600 miles on it.

 

This winter I intend to leave the radiators alone and rely on the
redirected warm-air intake kludge instead. If the ICE has trouble
reaching 80 C on cold days in the first place, the thermostat will
never open or only open a tiny bit, so the radiator may not get
any hot coolant through it at all! This way if the cooling system
does have to do something it still can, and meanwhile I'm sucking
in all that nice less-dense air from behind the exhaust and squirting
in less fuel. We'll see.
.
I confirmed the value of this trick with some of the Insight guys,
by the way, who claim that it was a warm-air intake, not blocking
the radiator, that really let them get almost summer mileage.
.
_H*

 

Hobbit -- can you please elaborate on this technique? or direct me to a thread that does? I can find nothing on it with search and have no idea what you are talking about?

Thanks

 

I have been thinking about what you wrote. The Incite is very different hybrid being a serial hybrid rather than a serial/parallel as the Prius in. I get my best mileage in town at 40 and below with the car in full hybrid status. My understanding that this is largely controlled by engine temperature and to a lesser degree converter temp (not a sure about the direct effect of the latter) so the quicker you get engine temp up the quicker you pulse and glide. I have gotten some good runs despite dropping temperatures. You can’t do that in the Incite unless they put it in neutral (I think?). I am not at all sure how having the intake preheated will help the Prius vie increasing the coolant temp. Let us know how it goes. If you add the radiator cover and things change please keep some record and let us know. It should be interesting.

 

Okay, GreenMachine et al -- I finally unlamed and got the last
picture I needed, that being from under the car, and wrote up the
whole warm-air-intake hack at
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/warmair/
enjoy...
.
_H*

 

Thanks for the post! I agree there is going to be electrolytic corrosion. Keep us posted.

 

Toyota could have helped out on the issues in several ways.

Why not introduce one thing that was common in the old days. My father's first car back in 1961 was a british Ford Anglia (Yes - it's the Harry Potter car )

[attachmentid=808]

The Anglia had a manual operated curtain just in front of the radiator. This little thing helped a lot during the winter both to get the engine warm sooner, and keep it that way.

The Prius could have a modern implementation of this - so that the onboard systems would heighten or lowering the curtain depending on engine tempereture.

 

I installed mine today. I used the sun shade approach. I measured the radiator at 30 X14 and cut the sun shade at 29 x 11 and I was not impressed with the first outing. I used aluminum supports for chain link fences to support the screen. The Left side has a lot of hoses etc going in so it does not cover the last 2 inches or so. I placed it behind the radiator support strut. There were some wires in front I did not want to stress. I was glad that I had some long laparoscopy I did brake 2 of the fasteners reinserting them, so what is the trick? I will see how it goes.

 

The higher the mileage the more critical 1 mpg drop will be noticed.
Reminder... If you only get 20MPG and loose 1MPG... thats a 5% drop!
But if your getting 50MPG and loose that same 5%... you loose 2.5MPG!

Every 200lbs added.. .looses 1 MPG when your at 50mpg...(2%)
but the same 200lbs with a 20mpg car would only loose .4mpg (2%)

Unless my calcualtions are wrong... this is to show that loss is more noticable.. the higher the efficientcy!
The 3150.00 tax credit is to offset the hybrid part to the most degree....

All the other cars are affected by the exact same properties that affect the prius, except you don't notice it as much because the mileage is so much lower.

Some of it too is the size of the engine and general mass.... a light car is like a pea in the wind... added weight and aerodynamics play a big part!.. but if the car is heavy moving at the same speed.... aerodynamics and added weight do less, but it takes obviously much more energy to get the latter moving....

I think of it as a bullet... you can get a .17 cal moving as fast as a 30.06 bullet with only a fraction of the powder and energy needed... and it will go about as far too!... but with the more efficient .17cal... every breeze will affect it.
I enjoy shooting my .17 cal.. I can buy 50 shots for about $8.00 bucks... but it cost me $20.00 for 20 30.06 bullets! I guess each person has a different taste and expense account?

 

Your analogies are beginning to scare me!


(Enlighten, actually!)

 

OK today I pulled the sunscreen out and put in the Pipe insulation in the grill. Yes it is butt ugly but I am not seeing much of a difference. I wish I could do inverter temps. I am working on the butt ugly problem. I will keep folks posted on the results between the two.

 

Have you had the SSC50P recall? I bought a Prius in April. It ran great until I had the recall service. It was getting 50 mph and I got 57 on a long trip. The car has 16,000 mile on it. After the recall, gas engine runs when it should not but the monitor says the engine is not running! I'm lucky to get 45 mpg. Toyota checked it out, said everything was "normal". I did not accept that answer. They are now "researching" the problem.

Anyone with a similar experience?

 

Anything that blocks air to the inverter cooler I worry about. I am thinking of trying to block the radiator on the engine side so air can still go through it but then has to go down under the car.

Meanwhile I still have about 50% of my radiator blocked, which seems safe but car often won't warm up enough. If I cover much more it can get too hot for my liking. I try to shoot for 182-186 degrees as ideal.

 

Well so far I have not gotten to 182 on my routine commute. With the radiator blocker I could get temps to 190+ on the freeway. So far the grill blocker appears to be doing a bit better than the radiator blocker. Just as a note the radiator blocker did not cover the bottom 4" of the radiator. I see a tendency for less temp drop at stop lights with the grill blocker, but on the other hand it has been a bit warmer. Check with me in a week. After that I am pulling it all out and go bare and see how that works. I have had this recent idea about getting a bra and covering the appropriate open areas with a bit of black vinal hooked on with Velcro. Belle is a shy young thing and not keen on showing off her décolletage. Except in summer of course when she might be a bit of a tramp.

 

I would now say the sunshade radiator blocker and foam pipe insulation are about equal in effectiveness and engine temps are about the same including 15 min. drive on the freeway when the temp did not get above 190. The radiator blocker was sized to let the lower 4" of the radiator to be uncovered so the inverter portion was working. I would still like to see inverter temperatures. Does any one that has the front end mask / Bra have opinions about modifying it to cover the grill? If so post on http://priuschat.com/Radiator-Blocker-t13479.html and let me know or email me. I think this may have the ability to make quick adjustments of coverage and look a lot better than the foam pipe insulation in the grill.