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Need Help QUICK! MPG dropped BAD and high RPM!

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by F8L, Apr 9, 2011.

  1. Hal W

    Hal W New Member

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    A cupped tire is usually very noisy? This is normally caused because of a alignment issue! Hal
     
  2. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    No, I think the noise was from the balance issue. The tires are VERY old and are probably starting to come apart. They sit in storage for long periods of time before I put them on occasionally. My alignment is nearly always good but when I put these tires on it seems to pull more than with my 15" setup. Since these tires are on their way out I'm not going to worry about alignment until I lower the car next week. :)
     
  3. Hal W

    Hal W New Member

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    If you lower your car , will that not effect the alignment on the front? Aft will be OK. Hal
     
  4. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    Why do you keep tires unused until they start to rot?
     
  5. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    I expect it will. I meant that i'm not going to bother with an alignment until after my lowering springs and new struts are installed next week. :)

    Because they hurt my mpg so bad that I would get annoyed enough to swap the 15s back on or because in winter the 15s are easier to keep clean and better in the rain. So I generally ran the 17s only in the summer. Once I got sick though, I didn't really care to swap them back and forth. So the end result was tire break down. Even so, there is very little tread left so I got my miles out of them. :)
     
  6. Flying White Dutchman

    Flying White Dutchman Senior Member

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    so it was the tires?
    may be the Ac system also needs a refill.
    when it not full it needs to work longer to keep the car cool
     
  7. savrip

    savrip Junior Member

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    At creeping speeds I've always felt a little wobble, but it's never effected my MPG rating. The tread is still good and it's not felt at 15+ speeds so I'm not to concerned with it. I haven't reset my ScanGauge yet. I'll watch a little longer to see if I can find more details. When I'm closer to a fill up I'll set the gauge to default and see if that corrects the error. I'll let you know what happens. Hopefully it's a fluke with a power surge or something.
     
  8. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    I doubt it has anything to do with the AC because once I swapped back to my 15s with dB Super E-Spec tires, the problem went away and MPG jumped back up to the 50s.

    With the 17s back on the problem is gone but my MPG dropped as it always does with these tires. I'm now struggling to get 44-45mpg whereas I was getting 49-51 on the same commute with the same effort.

    Let us know how it goes after you reset the SG2. The wobble is not good though. At low speeds the car should be smooth as silk.
     
  9. savrip

    savrip Junior Member

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    A reset of ScanGaugeII seems to have done the trick. I would have been more concerned if the car's info was inaccurate. I'm not sure what caused this glitch. I've had the ScanGaugeII in place for at least 9 months in perfect operation. I suppose it's good to have a documented case if someone else may experience it in the future they won't freak like I was tempted to do.