A Call to Action: MPG Meter Disclosure

Length of trips is a big factor on fuel economy. I'd say very roughly, one way trip length with a return trip within about hour or less will net very roughly like this -

*actual MPGs, not indicated (CONS)

1 mile 40 MPG
3 miles 44 MPG
7 miles 46 to 47 MPG (city + highway)
12 miles 49 MPG (city+highway)

The CONS gage would show about 2 to 3 MPGs more.

It's when I have 25 mile trips with highway and back into city where the gage starts hitting 53 or 54 MPGs and I know it's over 50 MPGs...

It will go up in warmer weather.

 

I might be a little let down in the difference between the fuel mileage calculations, but I don't feel ripped off. If there was going to be an error, I would have liked it more if the car got 2.5 mpg more than what the computer said. If, however, the difference was more like 5 to 10 mpg, then I would be upset. We traded our CR-V in to maximize our fuel mileage and that kind of difference would probably have made us look at a few other vehicles. Having said that and fuel mileage aside, we really do love the way the Prius drives and handles.

Overall, I feel we are getting close to their EPA fuel mileage. 80%+ of our traveling is highway miles and with the northwoods slowly warming up we are starting to see the fuel mileage creep up too. Over 49 mpg on the last tank. I am waiting for the day it breaks the 51 mpg mark.

 

I haven't tested my Prius odometer yet but my 07 Corolla & 95 Previa both read low by 5-6% even though the speedometers on both are dead on accurate.

 

If anyone wants a mpg readout that can be adjusted to be very accurate just buy a ScanGaugeII.

 

Yeah, that is the next toy I want to get! I didn't know about it until I joined this forum.

 

I'll admit that in the first several months with the car, I was a bit miffed at the 2.5mpg variance (in the negative) that the Cons. readout was telling me. Maybe there is something wrong with that, but at the nearly four year point, I'm more "meh" about that now.

Driving through Chicago winters, and commuting less than 2 miles to work and back, the engine never warms up enough to deliver more than 28mpg. As the weather warms, I can squeek 46+ out of the thing, overall, with some longer trips involved. On vacations, and while driving distances and under 60mph, I've been able to make 58mpg tanks. Hey, not bad!

The car might not be perfect, but I'm very happy with what it actually can deliver. It has proven that it can better the 50mpg sticker claim. And with that, I just don't care about a dash computer getting it a bit wrong.

 

"In the day", when speedometers pointers were driven by a magnet at the end of a rotating cable, speedometers tended to read high because they were imprecise and reading low was not acceptable. Now, most speedometers derive a 4-wheel average from the ABS sensors and can be quite accurate -- if that's what the manufacture desires. That said, my European cars seem to be dead accurate while the Prius reads a tad high, perhaps because Toyota believes (correctly) that drivers expect this?

 

The main thing is the impact of fuel consumption on the wallet and the car is doing an excellent job of keeping that down.

 

Hyundai got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. EPA estimates were found to be grossly inaccurate in their cars and as a result the have to pay owners compensation for fuel costs over the life of the cars in question. My Son's car is one of those that is affected. All he needs to do is to have the dealer verify the odometer reading.

 

So far, the actual mpg on each of my first eight fill-ups has been about 2.5 mpg less than what the trip computer said. To my way of thinking, there is a) no possible reason Toyota could not be aware of this, and b) no real excuse for consumers not being able to adjust this, or the car being able to learn and close the gap between computed and actual.

 

Manufacturers take advantage of the least little
fudge allowances from the government regulations to boost their EPA ratings. If you notice, the inaccuracies are always favor the higher fuel economy figures. If they wanted, they (manufacturers) could make the odometers read dead on. They could even compensate for tire wear if they wanted.

 

How Vehicles Are Tested