Just bought my first Prius and have MPG question

I'm curious about the kind of tires you have if you have a Prius you need low rolling resistance tires it sounds like you may not have those on that car but can you please give us the brand name

 

Due to emission laws, the first few miles while the engine warms up will always be.your worst MPG.

 

Don't think you got a lemon, a short drive really hurts mileage in all cars, one tip would be, if you have two errands to the the longest errand first and then to the other errand on your way home. The longer leg will let the car warm up for the rest of the drive improving total mileage.

 

Rachael,

The short trips are contributing to your MPG woes. The Prius has various stages it goes through BEFORE it begins to operate in full hybrid mode.

There are a few tricks you can do to help with the short trips, but if you really want to eliminate the problem you have to eliminate the short trips. I know that sounds crazy, but it is the truth.

I can drive to the Kroger which is about three miles from home and am lucky if I get 35 or 40, but if I drive to the Kroger which is seven miles away I can easily get 55 to 70. It all depends on how warm the coolant is and how you drive the car.

Don't expect to get the best MPG until you learn about all the tricks involved, and even then it doesn't always happen.

Here is an article that explains the various modes of how the Prius operates. It is very in depth reading but should help to open your eyes to what is going on under the hood.

Best of luck to you and enjoy your new to you Prius.

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/five-stages.txt

 

Cold MPG is not as good for the first 5 mins. This is normal.
Building on JimBo, we all have California emissions Prius (50-state car).

If you were always doing short drives, which you are not, Prius might not be as superior to a hybrid tuned for your state's lesser requirements (such as say Ford Fusion hybrid). But after 5 minutes warm-up, Prius wins the MPG contest.

 

Yeah as much as possible consolidate errands, do that one mile grocery run when coming home from a longer trip, for example.

Cold start, followed by a short trip, is bad for mpg. Not that good for the engine either.

Another thing, if it's a mile or less, consider walking?

 

Welcome - the calculation of the dashboard display (on any car) is only approximate - it does a good average over a longer distance, like a tank-full, but the shorter runs, best to not let it worry you. The computer can accurately measure the distance, but the "measurement" of fuel used isn't at all accurate in small amounts, as it computes it using a number of factors including throttle position, engine speed, fuel flow - and in the case of a hybrid, who knows? Plus, your small runs are so varied - you can get astonishing results going down a mountain - but you've got to get back up the other side again.

My non-Prius (Fiesta Diesel) can give me short interval figures of between 30 and 70 (US) MPG, but overall, when I fill, the actual always averages between 51 and 53½ MPG, and that agrees to within 1 or 2 % with what the average for the fill is on the display.

If you check the fuel economy every short trip, you'll get frustrated. You are better to fill the tank (I always stop at the first click off of the pump to be consistent - and try to use the same pump which isn't always possible), zero the trip meter and record the odometer reading, and at the next fill (I'd go at least ½ a tank) record the mileage, record the fuel use and you can divide to get a result. I think your Prius should be able to compute an average MPG over the same distance. You might find it varies by a couple of %, but it should be close.

I keep a spreadsheet on my computer which I put those figures at each fill - it gives me a comparative result over a period of time or over the lifetime of the vehicle (here's a snip of an old one).

 

Short trips stink. But then again, that applies to pretty all gas-powered cars. My Prius gets about 33mpg when I try to be a good husband and drive my wife to work on my days off (5-mile drive). Now when I drive almost 50 miles to my work, I usually get close to 49, 50mpg.

 

Good advice from dorunron.

However, even though your average mileage is higher for the Kroger which is seven miles away, you will still use less gas if you go to the Kroger three miles away!

Remember that the first couple of miles on a trip are low-mileage miles that you will never get back, even though they get averaged away. And those first couple of miles at 33 MPG are still relatively high mileage miles.

Rachael71 - the behavior (lower mpg when you start out) is normal and a good thing -- it's using more gas to make sure the car gets warmed up fast so it pollutes less... it's helping the environment overall, and that's exactly what the developers of the Prius were aiming for

 

It's normal, ICE warm up period. To get on my running trail, I drive 1.3 mile, 33 mpg. I think Toyota genuine 0w20 gives a bit better result, but I wouldn't bother.

Welcome on board!

 

As said all of the above. My Lexus CT (Prius in disguise) is exactly the same on short journeys. Only seen 30mpg on short runs from cold. It's the nature of all cold petrol engines.


iPhone ?

 

Your going to have to go by the average a full tank give you.

 

For what it's worth. Just completed a trip from Mass to Michigan yesterday. The first and only time I filled her up, got 40.7 MPG calculated. The display MPG read 41.3. Average speed was around 63 MPH. That was achieved driving around 75 MPH with quick stops every two hours or so. The terrain was rolling hills.

In summary, the displayed MPG is fairly accurate on long trips..

BTW, the second tank full still reads two bars with the displayed MPG at 46 after driving on flatter terrain through Ohio and Michigan. I would expect the calculated MPG to be 45 plus.

 

Did you consider going through Canada?