15K Update

-- all-in on Normal being the mode what actually saves money. Granted its more-aggressive throttle tip-in may affect tire wear if unchecked... but the tq took only a few weeks to get used to and a few more to perfect... so now Eco's only used to conserve battery (A/C requires higher drain in Normal).

-- this last tire rotation @15K seemed to take a tenth overall, which were irritating but if normal, probably just need to expect it and carry on. Run 2 psi more in rears than fronts (38 / 40) so could be a slight version of that wear issue described elsewhere in my content, from higher-than-OEM pressures. But w/ 2 tanks past that svc, tires are beginning to perform like they did prior -- so leaning towards 'deal with it, futurist'... see no need to chg spec, as any sacrifices are minor.

-- have I mentioned this car's about the easiest to swap oil/filter on, besides my old sportbikes? Zero special tools, literally 10 mins to get the filter and drain plug out, and 15 to fully-drain, get new filter on, fill, and test. Takes more time to haul out all the tools and drip pan and things to lay on, into the car from storage, then drive to the store. So easy -- would do where I live, if not for the relentless windblown dust all hours of the day (why I do it up upwind of the fields, in town, surrounded by bldgs on less filthy macadam, in the O'Reilly's car park ) And you don't need the ICE started to move the car on/off your ramps -- so nice. Just need to drive on ICE enough to warm the oil enough to drain fully -- which driving to this job already did)

-- that annoying dash buzz reported early in this tawdry XW60 saga, has effed-off... at least end-summer / all-autumn. Threatened to return several times... but am curious whether cooler ambient temps overnight cause it, as we head into our "freezing" winter months in HI (ooo, 65F? How does one survive )

-- speaking of issues... after the svc noticed shifter's working much better -- as in it feels, well how it's supposed to function. Hope this doesn't need fixed every svc, as that would erode some confidence in this car's build quality, tbh. Not like this shifter tech hasn't been around since '97...

-- but Toyota, if you refine the gigs out of one thing on the mid-refresh XW60 & coming XW70s... make your window lifts respond every time I actuate the switches, pls -- not when your sleepy CAN feels like it. Don't need my car reminding of the PC at work Implore you, as an owner of non-CAN, heavy-copper-loom, conventional-wired windows until this vehicle, for my red-misting sanity

-- so currently at 62.4 mpg indicated, as lost a tenth not yet back solid yet. Doesn't feel like it's going to get much higher than this, given routine and driving style. I'll take 6 and chg over EPA rating; don't need gotchas down the line, from overfilling to get 3 more

 

Hey all, caught me in a nice lull at work...

Hi RandyPete -- XW60 is the chassis code for the 5th-gen Prius -- most enthusiasts refer to their model by chassis code on online forums I've belonged to. So would follow the previous 1.8L 4th-gen is XW50, and next one (which I'm reading, is going to be as radical a step above my XW60 as it was above the 50) would be XW70. This nomenclature is (surprisingly) also stated on the marquee of the Prius Wikipedia page... which I'd not expected. "XW60" refers to all 5th-gen Priuses, regardless of trim level.

Speaking of weird... there isn't an XW40; goes from 30 to 50. My suspicion is Toyota didn't want to put the number 4 in the official nomen (which, even in the latter 2020s, superstitions about unlucky numbers are very much alive and well at Toyota and Japanese business in general, esp the top rung of multinationals). But is unresearched opinion on my part -- am at work right now, after all

Bonus trivia GET: the company's not named after the founder, like Honda...at least not verbatim. Because of the number of strokes in the characters for 'Toyoda', as in Akio... they changed them to read 'Toyota' which ended up being an auspicious number of strokes. Being either first or second in the world for production volume, whilst maintaining (barely, tbh) their fiercely-loyal customer base almost 90 yrs later... probably a good call

---

Real quick, wanted to add some thoughts missed in the first post, realised on the commute today:

-- there's an amusing resonance in the car, I hear and feel betw. ~50 - 60 mph. Doesn't sound like the 'bong' ring of overinflating your tires, completely different... but wouldn't doubt was related as nothing else vibrates badly enough to produce this effect on the car, until you begin to wear your tires down (just over 15K on mine, just past halfway to the wear bars).

Sounds like, well... you know the sort of random but pleasant salad of complementary tones you hear with a glass or metal-tube windchime? That's what I'm hearing, except the tones sound half-bamboo-flute-ish / half-digeridoo-ish. On a variety of surfaces near town and highway where I live, but has to be in that speed range, held there. Can baaarely feel the alternating tones thru the seat... so not just the front axle, which is of course where most of the wear which causes vibration can develop. (aligned at 10K, did not need re-align at 15K, says the shop).

Not loud enough to distract me... but at cruising speed esp in EV mode... becomes a weirdly-hypnotic, almost-Gregorian collection of various rising/falling/intersecting phrases. Was present before the recent tire rotation so thankfully isn't due to my chosen pressures... at least not in a showstopping way Gonna chalk it up to the tires -- esp if things quiet when they get swapped out.

-- got a reminder this ICE's defo tuned to take advantage of small throttle openings: as before, mentioned you can back out of throttle angle a long ways (to halfway point on the ECO dash scale), and XW60 will still accel very close to the same rate -- this is due to the PCU slowing and eventually reversing MG1 to increase (numerically-decrease) final drive ratio, allowing lower revs using more torque there to keep acceleration up. But hadn't realised, the PCU probably determines what speed to spin MG1, based on what the ICE is doing.

By that, I mean if you've slightly-overfilled the crankcase during an oil chg say, and ICE output (esp in the first few weeks) is thereby decreased due to crank windage... the PCU can react to this. Not sure how, but have done this on a past oil chg before... and the point at which this chg in MG1 can be felt, happens higher in the rev range, not lower -- as if the PCU can somehow detect the ICE isn't making the power it expects, so seeks it where it naturally happens, higher up the rev range.

This has been something struggled with since about the 2010s with most cars I've owned -- even older Toyotas like my Paseo weren't nearly as picky about swap oil level, and close-enough to the same proc, brought the same improvement over dirty oil. With my last Civic and this Prius however... windage is defo something you need to follow a careful proc in order to max efficiency with:

• start and drive your Prius gently ~10 mins, enough to warm the crankcase oil you're swapping
• remove drain / filter access door, then drain oil into waste container until ~3 - 5 secs between drips, along w/ oil filter (which doesn't drip on any vehicle I've svc'd nearly as much as the crankcase drain)
• wipe clean sealing surface, then install & torque new oil filter (filled w/ new engine oil); install torque drain plug (w/ new sealing washer to 27 lb/ft)
• add 4 qts of required 4.4 into filler cap atop engine.
• recheck fasteners and clean oil, replace undertray
• 10 mins of driving w/ as much ICE as practical, to warm new oil
• find a level place to recheck new oil level
• should read low (almost half a quart's left to fill with). Fill slowly and wait 30 secs between dipstick checks, until level's a few mm below the FULL line (this is because the oil you're adding is cold -- and will expand slightly once it heats up)
• recheck after a few mins drive on ICE -- if the level's bang-on when warm, you're done.

How this applies to XW60, imo... is even following this comparatively-Machiavellian proc... the ICE feels a bit weaker at WOT than the half-worn oil I'd swapped out. Lower revs will demand less of the slightly-thicker visc of new oil, so feels much stronger down low now. This is conveniently where Toyota wants you to drive the car as often as possible -- Atkinson-cycle engines aren't as good @ WOT as an Otto cycle, as lots of intake manifold pressure variation and thus PCV issues (chronic w/ newer vehicles -- luckily ours aren't always running).

(Oh -- sorry, never going to swap at the factory reccie -- every 3.5 - 4K for me, can't hurt and not that much more cost or trouble. Plus done this on every vehicle I've owned, including one that made it past 230K; see no reason to stop as long as supplies are affordable -- 0W-16 isn't even Toyota's thinnest oil... and it's not going to tolerate long intervals vs. far more common 0W-20)

Mind you, I'm used to feeling for tiny torque differences, from 21 yrs owning / riding motos, 16 yrs svc'g them, and 2 yrs racing. May not be enough for the less-pedantic to care, but these are my XW60 observations, if you do.

Crap -- boss got back. See y'all later

 

Another round of holiday-break posts -- below a bit more I'd forgotten from the last two updates:

-- Thought a bit about my window lift screed -- why on earth does futurist give a shite about his lift's response?

Just to reiterate: HI's a very salty environment, and I live almost a literal stone's throw from the beach. On past cars (and using friends' cars on East Coast, PNW and elsewhere salts are still used on roads to clear frozen H₂O)... if one doesn't take steps to insure inaccessible, plain metal surfaces are covered in factory lube (or otherwise rid of corrosive salt and water)... corrosion'll rust your pivots then overheat and kill your lift motors in two yrs... or worse, lock your window lifts solid in the down position (position of least mechanical advantage). This also moves components inside the door, to shed any pooled water dripping past inadequate window seals of the past 15 - 20 yrs (to make them less-likely to stress motors, so smaller, lighter -- and most importantly, cheaper -- can be spec'd).

Tested this on the last car, a 10th-gen Civic. My car before that, an older Civic... had me pry off all four door cards & Dorman-ing all the assemblies, as esp rears if they worked at all, were defo ignored into near-seizure.

(Rant ON -- 7th-gen Civic: apart from the K20-powered Civic Si, avoid restoring this gen for your grand- / kids -- utter reprehensible garbage vs. 6th-gen Civics. Was Honda attempting, after over-engineering things their way 25 MYs -- like all JDM marques thru mid-'90s -- to get used to making cars with cost caps, and failing (Old Man Honda insisted on calling his company a Motor Company / Corporation, yet their drivetrains 2001 - 2005 were so flawed they'd resorted to American-style 'ignore it, we have lawyers to fight litigation' -- and has been their 'engineering' philosophy ever since (8th-gen had the same head-gasket and low-end casting failures) Put $3K into a car I paid $4K for; traded in for the 10th-gen, the same week its head warped like millions of others, into the dreaded 7th-gen head gasket issue. Rant OFF ).

Every stop in the driveway, I cycle all four windows twice, down/up, down/up (of course if wind's blowing 30 mph and/or raining down, skipped this until weather cleared on next sortie). The winter after purchasing the car, was one of the wettest on my island in 20 yrs, so lots of opportunity for road-borne salt to get atop cars on highway, and down window seals.

Trading in the 10th-gen Civic last year... everything worked perfectly. 5+ model years -- some thru the pandemic, so the car sat a lot. I'd say that vindicated a few seconds each trip, cycling the windows.

Epilogue: same w/ applying ceramic spray wax every weekend for 2 yrs -- didn't give anything like a car show lustre, just hand-buffing on another few microns of TiO₂ at a gentle workout once a week... but on trade-in? Apart from some rock chips in the front end cap, no gigs on the paint. My then-chosen brand was Turtle Wax Hybrid Solutions Ceramic Spray Coating (#1 on Project Farm's YT channel test a few years back)... but now is PF's new champ, Griot's Garage 3-In-1 Ceramic Wax. $5 more than the HS and less forgiving if buffing with an orbital buffer... but superior protection that allows weekend details to be optional -- just need to know how it wants to be applied. Now can skip a weekend and not worry as much as HS (which needed every week refreshed to keep max shine and beading).

All cars I've owned have been either pearl or metallic paint since my last Toyota, which were plain white + clearcoat. That milquetoast, nothing-special shade, lasted 23 yrs with minimal care, even living in Southwest and here in 3x. Here metallic shades esp dark ones, kill and peel hood, roof, and trunklid paint 5 yrs easy My last silver Civic? Perfect paint -- the TiO₂ does its job of blocking UV, with very affordable cost of entry / effort. Worth it if you have an ilk to keep your car >5 yrs.

-- so, driving around my XW60 since last svc (22nd)... they had to have done something with that balky shifter.

Whether a s/w update or a physical adjustment, there's zero of the slop and aggravating delay. Toyota's thrown up yet another massive recall recently (about panoramic-view-equipped models 2022 - 2025, so my milquetoast LE dodges that bullet. The rear camera freezes or blanks view to rear, risking collisions in R)... so perhaps the word's come down to dealers to shore up any faults they find in the affected models, keep loyalty up?

Wouldn't be just Toyota; saw this in the last Civic during the infamous Takata scandal thru covid; all of a sudden the sloppy work those fartcan kids did on my Civics and mother's Fit in that dealership, suddenly became what you should expect... and of course faded back off the wagon after it all died down Not going to complain about proactively fixing stuff that's out of spec... but when it happens not as routine but when you feel like it... less virtuous. Let's hope I just got a senior tech this time in...

-- speaking of that svc. have you noticed your mpg tanking right after the dealer, then returning to what you expect, after ~ a week of driving?

There's an explanation for this, valid since EFI and closed-loop emissions control of mapping was the standard on cars for non-toffs (early-90s): they disconnected the battery or otherwise reset some bank of memory in the PCU. Now the drive has to learn again what your driving habits are, at least short-term trims. This necessarily takes time and miles, so shouldn't be too alarmed if observed (and your old mpg returns faster, if you're good and not flat-footed in that week).

But again, from exp at that Honda stealership... their techs would flat-foot my Civic on their 'test' drives. I know this, because I'd seen them do it -- and seemed to think my objection to this was troublemaking .. Ever want to know what the techs -- or even lot rats in the sleazier 'ships -- do with your car when you drop it off? Walk to a local place to eat, then walk back, out of obvious sight... and watch how the uniformed techs treat your car out their driveway.. The less time they take on the test drive, the faster they can work on the next flat-rate job. I was a dealership tech in powersports; very familiar w/ the racket. So temptation for WOT on the finite test course, so you have more time in the day to diagnose problems within flat-rate time, is high.

Don't assume anything, though -- see for yourself before making any judgements. But that Honda shack wasn't the only one I'd caught factory techs leaving stripes in customer vehicles. Esp in dealerships this seems more prevalent, as they expect a steady, warranty-adhering owner stream in the door... and get impatient and greedy at best... cocky and abusive, at worst.

Mine's back to its old effortless-mpg ways again, so don't suspect my techs of this nonsense. But like I said, walk around and find a secluded spot to observe and eat lunch -- may learn a lot