Multiple Short Stops - Power Off or Leave On?

i would go for what you think is safe. i leave my car on sometimes and sometimes not. just depends on how likely it is that the car will be gone when you return.

plus im not sure how much energy is used when pumping the water back and forth. if the car is has been driven a long way before you stop, i would think the energy used would be minimal.

 

When at a stoplight for a prolonged period of time, I'll put the car in 'Park' so I don't have to use electricity for the brake lights, and can take my foot off the brake without the car trying to move. Some might object to the brake lights not being on when stopped, so depends on what one wants.

 

I would be concerned about leaving the car running unattended.

My habits have changed. Instead of parking to go to walk to the ATM, I go to a drive up ATM. With my Camry I would park and go inside to get take-out food. Now I use the drive up window.

 

Good question! I'm reluctant to leave it on if I have to go inside a building but if I am waiting for someone to come out, I often leave it on. The primary reason is that I don't like to "restart" the consumption screen if I'm making several short stops. I prefer to have the continuous bar graph display. That being said, I believe it uses some additional gas to keep it running, even if the ICE does not start to recharge the battery while I'm sitting there. Some of our more expert drivers may have some better info on what the actual extra cost might be.. :?

 

oh if i am sitting in the car, i never turn it off. why bother? its not like you are using enough to consider. mine always uses power of some sort because the stereo is on 99% of the time.

 

I have left mine on and gotten sidetracked and come out 30 minutes later to a low battery and a running engine. Doh! I still leave it on though for short periods with the AC off while just running inside at a safe location. The warmup period when the car has only been off for 5-10 minutes is; however, very short.

 

i wonder if I fool those drive up food places mostly on EV power by the time I get there. I also wonder if they wonder why the car is so silent when I get to the pickup window. Heck, it feels erie to me when the AC and radio is off, and

DEAD SILENCE! with the exception of the hum of the inverter coolant pump.

 

I recently had a tank where I did a lot of stops. I did this at the beginning of a new tank. I lined up all these errands and many were just 2 or 3 minutes, you know, drop off the rented DVD, pick up the dry cleaning, and a few longer 5-10 min. I was running (according to the computer) my worse tank ever. And slowly climbed to 48.5 m.p.g. Weather turned to rain and cooler, mid to low 40's. I uses every trick I have learned from here and elsewhere to increase the mpg. I am afraid I pixxed a few folks off with my coasting, gliding and other behaviors. When I got to the fill up the calculated m.p.g. was 53.8. What gives? I am confused. How do the stages of Prius operation work in this stop and restart driving? Each time the first bar on the consumption screen was low just around 25. Can anyone help with understanding this?

 

I know that I am scared with my current car to ever leave it running, so when I get my Prius(what a day that will be) I will never leave it running. I'd be so worried about it. And I've never heard of a carjacking here...

 

actually after the car is warmed up you will find it will be difficult to keep the car "running" when at a stop even if you wanted to.

 

I didn't like the word 'running' either. We have to change our vocabulary with this car. We don't start it or leave it running, we put it in READY mode or simply 'turn it on'. We don't press the gas pedal, as we may not use any gas, we press the accelerator. Brake is OK, as it doesn't necessarily mean friction brake, brake simply means decelerate to a stop.

 

Ok, but don't forget that technically, there is no such thing as 'deceleration'. There is simply acceleration opposite the direction of travel.

Only if you want to get really technical of course!

 

Accelerator takes too long to type... sticking with "hit gas".. I think everyone gets the idea.

I plan on leaving car on with a/c and dog inside this summer.

Car certainly makes more noise when full on vs. Acc or IG-ON, prob the coolant pump as Dan mentioned above. So a little more energy being used but aux battery stays charged and additional power usage prob not even measurable. IG-ON mode drives me nuts because of all the warning lights and reminds me of a convetional car when you put it in run with engine off. In older model cars this could burn the ignition coil and I still get all nervous from past conditioning.

 

Hi All,

As for me, I love getting great mileage and do try to maximize it at every opportunity. That said, I love my car more and want to make sure that it is still there when I return from any errand so, if I must sacrifice a tenth of an MPG here or there due to powering up or down repeatedly owing to short trips and quick errands, so be it.

As of now, we are sort of safe trying the just leave it in ready mode (or on) for a minute or so while I run in here... because most of the world has not seen these cars enough to be able to recognize the telltale sign that the motor is running. However, with the increase in popularity and availability that is soon to change.

I think that you are better off in the long run getting into the habit (or more accurately maintaining the habit) of turning your car off whenever you are not inside of it.

Remember, word travels fast amongst our crew here whenever someone discovers a new tip or trick but we have nothing on the criminal elements that abound in cities and towns everywhere. If this practice starts to become a known norm it potentially puts all of these cars at some level of risk if only of a broken window while some ner-do-well tries their hand at Prius theft.

Look at how quickly some of these baddies clued in on the HID headlights and added them to their target list.

Ultimately for me piece of mind is worth more than an mpg point or two.

Take care all,

Tisza

 

I often leave my Prius on and lock the door with the key when I know I will be back within a couple of minutes, especially when I have just started the car a few minutes before my stop. I also use the drive-up window alot more now to save gas.