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I Left My Prius Running All Day!

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by eglmainz, Jul 31, 2009.

  1. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    Yikes, for all the fear that many of us have for Valet Parking attendants parking our Prii, and forgetting to trun them off, it was me who was guilty of that this week!

    I arrived to my parking lot at 6:45 on Tuesday, and parked it myself, in front of another vehicle. When I arrived, I put it in park, and started riffling through my backpack, before walking away to go to the office. Turns out I forgot to turn off the car, and left while it was in ‘Ready Mode’.

    Somewhere around 2 pm, the gentlemen who was parked behind arrived, and had the valet move my car, so he could get by. They moved the Prius and shut it off when done.

    When I arrived back to the lot several hours later, around 5, my guys immediately walked up to me to tell me, ‘Hey man, you left the car on ALL day!â€. My mind raced, having read the horrible stories here, I was concerned. As I walked down to the car, I was beating myself up. On top of this, I knew that I would be needing to get gas today now, instead of waiting a few more days, as I had planned, since I only had three ‘pips’ of fuel left when I arrived in the AM.

    So, as I arrive at my car, and get inside, I was expecting the worst. I started the car, and the first two things that I looked at were my trip MPG and the remaining fuel left. I was very surprised to see that my MPG average only went from 58.7 to 57.9!! Additionally, I still had two pips of fule left! I was very surprised, having expected it to be EMPTY, and damaged.

    As I drove home, thanking my stars, I saw the fuel level drop to one pip, so I decided to fill it again when I got home, just so as not to take any chances. It must have been accurate, as I was only able to add 9.2 gallons of fuel.

    While I would not recommend anyone try to leave their car running to see what would happen, I am very glad that it was caught before it became a potential issue.
     
  2. nola_Prius

    nola_Prius New Member

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    Pretty scary, but it's good to see that the outcome wasn't too bad.
    Now that you've tried it for us, we don't need to for ourselves. :)
     
  3. mjrauma

    mjrauma Junior Member

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    I often end up parked in my car in the Houston heat, and I leave the car "running" with the a/c on. The battery will go down to 2 bars, the engine starts, runs for around 2 minutes, then shuts off again until the battery is back to 2 bars. Seems to take around 15 minutes before the engine restarts. So.....the engine runs for approximately 8 minutes per hour to keep my a/c running while sitting still. Not too bad at all, and the effect on mileage is minimal, around 2.5-3 mpg per hour.
     
  4. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    The MPG effect on mine was much lower, as I did not leave the A/C on. The fan was blowing, but was set to like 80, as it was cold outside that morning (go figure- cold in Chicago in July!!) For me, the effect was only 0.8 m.p.g, for a 7 hour period.
     
  5. mjrauma

    mjrauma Junior Member

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    Oh yeah, just to clarify, I was talking about trip mileage going down, not tank mileage. Probably not as much of a loss on the tank mileage compared to the trip mileage.
     
  6. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    That is my trip mileage, but it was already at about 350 miles.
     
  7. exbauer

    exbauer Active Member

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    I have done this in my gen ii prius camping. It was too hot to sleep outside and instead we slept inside the Prius with the ac running. It used very little fuel and my mpg did not suffer that much. The engine would just cycle.
     
  8. 32kcolors

    32kcolors Senior Member

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    Why would this be? The engine doesn't come on if the battery has enough juice and it's in park. All that was left on is the hybrid system.
     
  9. mjrauma

    mjrauma Junior Member

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    Yeah, I was only at about 30 miles on the trip meter so the effect would have been magnified.
     
  10. 32kcolors

    32kcolors Senior Member

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    Perhaps a good preventive measure to help avoid this from happening again to get into the habit of hitting the power button (which will automatically put the vehicle in park) rather than the park button before exiting. That way, if you forget power off and open the door the car will panic and signal you.
     
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  11. PriusCrazy

    PriusCrazy Blizzard Pearl for Me

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    This would have happened to me too, but fortunately when I went to lock the door it wouldn't lock! At first I thought something was "wrong" with the car but finally it dawned on me! Ding-dong!

    Actually I've almost done it twice now. :embarassed:
     
  12. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    Based on times where I have left the engine running, in order to pwer a laptop, as well as posts here indicating that serious damage could occur if you leave it on until it runs dry...

    Based on those two factors, I though for sure it would have run itself dry.
     
  13. TKY

    TKY Member

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    eglmainz, That is a pretty scary story. Thanks for sharing. The bright side is that it sounds like the car worked as advertised. I wrote in another thread about my paranoia and the potential fall-out. When we do something like this, it seems inevitable that Murphy jumps in. So, in spite of how it is suppose to work, I bet it's great for you that, this time, it did work. --TK
     
  14. ancientsan

    ancientsan Junior Member

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    I almost left my car running in the garage when I was playing with it the day I got my car, but as I got out of the car with my key, it started beeping. Then a message appeared on the dashboard reminding me to turn off the engine. I guess you didn't notice the beeping noise when you got out?
     
  15. a priori

    a priori Canonus Curiosus

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    These cars do the darndest things. There are only about three times the beeps never worked -- and I ended up leaving the car on each time!!:rolleyes:
     
  16. 32kcolors

    32kcolors Senior Member

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    But then wouldn't the door not lock when you went to lock it, or are you in the habit of leaving the doors unlocked?
     
  17. southjerseycraig

    southjerseycraig Active Member

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    I have a Prius II on order. How do I prevent myself from accidentally leaving the car on all day? I understand the suggestion that I hit the power button first rather than the park button, but I'm so used to a conventional car that I doubt I'd remember to do this. Any ideas? thanks as always.
     
  18. WaterbedWarrior

    WaterbedWarrior Going insane!

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    Is it acceptable to just hit the power button without putting the vehicle in park? This won't damage the vehicle in any way? (This is assuming that the vehicle is of course at a complete stop).
     
  19. LRKingII

    LRKingII New Member

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    On the Gen 3 when you put your foot on the brake and hit the power button to turn off the car it automatically goes into park.
     
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  20. WaterbedWarrior

    WaterbedWarrior Going insane!

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    Guess this will become my standard practice.