Caught the body shop driving my Prius hard.....

Another possibility is the car was left "on" for an extended period of time which could account for the mileage drop without the accrued miles.

There have been a number of reports here on PriusChat where owners themselves whom have done this & not just immediately after initial ownership as well.

 

Ever notice that the strongest opinions come from those with the least understanding?

Based on the very rough data given of "10ish [miles] on the trip monitor" and 3 being added by the repair shop, we can see that those 3ish miles were put on at 16ish MPG to go from 51 down to 34 MPG. In the process, 0.2 gallons of fuel was burned. The Prius can have a cold start idle consumption of 0.5 GPH, and at that rate would equate to about 20 minutes of idling. The car didn't just idle though, as from the data it moved roughly 3 miles. Those miles were likely put on with several cold starts.

Do you know how easy it is to burn through a paltry 0.2 gallons?

Yes, the engine was subjected to one of the harshest operating conditions (cold starting), but it's designed to do that, and there is no other reasonable way to move vehicles around short of putting them in neutral and hiring undocumented workers to push them around.

What else would I do? I would inspect the body work, and after it met my approval, would offer sincere apology for my uninformed accusatory email and offer doughnuts to everyone as a peace offering.

I wish my big problem was 0.2 gallons of fuel "robbed" from me when fuel prices are at a historic low. Can we trade problems we are pissed about?

 

@348...3 miles on a vehicle that was in for body work is a couple of freeway exits and back, less than normal. Expecting Billy Bob, Jose or Alice to drive it like a world class hyper-miler is not normal.

 

Yeah I mean honestly If the car you dropped of in question was a Vette or a Hellcat or a supercar then by all means question the possible joyride to the mgr or owner (but even then a 3 mile test drive is insignificant and in the least necessary to check a sound job performed on your repair).

I was a little ticked today when I noticed my mpg for this tank dropped to 13.5.... Granted I like to hear my Flowmaster 10 series wake the hemi up and roar... So I deal with it, heck 13.5 is a lot better than the last few tanks during the cold weeks we have had.

With all that said I do understand when you really track every mile driven and every gallon pumped (I still do and always have) and are a hyper miler how if your mpg all of the sudden goes south that you could be pissed.

Heck I drove my old 2013 liftback three for just about a year and then gave it to my wife to drive. I averaged 48-50mpg, after she got a hold of it.... Ffuugettaboouitt!!! LOL. I think it stayed below 40....

Another tip, and who knows if they really did leave your car in ready or not is to "teach" anyone that must drive your Prius how to turn it on and especially off. I.e. Valet, mechanics not at a toyota dealership, bodyshops, etc..

 

We're talking <1 MPG drop over the course of the tank assuming normal is 51 MPG. My tanks are never within 1 MPG of each other. Besides, what do you expect when it's being driven differently than normal?

I'd have avoided the whole thing by collecting the insurance check and spending the hour to put a new bumper cover on myself. Maybe if I made more than $75/hr I would let someone else do it, but I'm not there yet.

I get mad at things that aren't worth getting upset at too; perhaps more than most people. My point is that we need to take a step back and ask ourselves why we are upset before taking any action. In this case, an email is not such a big deal. No reason to make a mountain out of a mole hill. There are plenty of problems that are worthy of our valuable time and energy.

 

+1

You're overreacting. Absent evidence of abuse or if there was more than 10 miles on the odometer, you'd have a hard time proving anything improper was going on.

I threw a major hiss-fest at a place that did my last auto inspection on the Prius because (1) they make me wait 20 minutes just to take my Prius into the bay (I was first in line when they opened), (2) I waited another 20+ minutes for an inspection that takes 5 minutes to do and less than 5 minutes to finish the paperwork, (3) when they returned the Prius to me, they left the key fob in the car WITH the driver window open (theft risk that most any shop now knows not to do), and (4) there was crap from the old inspection sticker all over my dash and IN my defrost vents.

The key fob and the debris were the breaking points for me. I could have forgiven the insanely long wait for a 10-15 minute inspection.

 

+2.

There's no such thing as "driving a Prius hard."
It's physically impossible because there's not a physical link between the accelerator pedal.....or the so-called "gear" selector.....and the rest of the car.
You can literally start your car, throw a cinder block on the accelerator pedal, go have lunch and not hurt the car in the least.
You can attempt to put the car into "Park" while driving 70 on the Interstate and not hurt the car in the least.
You can roll backwards in the car and suddenly put it into drive and not hurt the car in the least.

This is because Priuses are fly-by-wire.

The car cannot be over-revved.
The car will not allow you to do neutral-drops.
Just about the only two ways you can hurt the car are to wreck it or neglect it by not checking the oil every 1,000 miles more or less.

I will often put my car into drive while it's still rolling backwards slightly, or vice versa while backing into a parking spot.
I call it "Mode-B regenerative braking."
If I tried doing this at a higher speed, then the car would not allow the shift to occur meaning that the people who designed and built the car specifically allow some shifts to occur and some not to occur.

3 miles?
Driving a Prius hard????
Really!?!?!?!

Gimme a break.
I would immediately retract any negative correspondence against the body shop, and offer them a sincere and heartfelt apology.

 

Here is a Prius C on the racetrack. I found it amusing that the kid passed 2 cars. If I had the chance to take the Prius to the local track, I would. Then again, I'd probably spend most of my time in the Acura TSX. Shifting is half the fun.

 

You want bad?

My dad brought in his Highlander for an oil/filter change.

They pulled his air and cabin filter to try and get him to spring for them to be replaced. They destroyed the cabin filter in the process, so now he has to buy a new one. They also said he needed a coolant change because the current coolant "looks like mud" (I have to see for myself) and it was non-Toyota coolant.

I'm ready to call Toyota corporate over this nonsense. They had no business pulling the filters or looking at anything other than what he asked to be serviced.

 

One time I asked a Honda service department: "is it normal to hear a whistling sound from the gas cap after driving on a hot day?". That's all I said, word for word, and it was normal, btw: in hot weather the cap would vent if pressure got a bit too high. Anyway, a week or two later started noticing a persistant gas smell: the bright bulbs had drilled a hole through it, to "fix" the venting.

 

is it always the most asinine threads that get the most activity?
BTW, is it just me, or is the thread title ambiguous?

Edit: someone fixed the title, now it makes more sense than catching bodies while driving hard.

 

good question. sometimes they take on a life of their own, and people like telling their own tales of woe.

 

It's not unusual for the dealers to check the filters when doing a service --- it's often listed on the service sheet. The oil change is part of a multi check. And ...it's quite possible that the coolant was incorrectly mixed by someone else and could be a future problem.

The cabin filters are somewhat cheaply made and if old and not changed ......... they can fall apart.

Personally -- I would be glad they checked and advised.

 

I thought the OP had a dashcam or something with actual video of hard, abusive driving...

Sorry, but I will have to throw my vote into the "nothing to see here, move along" side of this thread.

A couple of cold starts, plus some extended "idling" to recharge the traction battery and there's your poor mpg.

 

Well, I could understand checking, but my dad said the cabin filter was "crushed"...that's something that shouldn't happen and the air filter was perfectly serviceable.

I sampled the radiator fluid...it was lime green...perfectly fine. It certainly didn't "look like mud" like the service advisor claimed.

They also said he needed his tires rotated without ascertaining when they were last rotated (3 days prior at another shop).

I did suspect that the checking of filters and fluids was part of a whole package that came with the oil change, but it sucks when they try to con a person into paying for unnecessary work.

 

Toyota fluid is Red ....

 

Plot twist...

 

Obsolete Toyota coolant, "Long Life Coolant," is red. Toyota's coolant for the Prius in question, "Super Long Life Coolant," is pink. The supposedly equivalent Zerex Asian Formula coolant is pinkish violet.

 

We're talking about a Highlander in my post. The brand we used was lime green out of the bottle.

 

OMG!
That's simultaneously very frightening, AND somewhat hilarious.
I suppose you can be happy you didn't notice a whistling sound coming from the front hood.

Did you go back? They would owe you a new gas cap, but I don't know if I'd want my vehicle to cross the threshold of their service department again.