Long trip report

Hello All,

I thought it might be interesting to some of you to know my driving impression during my long trip this summer. It's just a few loosely connected things I noticed. So I had this idea of spending my family vacation in Spain. Of course (what may be quite strange for some of you) I had to drive from Poland to Spain about 3700 miles both ways . Just a remark... it is not a "hypermiler" type of report.

- Driving distance was as I mentioned a little more than 3700 miles. 90% of it on highways.

- Car load was quite simple: 2 adults + 2 children of total weight 440 lbs. Our baggage perfectly fitted car trunk up to plastic cover. I actually planned to mount our roof rack but I succeeded with convincing my wife to take a bit less stuff - that was a very good idea.

- I usually prefer moderate driving style. It is not always P&G so I have 45 MPG in average. This time I decided to test CC because of lot's of highway driving. I think I was using it for 80% of whole distance. My total mileage was 40 MPG (read below what could impact this).

- In Poland we almost do not have highways, average speed on distance of 440 miles was 60 MPH. In Germany there is no speed limit on highways, I had CC set to 85-95 MPH for 1260 miles. In France I set CC according to speed limit - 80 MPH for 1000 miles. In Spain similar way - CC set to 75 MPH for 760 miles.

- The highways were far from straight and flat roads. Very often it was driving up and down for hours. What I can say about CC when climbing up with 90 MPH speed is that the sound that Prius makes is like a mower on steroids .

- I had all possible weather conditions with exception of snow of course. I had Auto A/C set to ON for all the time.

- Even driving whole day with temp of 90F Prius was never overheated. A/C was working just fine - not too hot, not too cold.

- When driving in high mountains suddenly very dark clouds came and it started raining so much that I couldn't see more than 50-70 feet in front of the car. It took 2 hours to go out of the cloud with average speed of 30 MPH (because of possible aquaplaning). I saw 4 crashed cars during this event but our Prius was very reliable. No single water drop went inside a car.

- In Spain I had nice whole day trip in high mountains with very narrow and steep roads. Again the car was "unstoppable" . During the trip for the first time I could see all the green bars of the battery charge. "B" mode was helpful when driving down.

- It happened a few times that I spent time waiting for my wife (doing shopping of course) in my car. I noticed if I start with green bars the car can stay on battery with A/C for at least 30 min. That was very good experience.

- The car is doing very well in moderate traffic jams. Fresh cold air, silence, smooth moves... all the best .

- When driving on highways over 80 MPH with strong crosswinds I noticed the car was had some problems to stay on track. I had however similar trip to Italy two years ago in Corolla and for sure Prius was much more stable on the road.

- I had very strange "adventure" when driving back on one of French gas stations. I parked the car and tried to close it as usual by pressing knob button - it did not work (I use SKS). I tried several times (also my wife did) without success so I pressed "lock" button on my pilot - that worked and I ignored initial problem and went to eat something with my family. When I got back I could not open the door by pulling them as usual. Things got more serious when my pilot was not able to unlock the doors. After five min of trying I was almost ready to use the key but I was not sure how my alarm with react on this. Fortunately my wife unexpectedly was able to unlock the car with her pilot. Uff... I tried to start the car but no success. So I disabled SKS and but my pilot to proper slot - that worked and we continued our trip. At that time I was not sure if there is something broken in my car or not and I did not want to check it so far away from home. From that time I was using only a metal key to lock the car (do you know that there is a special sequence of actions to fully lock the car with just a key?). Now at home it turned out that everything works fine so I think there was some kind of strong EM interference on this gas station.

- I saw 2 Priuses in Germany, 2 in France and 1 in Spain. I waved to the one in Spain but he ignored that... probably language problems .


I skipped the best part which was 10 days in Spain in rented house, pool, sea, family, free time and all the other stuff but it's not relevant to the topic. I am very glad to have this car. Since it was quite new I was not sure about its reliability but now I know it is doing excellent in many different driving conditions.

Cheers,
- Piotr

 

Hey... pics are OT... it was just car related info from travel across the Europe. I'm glad you liked it, people around just say 'why didn't you fly there?' .

Ok... for those expecting some graphical addition to the report click on the picture:
[attachmentid=10212]

Not too many pics of the car itself... just a few of mine and there is one Prius I spotted in France. Majority is just a nature and my family (including myself sleeping during siesta time).

- Piotr