Poor acceleration, high engine speed when battery is low.

Yes, it was.

Low battery would also limit torque on the rest of your drive, but not having a 'c', I cannot say how much of the problem was due to that.

 

Don't expect a lot of performance out of a Prius C. They are mainly used for easy driving commutes, giving you high mpg and not high performance.

 

If you want a Prius with more power, buy the bigger Prius with the 1.8 liter engine. The Prius C is not for you if you didn't like it during your test drive.

 

I can't speak to your Civic since I don't know its year but the Prius c made the list at Fast Cars | Best & Worst Acceleration - Consumer Reports.

If you want better acceleration, go for the (regular) Prius liftback. For much better acceleration, go w/a Camry Hybrid aka HyCam.

 

Drive the C again but either drive it long enough for the battery to be normal (most bars show) or start out in one that is already charged. They aren't that slow except when hybrid battery is at 3 bars or less. My gen 2 Prius does the same thing if the battery is low. Revs like heck but moves slow - feels like it's struggling. It's rare but happens.

 

A new car on the dealers lot with a low hybrid battery, hmmm... I'd get one with a fresh battery, same price

 

welcome! the power limit is something you have to decide you can live with. decide before you buy, not after. nothing worse than legitimate buyers remorse. wise move coming here beforehand. all the best!

 

The hybrid battery level will be mostly a function of the previous test drive. It can be changed, up or down, with just a few more miles on the road.

 

it is normal that when the hybrid battery is low, the system will want to just use the engine more instead of draining the hybrid battery

and it is probably normal that hybrids on dealer lots have drained hybrid batteries, since they're left idling or probably moved once in a while in short distances or low(ev) speed situations most of the time

so as long as you don't leave your hybrid battery at the last 3 to 2 bars when you park it for the day...and jump in it the next time around, thinking you can just leadfeet it's 99hp, you should be fine

 

A prius C on low battery makes crazy sounds. The engine revs up trying to charge, and even revs when you're coasting. It can't do this when you have your foot on the brake, because regen braking can potentially recover even more power, and with no burning of fuel to do it - so the engine slows down when you push the brake pedal.

The gas engine has 71HP, and when it's charging at the same time, it's delivering even less to the road. The 99 HP only comes into play when the battery can help too.

Luckily in practice this rarely happens. You're likely to encounter it after the car is serviced (sitting around with ignition on for over an hour) or if you sit in traffic for a LONG time.

It also acts crazy when the battery is too full. The brake pedal travels farther and feels different. It'll use EV mode above the middle of the Hybrid System Indicator, and it'll use electric assist all the time and makes the gas engine rev lower than normal. For the most part - you'll only encounter this situation if you go down a HUGE mountain or hill and brake the whole way.

Another drive-train oddity is if you're driving around in the city a lot in mostly electric mode, it's possible for the coolant to loose so much heat that the car will go into warm-up mode again to get the coolant back above 100°. This is especially true if you're running the heat - the coolant looses it even faster, and the car will try to get the coolant to like 130° before shutting off again.

These are abnormal situations though - the car really does do a great job keeping the battery in the middle of those two extremes.

 

Yes, well, my point is...why buy a car with a hybrid battery that hasn't been used in a year and may well never recover, thinking of East coast US cities with streets paved with cobblestones from ships that used them for ballast, the new "bricks" may well be hybrid and electric cars that bricked.

 

There is a huge performance difference when you switch off ECO mode, give it a try too. However you might not get a great MPG rating if you drive with ECO mode off most of the time.

 

I've actually found that my Prius C has a decent enough amount of power for freeway merges, etc. - but you have to basically floor it to let the car know that you really want to go. And when you do the engine revs up like crazy to let you know that it's doing the best it can.

If you're used to a car with a lot of excess power that you never have to use then it's a different driving experience. I have a Plymouth Voyager with a V6 that I don't think I've ever had to floor in my life. The Prius C can accelerate just as well as it does in my normal driving, but I've really got to be aggressive with the gas pedal to match it. And I have to grin and bear the whine of the engine while it does it. Fortunately it's pretty rare for me to need to push it that hard.

 

agreed, but it's not enough for everybody. best to know before buying.

 

Absolutely. My point is don't just push the gas pedal 3/4 of the way down because that's what you're used to doing and give up. Mash it all the way, make that baby play! And then decide.

 

excellent point!

 

Agreed!! I HATE eco mode. Best case scenario you may get a modest bump in MPG but at the cost of a major decrease in power. Even if the power decrease isn't major on paper, you can definitely feel it. Most of the time I am able to hit the same mpg in regular mode as I would in eco mode anyway.