Switched Oil from 5W30 to 0W20 after 193 miles, watching mileage.

Yes I did. It was the larger size which I like since I seem to have a penchant for draining the battery.

 

xstudent, thanks for the links that explained the problem. It looks like a nasty problem with an easy solution. Toyota ought to provide us with FACTORY RTV! Plus a nice manual on how to apply the goop. LOL

 

The Exide battery looks promising. The mileage looks better driving around town. I'm seeing a lot more over 50 mpg's than I was before. The weather turned very cold yesterday so I'm only getting about average 36 mpg. I'm off to a ball game and I will see what 70 mph on the Xway looks like. I have always seemed to get better highway mileage than city driving.
I haven't checked the voltage yet though. I have to look in the left (driver) side hatch pocket too. It may be soaked to the gills.
I'll check that and tire pressure. I run 40/38 right now. I won't change that so as not to mess up my testing.

 

It has been a while since I last logged in. Very busy here in West Michigan, between doing all the spring time stuff and cleaning out my old TV shop and getting it ready to sell. Last Monday we sold it. Now I'm back to the spring time stuff.
I did up the tire pressure to 42/38. 44/40 is next to see what it will do.

I just checked the battery voltage and it is at 12.72 volts. It did get back some of the fuel mileage but I didn't get it all back. I get 40 mpg around town and 46-47 on the road at 70 mph. The goofy thing is when I went to Detroit on April I got weird mpg figures. Like 60 mpg when the MFD said 48-49 mpg.

Date Miles Gallons MPG Price
4/28/15 278.00 7.634 36.42 2.229
4/23/15 366.00 6.033 60.67 2.489
4/14/15 286.00 7.175 39.86 2.509
4/10/15 185.00 3.574 51.76 2.239
4/8/15 276.00 7.113 38.80 2.109

The high numbers are on the road mpg's The low ones are in town numbers.
If I hypermile I can do well. I think the 60 mpg figure was at 70 mph +
Although the MFD numbers were more like 48-49 mpg.
I guess I like mileage of 60 mpg. I'll take it.

I think I may need the Grid Charger. Some mornings the SOC is 2 purple bars.
Within 3-5 miles the battery is 7 green bars.

Any ideas? My last check of the battery via the mini vci looked good.

 

The mileage is 157696 miles. I can't believe just how many miles I drive each week! I'm glad I am getting the mileage I am. My old Chevy Venture van, which I put over 258,000 miles on, only got about 25-29 mpg.

I'm saving big time!
The theory that the pump malfunctioned is belied by the pip meter, it is always 10 pips each fill up. Sometimes the factors are temperature, wind direction, traffic flow, hills, my speed, and the gas quality itself.

The gas gauge is a mysterious device tucked inside the tank and somehow shows the 10 pip fill up even though the bladder is scrunched down too low, limiting the total amount of fuel pumped in. Maybe the Prius guru's know what's going on there. I usually get 7-8 gallons of fuel. If I upgrade vehicles I'll get at least a 2010 Prius.

 

After 9,545 miles (Final miles, 160226) I put the 5W30 Pennzoil Platinum back in the engine with a new Napa Gold 1394 filter. I didn't see much difference in performance with maybe a better warmup of the engine and less fuel usage. It probably was not worth the difference anyway, but I thought it would be a good test.
This was a two "maintenance request" entry on the MFD.
My engine was good to me, I only had to add 1/2 quart in the middle of the run.

 

I have noticed a big difference in fuel mileage if I stop the pump right after the first click off or if I tease the tank and squeeze all the gas I can get in. Since the small amount we get on a bladder tank, 5-8 gallons, the percentage difference is larger than with a huge tank of normal gas guzzlers, 20 gallons. It may be like 5 to 10 mpg more or less. If you want to get good mileage, first squeeze in all you can, then at the end of the tank of gas just stop at the first click off. That works every time.

 

The Prius is running good now, especially since I went to near St Louis, MO to my brother in law's place. I drove at 70-75 mph and it seems that the mileage rose to the "usual" 50 mpg. I think the Prius likes to be run harder, keeping the engine cleaner because of higher air flow through the intake. I have never have taken the air filter box off the engine to clean the intake so it is only a guess.
I enjoy the ability to get 52 mpg on a regular basis on the highway. In town I get 48 mpg but I have fun by hypermileing a lot to see just how high I can get the mileage.

My latest thing is coasting. Because the battery is so small it only goes for 1 to 2 miles before the ICE kicks in. By coasting I don't care anymore as the ICE rarely kicks in because the battery power weakens.

Just press hard on the throttle and zip up to speed. I usually go 2 mph faster and back off so the coast is showing Regen charging (Green lines) on the MFD. Now just slightly press on the throttle and the lines go black indicating coasting. It is amazing how far you can coast in a Prius!

At low road speed (25 to 40 mph) most people don't know that you are hypermileing. If someone charges up my tail pipe I'll gas it to give them room.

 

I am back with my oil story. I had my oil changed at my local Toyota shop, @ 165421 miles. It was about $33.00 it took almost 2 hours!
I asked about full synthetic and they said $59.00 No thanks.

Anyway I also wanted to not jack up the car and do the "dirty" deed of changing the oil and filter.
Since I drive the car a lot I also didn't want to do it in the winter, so I'll stay warm in the Toyota lobby.

They checked my VIN # against factory warranty repair and came up with a steering shaft warranty replacement part. I'll go in next week or so. So it pays off to stop in for an oil change.

One reason why I went to Toyota is I wanted to tickle their funny bone and get some service records recorded. I read that they will give some preference to customers that do that.

I seem to be getting better mileage, the local speeds show much better mileage, upper 50 60 mpg. I'll have to drive it at higher speeds to see what comes up. Before the oil change I was getting an average of 47 mpg.

I guess I have just about bored everyone's ears off about low fuel mileage. I still am missing 4-5 mpg but I haven't found out why. My Mini VCI died so I have a new one on order. Hard to guess if the "disgronificator", Mini VCI won't respond.
(disgronificator
A mythical - but expensive - automobile part which unscrupulous auto repair shops say is "missing" or "damaged" in a car brought into the shop by an automobile-ignorant customer. (Usually a woman.) More likely to be discovered to be "damaged" when the unlucky car owner is towed to a shop far from home. (Other spellings: disgromificator, dysgromificater, dysgronificator, disgronificater, etc.) Hartman Web Site Words Page

I did find a nice 2 pack of Throttle Plate cleaner with MAF cleaner at Walmart the other day.

It is made by CRC. Price was under $8.00 I was looking for some MAF cleaner and the throttle body & intake cleaner came along for the ride.
Nice instructions from PC Toyota Prius: How to Clean the Mass Air Flow (MAF) Senor - PriusDIY.com


A final note. I noticed my Prius was pulling harder to the right. I was thinking that my alignment was going bad. I regularly check my tire pressure but I decided to check the air first. The left side tires were very close to being right, 44 front, 42 rear.. The right side tires were decidedly low, 28 # on the right front tire and 19# on the right rear tire. Once I aired the tires up, I found that the steering was good again.