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gaspricestoohighforme

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  • Toyota Model*
    Prius I

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  1. Hi, I have heard that different brand tires can make an enormous difference in the average MPG on a hybrid. My 2002 Prius 1 has BFGoodrich Revelation Touring tires which howl like truck tires. During the life of your Prius which brands have you tried and which ones are best MPG?? And... how often do you check/add air to your tires? It seems I have been adding air way too often, I check every two weeks, I watch my MPG's trend down, down , down and when it hits 45mpg - 47-48mpg is normal- I check and all four tires are 5 lbs low! Is it cheap tires? or cheap aluminum rims? Anyone?
  2. Hi, had my old 2002 Prius for 4 weeks now. Noticing that the energy management computer is rather, uh, intellectually challenged and narrow minded. It does not adapt. Toyota would have done well to have installed software that adapts to different driving conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong but it Appears that it is only rigidly set up for "city" and only city driving as far as utilizing the battery capacity most efficiently. For example when I drive to work it is on rural highways, stopping then acceleratiing again to 55mph during which time the battery is anal-retentively kept at a full charge and never utilized to help the car up to speed beyond maybe 15mph. Seems to me there's enough unused capacity in that battery to assist the car all the way to 55mph that is never tapped. Maybe there's something I'm missing? Is the electric motor not capable of assisting beyond a certain point or is the software simply not up to it??? Is there a software upgrade possible?
  3. Hi, three weeks ago we bought what I like to call a "starter Hybrid" or "My First Hybrid", a 2002 Prius with 74000miles on it. So far our lowest average has been 46mpg. 1 trip my wife got 65mpg and we can't figure out why. this is rural driving at 55mph with a couple stop signs along the way. A trip on the freeway at 70mph and a 20mph wind at our backs yielded 49mpg, but only 43mpg coming back into the wind at 65mph. It is so cool to drive through town electric only. This car the engine likes to start unexpectedly sometimes and we're not sure this is normal but we're enjoying the MPG's so far. Myself I try to see how good I can get and usually can SQUEEEEEZE 50mpg out of it. But driving "normal" for me I can manage 47mpg without trying too hard.
  4. NOthing different. Normally we can baby it along with no a/c or heat on and barely manage 50mpg mostly highway. It was a nice day and for no apparent reason the average mpg started rising towards 65mpg, meanwhile the entire bar graph for that 30 minute period showed higher than normal all the way across. The only thing I can think of is that I'd added a bottle of STP fuel injection cleaner a couple days before, and I did take a 20 minute cruise on the freeway at 70mph the day before(43mpg). . We have yet to manage much better than 47 mpg since. I realise that such a spike might be possible if I had just reset the mpg counter but we had 200miles showing at the time so it would have taken quite a feat to bring the average up so quick and that wouldn't affect the 30 minute bar graph anyways. Not complaining about getting 45mpg but 65 would be even nicer! even though it was a fluke... We just have to wonder and may never know what was different about that 1 trip out of 15 identical trips.
  5. We've had the car two weeks now. One day last week the "average MPG" computation skyrocketed to 65mpg!! then 60mpg, then back to normal 48mpg. What was that? This is the Average number at the bottom of the screen not the graph showing an average MPG out of something like 200 miles.
  6. I would say hybrid is a short term band-aid for those who can afford them. What about the people who can't afford $4 gas OR a new car?(like me) _ and I would guess we could see $10 gas eventually. I would guess eventually -assuming the economy recovers- there will be enough used hybrids out there for the working class to get to work. In my opinion hybrid may be a solution for the next 10 to 20 years but not THE solution. The Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell car would be my guess for the future, assuming it would eventually be affordable. And BOY would I love to have the "home refueling station" with it!
  7. Hi, just bought a 2002 Prius a few days ago. I'm questioning the software on the "energy monitor" screen where the battery symbol is, we thought when we test drove the car we remembered the green level in the battery symbol changing to indicate the power available in the battery. Now after we got it home that symbol never changes from 3/4 green. Is it supposed to "drain" and "fill" ? or not? Then there's the time graph that shows on the "Consumption" screen; Sometimes I get a little yellow dot on the graphic every 5 to 10 minutes and I can't be sure if this is to be considered a good thing? the yellow dot is supposed to show "50wh regenerated". These dots only show like every other time I drive it or my wife. I am not sure how to drive the little bugger to max the economy. Sometimes I get 50mpg without trying, other times it seems impossible. Maybe I'm trying too hard because it seems if I just drive like I normally do- easy but normal (not Mario Andretti like everyone else) acceleration and steady on the gas at cruise, and coasting as much as possible to a stop sign it does best. However I feel if the "Energy Monitor" would show the current charge level of the battery it might help but I'm not sure this graphic is working right. Any thoughts? Thanks.
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