What's your long term fuel economy

[Icebreaka]

Heya,

 

So from reading a few blogs I am hearing that a number of good FFH drivers are getting long term fuel economy averages in the 40MPG range and even higher. I am in Canada and when I switch my gauge to MPG I am getting a measly 33.1 long term currently. I drive as efficiently as I can with a mix of highway and city driving. I have had the odd trip that goes into the mid 40s based on my calculations ( think I did 4.7l / 100 km over a 10km drive once in perfect condidtions) but its been getting worse as the temperature gets lower and after I had it into the dealer for a repair of the electrical system.

 

What kind of numbers are others getting out there? I saw in another thread that comparing US MPG versus Canadian MPG isn't a proper comparison but does that mean that the calculations in the car itself when I switch to "English" mode of Units as its called in the display?

 

I'm basically trying to figure out if I may have a car that needs some tuning at the dealership or if I am just being overly paranoid. I have about 5000 kms on the car so far and I have heard some talk that after 5000 Miles you get better MPG?

 

Thoughts and what are you getting for a number?

Edited December 5, 2009 by Icebreaka

[ace43]

I've had my FFH for only three plus weeks and 900 miles. When I received it it already had 144 miles on it and was averaging 29.5 mpg. In getting the car I had made a commitment to get better mileage so all my driving has been done to try to get the best mileage I can.

 

Even with that 29.5 mpg start before I got the car, my overall mileage now is 39.4. On two recent 130 mile trips I got 44.5 and 41.5 mpg.

 

The ICE does come into play more when it is cold, so that will degrade mileage some. I don't use "hypermiling" techniques, but might start doing that for the heck of it.

 

Without meaning any disrespect, I would guess that your mileage is lower not because of the state of tune of your vehicle, but because of your driving habits. The car I traded in on the FFH had 469 horsepower. I had trained myself to drive it on highway trips calmly enough to get up to 23 mpg. Maybe that "training" helps me with the FFH.

 

Some of the techniques I use now are maximizing the use of the EV mode, accelerating slowly, and planning ahead to accelerate slowly on downhill grades and use that momentum to get up uphill grades without using too much gas. I'm not casual about it at all. I make a serious point of attempting to minimize gasoline usage. The dash readouts make that easier and they actually make it fun, almost a game. I'm having more fun getting good mileage now with the FFH than I was having blasting around in my 469 horsepower vehicle, but that's why I bought the FFH.

 

I have had to work at it to keep my average near 40 mpg, but it has been work that I enjoyed. I think that kind of figure can be replicated by anyone who really wants to do it. I think that if I am really careful about it and let the dash readouts continue to educate me I can do a little better, but I'm very happy with the 39.4 average so far.

 

I hope this helps you, and if you want to discuss the issue further I'm all ears.

[Scott A320]

To date my long-term mileage is 41.2 MPG.

 

While hybrids are EPA rated invesely to conventional autos with better city MPG, my experience has been in favor of highway driving. My typical 55 or 90 mile weekly commute to work yields between 40 to 43 MPG at 65mph when able. City mileage widly ranges from roughly 28 to the mid-50's depending on speed, traffic, and exposure to hills.

 

I only engage in extreme hypermiling very early in the AM or late PM when there's nobody else on the road to annoy!

[oldschool1962]

Training ourselves is definitely the major part of it. I've been pulling numbers back and forth from 34-44 because of computer issues but when I have a chance to operate the car between service visits......I am getting 42 average and a long term of 40.3 (as of yesterday). It my belief that what really screws with my FFH....or any for that fact....is when they reset the system. Basically that dumps all of the info it's supposed to have been gathering to formulate a driving habit and adjust the vehicle. At least that is what I was told was to happen in the first 3000 miles and after.

 

As a culture, we seem to have an affection for that 0-60 performance and making every trip out on the road like a drafting session (dang close to bump-drafting with some drivers) at Talladega or Daytona. It's hard to adjust your accelleration when you've got an azzhole climbing up your trunk in a Yukon. I've learned to just say.....'em and to "pedal" the vehicle. To me.....that just means to back out of the throttle when I feel I'm exerting too much pressure and it does help. This doesn't mean the "little old lady" is passing me (hypermileing) but I'm also not trying to improve my reation time on a 1/4 mile. Also use the higher up display options. The Engage or Empower screens seem to guilt you more into keeping things in the green or generating green...at least that what it does to me. Personally I wished the FFH had the Econo/power display my wife's 2010 Prius has but I do like the graphics of the FFH better.

 

Something I might mention is that the next time you fill-up, reset all of your numbers....not just the mileage and trip through the info screen. I did reset the long-term through the set-up screen and it did help. For what ever reason, the system seems to get "clouded" with too much. I've found that I get a more acurate number when compared to my "manual calculation" number. Also take a look at the "Something weird" topic to see if you've noticed yet some of the issues we've mentioned there......Personally, I think there is something wrong with the programming in a good many cases but then again........I'm not an expert at any of this.

Edited December 5, 2009 by oldschool1962

[ace43]

Thanks for the reset information. I'm going to have to go back to the manual to review it once again, something I find happens often with the FFH. Again, thanks.

[jeff_h]

As a culture, we seem to have an affection for that 0-60 performance and making every trip out on the road like a drafting session

 

So true... many times when I'm taking it easy from an intersection to get the most from the battery, I get left in the dust by the other lane. If there's someone behind me I step it up to not be a nuisance, but if there is nobody behind me then I don't care and see how much I can get out of the battery before the ICE kicks in.

 

I drive a lot of miles, got my FFH in July and this coming week will pass the 18,000 mark. In September before it started cooling down my long term MPG had gotten up to 42.3 (at around 8k miles at the time), but now it's taken a drive because of cooler weather and longer warmup times, now the long term is at 40.5 and will probably be somewhere around 38 or 39 by Feb-March. But then in the Spring it will creep back up again.

[rbart]

I've just hit 1000 miles and my average is 35mpg. It is starting to get pretty cold so I don't see that there will be much improvement to that for awhile.

[oldschool1962]

I can't say this with any technical certainty but from experience I can.

 

If you drive the FFH in cold weather......your mileage might be able to benefit from a 10-15min warm-up period prior to driving. We don't necessarily get extreme cold here in this part of Virginia but we can get into the teens on occasion. The year so far has seen a couple mornings in the high 20's and i doabout a 10-15 minute warm-up I haven't lost but1 mpg on the trip performance and it's been negledgable on the long-term. I'mnot sure if folks in Chicago, Up-State New York or Canada we'll have the same results but it could be worth a try.

 

I never was a fan of warming up my strictly ICE cars but the Hybrid seems to benefit enough that we are considering having rmote starters put in both of our vehicles. Shame of it is we looked at a couple vehicles that had them installed already. Didn't think it was a necessary thing and a waste of the 325.00. Too bad I didn't know then what I know now. :doh:

[lolder]

The FFH needs no warm up other than plug in heaters in extremely cold climates. The owners manual says to start it and drive normally. Any idling is wasted gas. Driving it warms it up faster.

 

Lee

[Howie411]

I just hit 750 miles on my car and have never managed to get over 36.5 mpg normally around 33. And my gas mileage is worse city driving then hwy driving which its suppose to be the opposite.

[ace43]

City mpg will be greater than highway only if you maximize usage of the EV mode, plan ahead as much as you can, coast a lot, and accelerate from stops slowly. Generally, I accelerate from stops using the ICE, get to my cruising speed, get off the gas, and attempt to stay in EV mode as long as I can.

[wwoody723]

I have about 2,700 miles on my MMH. The trip to work is about 5-miles and takes about 15-minutes. With the temperature at about 60 degrees or above I was just starting to get about 34 to 42 mile/gal on a cold start in the morning. For the last two weeks the temperature has been between 17 and 34 degrees. I have averaged anywhere from 17 to 26 miles/gal since the cold temperatures started. At 17 degrees the Milan does not go into EV except at stop lights. It just doesn’t warm-up enough. If I can drive it long enough in the cold weather to get the gauge up to the halfway mark, my trip mileage goes up to the 36 plus mark. The problem is that the car cools down really fast when it is in EV. It drops out of EV in stop and go traffic. Love the car but hate cold weather.

[VonoreTn]

After seeing that almost everyones long term mileage is low when they first start out, I am guessing that there is some process at the Fusion assembly plant in Hermosilla that involves some stationary idling, which will knock down the average FE. My complete mpg record is listed elsewhere on the forum, sounds like it is very close to everyone elses. I have just over 5000 miles now, and it is still a challenge to keep my averages over 40 mpg, it is not getting any easier. My measured by fill-up data overall mileage is 39.71, the computer long term is about one mpg higher.

[FtLewis2002]

24.5 mpg in mine...It's a V6. 41.3 in my neighbors FFH. There are 5 of us with Fusions.

[lolder]

With 5800 miles on the OD, long term mileage (shown at bottom of trip summary after shutdown and reset-able in the Setup/Resets/Long term Fuel Econ. menu) is 38.7 mpg for about the last 3000 miles. Last tank was 40.2 mpg. Location, Southern Florida with temps from 94 in July to 70 F now. It appears from reports up north cold temperatures are worse than hot. I guess it takes more energy to keep hundreds of pounds of drive train warm than to cool 100 cubic feet of air. I get about 38 mpg on the interstate and 41 around town. I'm pretty close to the specs. Individual drives from 1 to 10 miles may vary from 20 mpg. to 60 mpg. Remember, headwinds, wet roads, cold temperatures, heavy AC use have large effects. The theory about wet roads is that it's due to the energy required to throw mist or spray several feet in the air. If you can see spray coming from the car, it's costing you mpg. It doesn't need to be raining or for standing water to be present. I'm not sure I agree with the numbers presented about this but it seems to correlate well. Some Prius drivers report improved ICE temperature retention by using a bra over part of the radiator air inlet. You'd better be careful doing something like that. There's probably a temperature/mpg. chart that's bell shaped and peaks about 70 F.

 

Lee

[HarleyJoel]

I'm getting around 39.2 with 8700 miles on the odometer. In the late summer and early fall I was getting a little over 40.

[oldschool1962]

The FFH needs no warm up other than plug in heaters in extremely cold climates. The owners manual says to start it and drive normally. Any idling is wasted gas. Driving it warms it up faster.

 

Lee

 

IMHO.....The manual may state that it "needs no warm up" but it doesn't state you shouldn't. This was just a suggestion using what we have found to work for us in our climate here....the near coastal Mid-Atlantic region.

 

The main thing I found while we tested this was the vehicle was using the ICE for a longer duration and with more fuel consumption while tying to drive it to warm up. The ICE would cycle 4-5 times during that 15 minutes running for 3 minutes at start up to no more than a minute the remaining times. The 15 minutes spent in the driveway before driving proved to use less fuel because the engine cycles on and off for the duration of the 15 minutes instead of running and applying more than idle throttle opening.....WITH the EFI equivallent of a choke...... for the time it took to warm up while driving.

 

In a perfect world, I would much rather have the car stored in a shelter like a garage which I think the manual also points out....unfortunately the previous owners of the house turned the garage into a Master Suite and we haven't replaced it as of yet.

 

This was not an "absolute" suggestion but one we have found works for us.

[lolder]

How do you have the climate control temperature set for heat? Does the car interior get warm in that 15 minutes? That's a plus in any event. That's probably why the ICE is running more than once. You can't make it run continuously unless you keep your foot on the accelerator. The warm up period is very complicated and hard to figure out. Prius has been going to great lengths to warm up the engine. They used to have a "thermos bottle" to store hot engine coolant for over a day to release into the ICE on the next cold start. They did away with that in the 2010 3rd. generation model and they now have an exhaust/engine-coolant heat exchanger. I suspect they are trying to meet some emissions regulation for cold engine starts written before the hybrids arrived. I wonder how much less, if any, emissions are emitted by an extended quick warm up rather than cycling the ICE as is normally done after warm up. When it's not running there are zero emissions. This is complicated stuff. Maybe your method is sort of a work-around of the problem. Maybe they want to reduce the number of starts in cold weather for wear considerations. I haven't been able to find much info on this subject and Toyota and Ford don't seem to be volunteering much information. Ford seems to just be selling green leaves. Argonne National Laboratories took a 2004 Prius apart a few years ago and examined it thoroughly. They even measured how much energy was lost sloshing oil around in the transmission.

 

Lee

[oldschool1962]

Have the heat set at 70. That's where it stays unless a really warm day and I drop it to a lower temp. Haven't had many days where I could drive around with the windows open though so 70 it is.

 

As far as the rest of it goes?????? I can only report what we have experienced and learned sans engineering degree. The vehicle cycling is the plus in my book. To me....in mu under/un-educated opinion........if the vehicle is warming by cycling the engine then it uses less fuel than an engine running constantly or at least one would think that?

 

Here's another example. Weather over-night was in the mid 20's here. Decided to take the DD to Red Robin for her Birthday. 15 minutes before we were to leave....I went out and started my FFH. The car sits on the North side of the house and by the time I wnet out there the outside temp was 34. Surprisingly....the temp gauge on the car and the one for our furnace thermostat were exactly the same so I'd say that was the temp. Anyhow, the Long-term MPG was at 38.5 and the avg was at 40.5. I started the car and we actually made it out there in 10 minutes. The car was toasty warm and the temp gauge registered in between the two hash marks of the gauge. Drove the car 37.8 miles there and the same home. Arrived home and the long-term mpg registered 38.5 and the avg was 39.7.

 

I'm not sure about all the warm-up stuff....the this or the that but........thise are our results as displayed by the vehicle itself. Until I go to fill up I can't say any different. That is because the manual also states that to get an accurate MPG reading.....we are supposed to fill the vehicle and then divide the miles driven by the number of gallons. This tells me that the system is not as accurate as this discussion would like to make everyone think it is.

Edited December 6, 2009 by oldschool1962

[ace43]

I'm in the Commonwealth of Virginia as well, north of Charlottesville, so our weather experiences will be similar. We have lots of different questions at play here, some regarding mileage, some related to wear, and some related to sound ecological practices. I think the issue of warming up the FFH in the driveway, related to mpg issues anyway, may also be dependent upon what kind of initial driving environment starting up and driving it puts it in. For example, my initial driving situation will always be uphill for the first mile or so. Warming it up in the driveway might make more sense, getting it quickly to optimum operating heat range, because it will labor a bit uphill. On the other hand, from a mileage point of view, it might make more sense to at least be putting miles under my belt while warming it up. I have the option of warming up in the garage, which runs around 55 degrees so that might work if I don't kill myself in the process. :)

[lolder]

Don't worry about it laboring when cold. It always has enough horsepower. It just burns a little more fuel when cold. Don't worry about the rpm going up, that's normal and planned.

 

Lee

[teichra]

I picked up my FFH in late April and have about 5500 miles on it. My overall average based on tank fill-ups is 43 but dropping due to the cold, suburban Philadelphia. One thing not really covered in the thread is the type of driving and distance one goes. It makes a huge difference. My wife goes two miles to work and when she drives, she get 25 mpg. My commute is 20 miles, five miles is suburban with about a dozen lights, then 15 miles at between 55 – 60 mph. I leave early in the AM and can play the lights. In the summer my best was about 48 mpg, typically 43 - 44. Now with the cold I am happy to make 40 mpg. If I am impatient and tromp on the accelerator a few times, wow – does the mileage drop.

[Oman]

It has gotten cold here in the north. The traffic has gotten heavier with an occasional light snow. My commute is 2/3 70MPH HWY. My mileage has dropped to an average of 34.7MPG. About 3 points south from the Summer.

 

What I have found is that a few minutes of stop-and-go traffic will increase my mileage. 1/2 hour of stop and go will decrease my mileage (over running 70MPH all the way on the HWY).

 

Jon

 

 

 

 

I picked up my FFH in late April and have about 5500 miles on it. My overall average based on tank fill-ups is 43 but dropping due to the cold, suburban Philadelphia. One thing not really covered in the thread is the type of driving and distance one goes. It makes a huge difference. My wife goes two miles to work and when she drives, she get 25 mpg. My commute is 20 miles, five miles is suburban with about a dozen lights, then 15 miles at between 55 – 60 mph. I leave early in the AM and can play the lights. In the summer my best was about 48 mpg, typically 43 - 44. Now with the cold I am happy to make 40 mpg. If I am impatient and tromp on the accelerator a few times, wow – does the mileage drop.

[Carnivore]

37.7 with 9000 miles. Mixture of highway/ city and hills /flat

[mirak]

The computer computations are not exact, so I keep track of every fill-up and compute my own mpg.

 

At over 4k miles, I'm just a shade over 37mpg. That's about 50/50 city/highway with careful driving.

 

I live in Wichita and my average has been dropping with the cold temps. Cold and short morning commutes (<15 mins) are not good for mpg.

 

I took possession in late August this year. With a full spring/summer/fall of ownership next year, I'm hoping to boost my average to at least 39.