The cold...!! - Page 2 - GreenHybrid

Electrick · #11 (**permalink**) 10-05-2007, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ag4ever

The sad part is both our commutes take 1 hour. Mine at 60 miles per hour, hers at 20 miles per hour.

Wonder if you'd come out ahead by trading vehicles - does 20 miles per hour mean lots of stop-and-go? That's rough on mileage in a truck but the hybrids excel in that environment.

On the plus side gotta love a truck drivin' woman.

Forrest Gump · #12 (**permalink**) 10-05-2007, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ag4ever

BTW, I find it funny that while in my TCH I try to get every mile I can out of a gallon, but when I drive my new Tundra, I just drive it and don't really obsess over the mileage.

That's funny you said that. I just test drove an '08 Prius today. As anyone on a test drive, you do all kinds of different driving scenarios - merging on a highway, punch it to the floor to pass on the highway, etc. When I returned to the dealer the first thing I wanted to see was the MPG. As I was driving, I was wondering if my driving habits would change if I bought a hybrid. I bet they would.

FastMover · #13 (**permalink**) 10-05-2007, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chestr

Yeah--and there's also the undeniable cost of the additional gas burned just getting warmed up. I always view the rest of the drive (well to a large extent) as recovering from all the gas burned in the first minutes of my drive. When first thing I do is come to the end of my street, and if I can't make the turn because of traffic, I'm sitting there idling fast and wasting gas. And again at the next stop sign, and sometimes multiple cycles at the light that comes next. I can always--and sometimes do--turn the car off if it's still not ready to shut down the ICE at a stop, when I get to the light, but still, by that point odds are I've used a fair bit of gas regardless and there's no way of magically turning that into something other than 0 mpg for who knows how much fuel. And won't warm up enough to get to full-hybrid mode for significantly longer than during warm temps. My loss of FE dropped close to 10 mpg during the serious cold snap last winter. I really hope it'll be less severe this winter--like the lost gas while warming up just being a huge drag on your trip FE, low-FE tanks just drag down your lifetime FE. If not for those winter tanks, I'd be averaging around 40 mpg I'm sure, but instead I've been working to pull it up from maybe 35 after the winter. You burn through a lot more tanks at low FE than at high FE remember.

Tank Heater! My car warms up in just under one minute. By the time I reach the community front gate that is less than a mile away, I am in a full hybrid. The almost instant heat inside in nice too!

chestr · #14 (**permalink**) 10-06-2007, 10:40 AM

A bit of a challenge when I mostly have to park on the street of my very cramped neighborhood of multifamily houses and can't necessarily park too close to my place... _especially_ in winter with more restrictive parking and half-assed snowshoveling by people in the neighborhood!

nyc2socal · #15 (**permalink**) 10-06-2007, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forrest Gump

Wow! I'm amazed at the difference in FE from winter to summer

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I don't notice any difference between winter and summer out here in Southern California..

Sorry!! I just had to!!! Being a long time New Yorker, and going through those Noreasters... I don't miss winters one bit!!

ag4ever · #16 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Electrick

Wonder if you'd come out ahead by trading vehicles - does 20 miles per hour mean lots of stop-and-go? That's rough on mileage in a truck but the hybrids excel in that environment.

On the plus side gotta love a truck drivin' woman.

Nope, 20 miles per hour for about 20 miles = about 1.4 gallons of fuel burned in the truck.

If I drove it, 60 miles per hour for about 60 miles = about 3.5 gallons of fuel.

Now the camry:

20 miles per hour for 20 miles = .6 gallons (she get 35 MPG)

60 miles per hour for 60 miles = 1.5 gallons (I get 40 MPG)

Me truck, her car = 3.5 + .6 = 4.1 gallons

Her truck, me car = 1.4 + 1.5 = 2.9 gallons.

Small savings, but a savings non the less.

2.4 gallons in one day or $6 per day at the current gas prices.

Or $1,500 a year in savings for just our commutes to work.

Now if the prices go up to mid $3/gallon prices, the difference is even greater.

rburt07 · #17 (**permalink**) 10-09-2007, 08:40 PM

You said, my new Tundra. You are correct the Toyota engine stays tight for a good while. I have seen GM engines break in at 3000 miles due to loose tolerances.

I had a '03 Corolla with the 4-cyl engine. I was anxious to get it over on full synthetic oil. I decided to upgrade to synthetic oil at 3000 miles. That was a mistake as the gas mileage increase was little. I saw the gas mileage jump up at 8000 miles and jump again at 8500 miles. I thought that engine would never loosen up. My fault putting the synthetic oil in too soon.

It was nice once it was broke in. I started getting 39 and 40 mpg consistently. My best was 42 combined here around town. We live 8 miles south of town so that includes some slow highway miles.

My advise with your 13.5 mpg is wait it out. Might go back with the same weight dino oil till the second oil change then consider synthetic. Could be that 5000 miles you could see a increase in your gas mileage. Compare that to your trucks mpg sticker. Be sure to use a quality brand of gas.

chestr · #18 (**permalink**) 11-02-2007, 08:04 AM

Just filled up, FE for the latest tank was nominal 41.6 (MFD), and filling up to the second automatic shutoff of the pump, calculated out to around 39 mpg. And it's not even that cold yet.

Though my tire pressure warning light did kick on the other day, and I finally got out to buy a tire pressure gauge (yes, didn't own one before! Didn't care that much on my old car, lol, but now, oddly I do..

), and added some air to all 4.... Shot for around 42/40, really need to check again to see where I ended up, as I had to drive a bit to get there so not completely cold when I inflated. I'm hoping that will buy me back some of the FE I've been losing, too.

But cold's coming.. pretty chilly today, and I've already had a good 3 or so commutes where when I got to work it was below 40 mpg on the MFD graph. And I stuck with only taking it 600 miles for the first time since I got my first 700 mile tank. Figuring won't be long before I have to fill up after 500 miles to be safe. :\

And that's without snow or sub-freezing temperatures still! Just goes downhill from here for the next 3-4 months. Very sad.

tnsig · #19 (**permalink**) 11-07-2007, 07:00 PM

well it was 28 degrees this morning and it was mighty tough keeping it in EV mode. I was still able to get 40 MPG on the way to work but I've noticed the last few days (due to the colder temps) that I'm lucky to get 37 MPG on the way home