This is more of a vent(anger) than any information that you might need:

I let my brother/sister-in-law take my car this last weekend to a air show north of us in Oshkosh WI. It is about a four hour round trip drive and my brother-in-law has been very interested in the Camry Hybrid. So I thought I would be a nice guy and let them take it because they do not have a car that gets as good of milage.

I did my duty and ran through the operation of the car, especially the start and stop part. Off they went.

When they got back that night my brother-in-law asks me if the car has a feature that keeps the car cool when parked in the sun (that would be nice). I told him no it did not. And then it hit me, I asked him why and he proceded to tell me that when they got back into the car, after it sat for 5 HOURS it was nice and cool.

Yes, if you have not guessed it by now - he left the car on the entire time. So now I have a tank of gas, that they filled up before they got to the air show, that is only 1/3 gone and the tank average is only 22 MPG.

This is going to really screw up all the hard work to eek out every mile for every ounce of gas. I will not even clear 30 MPG tank average by the time I am done with this tank.

So the moral is: if you let someone else drive your car make sure they know how to turn OFF and ON!!!

 

Calm down, take a deep breath. Good. Now go to the nearest gas station and fill up. Just pretend this trip never occurred and picture your brother in law having to use his credit card to fill up all the Hummers in the world.

 

This is great info!!! It's nice to know you could sit that long and stay cool and not use all that much gas.

 

Thankfullly I have had time to calm down. Thanks.

Thought to myself that after 5 hours of sitting there with the A/C on there had to be a hugh puddle under the car. The TCH seems to leave more water condensate from the compressor than normal. When I pull into the garage it will leave a puddle that will actually run all the way to the garage door. Have never had a car that leaves that much water behind from A/C compressor.

 

I was just noticing yesterday the puddle didn't sit there and ran to the garage door. Of course it's been high 90s and humid.

 

I am confused.

Did he leave the key fob in the car the whole time? If you leave the car "ON" and get out with the key in your pocket, doesn't it shut itself off eventually?

I would just be thankful no one stole it if he left the FOB in it!

 

That's what I was going to say! At least you got the car back! Whew! Now, if it had been a normal gas car and the wasn't so quiet as the TCH, somebody would have figured out what was going on and taken it.

Wow. I'll take your advise and expand it to include any in-laws.

 

I doubt I'll have this problem with my bro-in-law since he ALSO owns a TCH!!!

 

Yikes. Your brother-in-law isn't a pilot, is he? If so, he's one of the numbskulls that leaves the master switch on in the rental aircraft my husband flies on weekends. (Happens at least once every couple months...)

[leaving the master switch on drains the battery. No battery, no "go", just like in a car.]

 

5 hours didn't kill the battery? Does this mean the TCH was using gas to to charge the battery? Or is the battery so big that it could handle 5 hours of having the car running with AC on?