It is almost anonymous in every post here that TCH is the best bat for your bucks. How is this true for TCH owners living in cold weather?


The purpose of this thread is to encourage all owners of TCH who live in cold weather to share their ideas and experiences with other TCH owners so they can get best value of their investments despite living in clod weather. I am assuming that TCH showed up first sometime in spring of 2006 in USA and in August/September 2006 in Canada. So people who owned this car before last winter can share their opinions on various things experienced during first cold weather.

Some of the things we could share here are suggested below. Please add any other topic, which are helpful and beneficial to all particularly to the owners of TCH living in cold weather.

• Additional tips, ideas and suggestions to maximize fuel efficiency in cold weather.
• Effect of block heaters.
• Plastic, leather or foam covers for front grills: Is it recommended? Why recommended? Etc.
• Is it good idea to run the engine in idle mode for few seconds before driving, on real cold day?
• Is there anything like Instant Heat using hybrid/normal battery? If yes, does it work? Is it recommended?
• Real time MPG for different cold temp ranges like way below freezing mark to just over freezing point. (I live in a city in Canada where temp drops –25 to –30 degree Celsius in winter)
• Winter tires. How does it effect traction control? Does it effect FE?
• Tire pressure and snowy streets. Is there any risk in having higher tire pressure (for FE) and braking distance on snowy roads?
• Any experience with traction control on snowy surface? Skidding etc.
• Any starting issues on real cold days?
• Frequency of Air Filter changes. Do we need to replace it more frequently?
• Battery blankets. Can we use on hybrid/normal battery? Do they help?
• Cooling system. Is it necessary to flush it before winter starts?
• Any other special item relevant cold weather.

I am hoping that more and more forum users will add their comment on this post. Like any other post here, more comments will lead to more fruitful discussion, which will help all.

Thanks and have great safe driving experience with your TCH.

 

Good subject for discussion;
I’m in Minnesota and had the car all winter. First off, I do primarily city driving and have a short commute to and from work, 12-15 minutes on city streets. The warm up period is a killer on mileage, so I averaged about 34 mpg through early spring. In the first few tanks during warmer weather, I’m around 39-40 mpg. Some of the increase is a function of leaning how to drive more efficiently, but most is just faster warm up to normal operating temperature with warmer weather.

Re a block heater – I can’t imagine you could actually save energy by preheating the engine with electricity and very likely use significantly more. Electric energy is notoriously inefficient with huge losses in converting fossil fuel to electricity, more losses in transporting and more losses in the heating appliance, and even more in heat escaping from the block. Ultimately, you probably convert less than 15% of the heat/energy contained in the original fossil fuel into heat in the engine. On the other hand, using gasoline to heat your engine and move the THC at the same time is probably in the 80% plus efficiency range. Much of the lost energy in the ICE is given up as heat. Unless one is just chasing the highest mpg rating with no regard to the total energy used, a tank heater does not make much sense, nor does the remote start that Toyota forces us to buy in the north country.

Re instant heat… they are called heated seats, work great.

 

Thanks obrienklm for sharing your thoughts.

I live in province called Saskatchewan in Canada where of course winters are very cold. In this province block heaters are mandatory. They are not factory installed but dealer will charge additional CAD 170 and installed it before you take delivery.

My understanding is that like in non-hybrid car, block heater just keeps engine oil little warm for easy start. I am just wondering in hybrid if it also helps in bringing the engine temp little faster resulting in better FE.

I took delivery of my TCH on April 04, 2007 and I just filled-up my tank first time after 716 KMS on ODO meter. When I filled up, little display in the instrument panel (I don't have NAV) says I could cruze for another 132 KMS as I still had 1/4 tank gas left. I will describe below my driving situation here in small city and my first tank mileage.

First fill up: 43.482 Litres
Actual ODO meter reading: 716 KMS
ODO meter reading on delivery date: 16 KMS.
So calcualated KMS on 43.482 KMS=700 KMS (435 miles)
calculated L/100 KMS = 6.21
calculated MPG: 45.48 (Imperial) and 37.87 (US MPG)
TCH display reading: 6.4L/100 KMS
TCH display MPG: 44.13 (imperial) and 36.75 (US MPG)

So I am not sure why my calculated MPG is slightly higher than TCH MPG. Most of the people have reported that they usually get less calculated MPG. I will know on my next (2nd) fill.

My driving situation is not idle for hybrid so I think I should be happy with above MPG.

Here is my driving situation for first 5 weeks of TCH:

Temp in April here: Low from -2 C to + 8 C. High: from +8 to +20 C (average)

Regular week day driving to work: 7 KMS one way (4.35 miles)

In this 7 kms of driving to work, I go through 8 left and right turns, 6 lights (signals), all flat roads and only about 2 kms of possible coasting distance. Not much traffic or wind.

Above 700 KMS includes about 25 KMS of driving on highway at speed of around 90 KMH (56 MPH). Rest of the mileage in city as described above.

Driving to work and back with 3 people including myself and nothing in trunk.

Regarding instant heat, what I meant is that Is it possible to run heater on battery power?

Thanks and again looking forward for lots of comments on this post for the benefit of TCH owners in cold weather.

 

I'm in Winnipeg. I got mine on the tail end of winter, with only a couple of -20 days before spring, but from what I could tell, once the car warms up it works the same as in summer, just gets there a lot more slowly. However, on my first tank, this still hit my mileage hard - 27mpg. This may improve next winter, since that was the first tank. We shall see. I didn't get around to plugging it in, cause on the one night where it was gonna get intensely cold, I got home when it was dark and couldn't find the cord. :>

Same rules apply here as anywhere else, basically: better FE and performance than the other Camrys (4 or V6), or really any other car of this size, so far as I know. I actually got into a debate with a diesel evangelist in another forum, comparing mileage of a diesel VW Passat to the Camry Hybrid. It came out a close tie, sort of - my city mileage was slightly better (3mpg) than the Passat diesel, whereas my highway mileage was slightly worse (also 3mpg). However, once you consider that I was comparing my real world calculated mileage to the Passat's "official" numbers, I think that in a real world test, the TCH would come out on top.

I would like to see GM's Volt come to market, with a diesel engine for the charger. THAT would kick ***.

 

Hi,

Lots of forum users are viewing this post but not posting any response.

No, I am not complaining. I am just little concern that hybrid may not be very popular car in cold weather cities.

I hope TCH owners in cold weather places like Canada and some States in USA share their experiences here for benefit of all.

Thanks

 

I have a TCH in Toronto, purchased NO '06. Now that I have driven it almost to the end of the month of May, I can make a comparison. Perhaps you have not had too many responses, because there was nothing for many TCH owners to compare winter driving with. Now that I have driven it in both winter and spring, I can say that the mileage is slightly better in warmer weather. On my current tank, I am getting 5.9 l/100 km. combined city/highway, whereas when I was driving it at -15C or - 20C, I was getting more like 6.4 or 6.5 l/100 km. I think another factor is that when I was driving on very icy or snowy roads, the mileage was also compromised.

 

Hello. I didn't see this thread before. I will add my two cents.

From mid-New York.

I received my TCH at the end of March and there were still a few days where it was below freezing. I also drop it through a snow storm / flooding. During the colder period (although short) I was getting about 31-33 mpg (mostly short <5 miles city driving).

Now that we are well into May and almost into June I have been getting about 36-40 mpg (again mostly short <5 mile trips with more highway). My last tank average was 36.7 and this one is about the same so far.

I ran my tires at the normal pressure during the colder months and upped it to 40 psi since the end of April. I do not plan on keeping the high pressure in the winter so I will have more tire on the road.

Yes, it worked well and kept me on the road. It is a little weird at first and certainly for someone coming from a 4x2 pickup. It did very well at keeping me going. As far as stopping I didn't like it at all. I had to stop from about 65mph on icey roads for a stop light from about 500 feet out. It took the full 500 feet and I stopped just before the light.

None at all. Also no issues on hot 90+ (F) days.

Hope it helps.

 

My experience with the TCH shows year round real life fuel efficiency in cold weather areas to be approx. 7.5L/100KMs (31.5 MPG US) against the posted 6.4L/100KMs or 34.5 MPG US (revised unofficial) for 2008 Model year. This is still very good as compared to non-hybrid camry which in my opinion will give only 11L/100KMs or 21.5 MPG (US) in cold weather areas.

 

I keep track of my FE by temperature. So as a comparison of hybrid vs non-hybrid, here is what I see as far as increased fuel consumption during cold weather (sorry, too lazy to convert to MPG, but you get the idea). Of course it's not a perfect comparison as my TCH is usually driven to optimize FE 90% of the time whereas the Sienna is driven with best FE in mind maybe 50% of the time. I imagine the "optimized" driving style takes a bigger hit in colder weather. Given the same driving style I think the hybrid would still take a bigger hit % wise in cold weather, but only slightly and still be an improvement over a compariable standard powered vehicle:


Temp ..... Hybrid Camry ...... 2004 Sienna
Warm ..... 6.11 L/100km ...... 11.79 L/100km
Mild ..... 6.30 (+3.1%) ...... 12.30 (+4.3%)
Cool ..... 7.25 (+18.7%) ..... 12.95 (+9.8%)
Cold ..... 8.17 (+33.7%) ..... 14.28 (+21.1%)

 

This is great. Thanks all TCH owners driving in cold weather for your input.

I am still on my second tank. Temp in Regina this week is around 18 degree C high and about +4 to +6 at night. My current gas tank average is 6.3L/100K.

Thanks again