I just made a couple interesting charts with my fuel data I have gathered from day 1 with my TCH.

One shows the fuel economy of the tanks manually calculated and also as the car calculated it as well as the manually calculated life average of the car as each tank affects it.

The next one is the cost per gallon of fuel since buying the car.

To date I have put over 26,000 miles on it, and the fuel cost has been $1,587.25 for a total of 679.045 gallons of fuel.

The large dips in the fuel economy came from periods of high head winds on my comute home. Luckily the winds have died down a bit and I am seeing much better mileage on my commute home. I am currently showing about 41.5 on my commutes to work and 40.5 on my commutes back home according to the nav.

 

ag4ever,

One piece of data missing is your miles. That would show the break-in factor.

Your MPG peaked around February. How many miles did you have on your car at that point?

You must live in a warm climate!

 

Each tank is about 400 - 600 miles on average.

Yes, I do live in a warm climate (Houston, Texas). Is that warm enough? I have the a/c set to 73 - 75 all the time now so my mileage could be better if I gave up a/c but that won't happen!

In feburary I had about 12,000 miles on the car, but my bets mileage was in december with only 7500 miles on it.

I just had the oil changed today, and had a sample of the virgin oil taken as well as the used oil. I will have an analysis of both done to determine if I can safely go 10,000 miles between oil changes after the warranty is up. Gotta start my analysis now so I can have data before the 36,000 mile mark.

 

ag4ever, I can see how you lost that "star" of yours... 73-75?!? Ouch, as a fellow Houstonian, that's kinda cold for me. I have mine at 78-79 and feel perfectly fine (i.e. I don't do just to "save" a few drops of fuel), and my FE hasn't changed that much from the Mar/Apr days as yet... maybe 1-2 mpg, if not less, see: https://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/.../car/3890.html

 

I got my TCH on Wednesday last week (Red/Leather/Decked Out). First tank was a short one, 194 miles, 5.8 gallons, 33.45mpg. I filled it up to drive to West Virginia from Indiana yesterday. I was surprised. When the fuel warning light came on, I thought my gas mileage would really suck, figuring it would take about 16 gallons. It only took 13.4 gallons, 509 miles, 37.98mpg. My question is can the dealer reset the fuel warning light to come on at a lower level (say 1 or 2 gallons left in the tank). With 3.8 gallons, I could have drove another 100 miles easily . . .

 

HybridFan, the temp I have mine set on really depends on a number of things. When going to work, it is usually set on 76-77 because the sun loading is a lot less, but on the way hoome, I usually bump it down to 73 or 74 since the car is so darn hot from sitting in the sun, and the sun is beating down on me adding to the heat. I could keep it a bit warmer, but just decided to get the added comfort.

Darrelr, no way to adjust the warning light. I just make note of when my car tells me I am 0 miles to empty and drive for an extra 100 miles. I could go 120 or more, but figure the extra 20 miles is my reserve incase I have a problem.

 

"no way to adjust the warning light."

Sufficiently motivated, a person could drop the tank, remove the sending unit and adjust the float arm angle.

Just sayin'

 

I honestly don't remember paying bellow $2/ gal for more than 2 years now, so you must be in one of those states with low fuel tax, but otherwise it's almost scary how similar to yours, would my graph look. I also had couple 43mpg peaks, close to 33 mpg low (dead of winter) and average hovering between 38-39 mpg, with 23k odometer now.

 

The light won't come on until you drive usually more than 500 miles, you know by now you should have at least 100 miles reserve, so you don't have to rush to gas station and it's not good idea to run your tank dry , due to the pump being cooled by it and in some parts of the country I've seen signs "check your gas, next gas station 75 miles", so that 100 mile reserve would be just about right. BTW I've seen burnout fuel pump in my fathers car and I have no idea how come that thing didn't blow up, everything was melted and charcoaled right inside a tank, but I guess submerged in gasoline would be the same as if it was in water. With empty tank I don't know.

 

I guess I should have stated that there are no reasonable ways to adjust it.

On a different topic, I have a Ford Diesel truck, and there is a mod to the tank lovingly called the harpoon mod (named after the person who first publicly started doing it) where you drop the tank and cut the vent line going into the tank as short as possible. This allows you to over fill the tank a lot faster than if it was not cut. (Diesel fuel foams really bad when being pumped, so the foam would take for ever to settle out of the filler neck).

I did this when I had to drop my tank to replace a float that filled with fuel indicating I was alway on empty. Now I can fill the tank to 32 gallons capacity using the pump's automatic cut off (the tank should be 29 gallon capacity).

But then again, I also have a 100 gallon tank in the bed of the truck tied into the main tank, giving me a total range of 2000 miles on one tank. Sould I start a thread bragging that I can go 2000 miles on a single tank of fuel?

The look on some people's face when I pump 130 gallons of diesel at $3 a gallon is priceless. But being able to drive for 2000 miles right after a hurricane and no fuel is available is even more priceless.