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another question, is the back large enough to accomodate my 2 large dogs? thanks
My two youngest sons are both around 6', 200 lbs and can accommodate their knees, butts, and feet quite well. Of course they would prefer the front seats to recline but insurance won't let them drive my car and their mother likes the front even more than they do.
I have made 4-5 hr trips from Miami, Fla to Gainesville, Fla with myself and 3 sons all about the same size in my earlier 2005 Prius which one of my sons now owns, we averaged 48 mpg and drove around 75 or so mph on the turnpike. The new 2010 Prius has even more room, including rear seat head room.
So after converting and compare apples to apples, you're comparing getting a real 40mpg in the TDI vs 50mpg avg with the Prius. Driving 15,000 miles/year at $3/gal that means the TDI will cost about $225 per year more for fuel. And I'm being conservative, since if someone is able to exceed the Jetta's MPG ratings, they'll probably exceed the Prius 50mpg rating too.
But that's only fuel cost. The carbon footprint for the Prius is 3.8 as compared to 6.2 with the TDI (fueleconomy.gov). Also, the reliability of the Prius is much better then the VW Jetta based on what I've researched.
That being said, there is more cargo space for the TDI Wagon (21 vs 33 CuFt) behind the 2nd row. And if you're mostly driving on the highway, then the MPG difference between the Jetta and Prius is even less. As far as the battery life, from what I've researched, the real-world battery life is well over 150,000 miles and even then it's usually only specific cells of the battery than need replacing. I think that the Jetta would need more repairs (given the reliability differences) over that same time to more than make up the potential need to replace battery cells.
In Berlin there were lots of Prius taxis besides the other German makes...its too bad they do not import the Opel which runs on Hydrogen which was parked in front our hotel as an advertisement! For now, I am sticking with my Prius and am very happy.
The VW wagon TDI is good in that it has more cargo space then a Prius, but in a couple of years there will be a Prius wagon (possibly with 3 rows of seats similar to a Mazda 5) that will also average close to 50MPG, so that should fill the need of those needing more cargo space than the regular Prius offers.
From the limited info given - sounds fairly normal. In the winter the car takes longer to warm up to get to the efficient temp zone and to-date this has been a colder winter than the last few years.
Other things to watch out for:
-limit as much as possible short trips / combine trips
-make sure your tire pressure is adequate
-snowy / wet roads will reduce mileage
-heater / defrost "robs" heat from engine - stay safe using them as needed
-new tires usually mean worse MPG
You're still getting better MPG than most vehicles:)
Gabe
I had a manually calculated after fill-up of 42mpg a few weeks ago, which seemed low as compared to the 50mpg shown by the computer. But the next manual calculation after fill-up I got 57mpg, which seemed to high. The computer showed 52mpg for that tank.
I mostly use the same gas station and always stop filling after the first "click." I'm guessing what happended is that when I was filling the tank this last time, it didn't fill up as much as the previous time, so the mpg seemed higher than normal. On the time before that maybe the tank took more than the normal amount of fuel, hence the lower than expected manually calculated mpg.
So what I do is estimate after two or three tanks to adjust for that variation swing of a really high vs really low calculated mpg. We'll see how it goes for the next fill-up. Based on how fast the gas gauge seems to be going down, I'm thinking that this will be a low manually calculated mpg because the tank wasn't fully full after last fillup.
In the summer the manually calculated mpg is more consistent tank after tank, so I'm guessing it has to do with the bladder fuel tank. Overall I'm happy with the mpg, which is about 50 in the summer and in the low 40s in the winter.
How long (time / distance) is your typical drive? The first 5 minutes in cold weather will yield ~25 MPG (unless you use an EBH). Take it out for a longer drive / HWY and see what happens.
Other things you can check:
1. tire pressure - make sure you're not under inflated
2. make sure engine oil is not over filled
Good luck,
Gabe
At gas station fill ups I frequently field questions about the Prius FE, summarized my advice is drive conservatively, time the stoplights to minimize full stops, and inflate tire pressure to 50PSI. The later is controversial but I logged 83,000 miles on my 2006 Prius at those pressures with no abnormal tire wear, just a stiff ride. Be forewarned, after servicing the dealer will deflate the PSI, rather than argue with someone who has no experience with this issue, I reinflate with my home compressor.
I've noted a number of posts with much higher mpg than I get. I can also 'force' my mpg higher by not driving with traffic (slower and or driving for max mpg without respect to surrounding traffic flow). Sometimes, just for 'fun' I drive the two miles home from the store (and gas station) keeping keeping the average mpg at 99. It is both up and down hill and speeds reach as high as 45 on battery power for this two miles. 2010 now at 10K miles and mpg remains at about 43 (summer freeway traffic is getting faster (75-80), reducing freeway mpg to about 42). Traffic around here is usually very fast on the freeways and heavy on non freeway roads, making it hard to max the mpg unless one is willing to not become nervous by rapidly approaching traffic from the rear.
I bought a 2010 Prius (base model) and have one time broken 50 mpg by the same method of calculation. Most of the time I get mid to high 40's.
I know that around time if you accelerate to say 30-35 mph and then feather the throttle you are able to turn off the gas engine for awhile but not forever. If you don't try towing things, carrying a bike rack, or other external attachments so as to allow the aerodynamics to work optimally then you will edge up towards 50 mpg in honest figures or better.
Watch your tire pressure! My new Prius came with optional 17 in wheels and Pirelli tires. I had been running them a 35 psi, and checking around I found that the max psi for those tires was 50, so initially I set the pressure at 45, that's when I broke 50 mpg!
Finally, remember that nobody is getting better mileage than you, so take it easy.
The high external temp is not very important, you know, the AC compressor is electric and does not depend on the gasoline engine as in other cars.
Only in cold weather when the engine needs to warm up do you use more gas because the computer controls that and doesn't allow much "eco" mode work.
P.S. CPO means Certified Pre-Owned by Toyota.