Geting more MPG from your Toyota Hybrid

Nephilim Wolf

Hi everyone, I found a small trick to get quite a bit more from your Hybrid. What I do is when I start the car wait until the temp gauge goes to the middle/optimum temperature then provided your on a level piece of road and not a hill just reset the disp button. When I do this my Auris Hybrid says about 60 or so MPG which is not good enough for me, so when I reset it I get between 70 to 80 + MPG for pretty much the rest of the day.

I hope this helps.

I set out on a spin on Sunday, and I got 70 - 80 MPG for the whole day and I only used one bar of fuel out of the ten fuel bars. I went a distance of about 110 miles. I personally think that's great.

grogi

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

When I do this my Auris Hybrid says about 60 or so MPG which is not good enough for me, so when I reset it I get between 70 to 80 + MPG for pretty much the rest of the day.

I hope this helps.

You cannot be serious

Lantus

It's a wind up. Like the time I wound my window down and up 3 times and I managed to go from 40 to 160mpg.

biko

The ONLY way to know for sure is to measure the consumption of fuel. Don't trust the computer.

ELM327

They are self charging so dont need any fuel at all

kirving

All that's doing is eliminating the less fuel efficient part of your journey from the calculation, and so over reporting your MPG.

When you first turn the car on, it will be very inefficient for the first few minutes while it warms up, and perhaps is running A/C and charging the battery too.

Your real MPG is for the entire journey, not just the fuel efficient bit.

Miscreant

The only true way to calculate this is from fuel fill to fuel fill, preferably from the same petrol station and pump.
I tracked my Auris Hybrid fuel consumption this way for 7 years and over that span, the car averaged just under the 52mpg mark.
Resetting the trip computer in the car is just fooling you, I found that mine overread the fuel economy by about 15%.

park your car where the sun can shine on it. The engine will be warm and more efficient and won't burn oil as the car gets older.
n.b. invest in anti-perspirant as you sweat in the car more.
HTH.

zilog_jones

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

Hi everyone, I found a small trick to get quite a bit more from your Hybrid. What I do is when I start the car wait until the temp gauge goes to the middle/optimum temperature then provided your on a level piece of road and not a hill just reset the disp button. When I do this my Auris Hybrid says about 60 or so MPG which is not good enough for me, so when I reset it I get between 70 to 80 + MPG for pretty much the rest of the day.

You know your car still consumed fuel before you reset the trip computer?

wonski

I rented Toyota Corolla hybrid two weeks ago for two days and found the whole hybrid idea a little useless.

Either full electric or petrol for me.

It drank 5 - 5.5l/100km which is similar to modern ICE, non self charging cars.

It kept telling me it is charging battery blah blah, stopping the petrol engine, but there was very little benefit to the consumption imo.

It switches engine off in circumstances where regular ICE car is not using any fuel either anyway.

grogi

wonski wrote: »

It switches engine off in circumstances where regular ICE car is not using any fuel either anyway.

While technically correct, that is not a full picture. ICE needs approximately 0.6l/hour just to keep rotating itself around 1000rpm.

When you coast and an ICE is not using any fuel, you still spend energy - not chemical from fuel, but kinetic energy - on keeping the engine rotating. Hybrid will simply coast much longer with engine off. If you want to play with this idea, you can apply a technique called pulse and glide. You'd get under 3.0 economy.

Pulse and glide (PnG) is a driving strategy that controls vehicles in a more fuel-efficient way than driving at a constant speed does. It can be applied by the driver or, which is more likely, by an automated system with autonomy level one or higher. During the pulse phase, the vehicle is accelerated to operate the combustion engine and transmission at higher efficiency. During the following glide phase, the vehicle decelerates and the engine is decoupled from the drive train.

I agree though that a few of modern ICE engines are extremely efficient.

10-10-20

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

Hi everyone, I found a small trick to get quite a bit more from your Hybrid. What I do is when I start the car wait until the temp gauge goes to the middle/optimum temperature then provided your on a level piece of road and not a hill just reset the disp button. When I do this my Auris Hybrid says about 60 or so MPG which is not good enough for me, so when I reset it I get between 70 to 80 + MPG for pretty much the rest of the day.

I hope this helps.

I set out on a spin on Sunday, and I got 70 - 80 MPG for the whole day and I only used one bar of fuel out of the ten fuel bars. I went a distance of about 110 miles. I personally think that's great.

Were the wing mirrors in or out during that trip? I'll guess out.
Fold them in for an extra 6BHP/5MPG.

kirving

10-10-20 wrote: »

Were the wing mirrors in or out during that trip? I'll guess out.
Fold them in for an extra 6BHP/5MPG.

You say that, but it does make a difference....

https://www.daimler.com/magazine/technology-innovation/easy-tech-mirrorcam.html

Lantus

place a sticker over the economy reading and write 75mpg on it. That way you will always read 75mpg which is great economy.

Nephilim Wolf

grogi wrote: »

You cannot be serious

I am serious. I did a quick mpg calculation, and it's actually a bit over what I get. I went out on another spin today and averaged about 71 to 88 mpg. I generally get about 72/75 MPG when going about 58/60 mph, and higher mpg when going about 30/40 mph. Going at 30/40 I get 78 to 88 mpg, sometimes even more. Believe it or not, I did get 99.9 mpg for nearly an hour moving in slow traffic.

I have a 2012 Auris Hybrid with a 1.8-liter engine. By far it's the most fuel-efficient car I've ever owned. I do have a very light foot though.;)By the way I don't have the air-con on at all. I just don't find it cold enough for me.

eagerv

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

I am serious. I did a quick mpg calculate, and it's acutally a bit over what I get. I went out on another spin today and averaged about 71 to 88 mpg. I generally get about 72/75 MPG when going about 58/60 mph, and higher mpg when going about 30/40 mph. Going at 30/40 I get 78 to 88 mpg, sometimes even more. Believe it or not I did get 99.9 mpg for nearly an hour moving in slow traffic.


I have a 2012 Auris Hybrid with the 1.8 litre engine. By far it's the most fuel effient car I've ever owned. I do have a very light foot though.;)

Yes they are efficient, but what is it actually getting to the gallon, or l/100km?

silver_sky

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

I am serious. I did a quick mpg calculate, and it's acutally a bit over what I get. I went out on another spin today and averaged about 71 to 88 mpg. I generally get about 72/75 MPG when going about 58/60 mph, and higher mpg when going about 30/40 mph. Going at 30/40 I get 78 to 88 mpg, sometimes even more. Believe it or not I did get 99.9 mpg for nearly an hour moving in slow traffic.


I have a 2012 Auris Hybrid with the 1.8 litre engine. By far it's the most fuel effient car I've ever owned. I do have a very light foot though.;)

You're reseting the trip after the initial higher consumption due to warmup, so it's not realistic consumption. If it makes you feel better fair enough but you're only fooling yourself. You'd be far better to track the tank to tank consumption as with any petrol/diesel car. I used to use fuelly.com or spritmonitor.de websites for that.

wonski

Mpg cannot be calculated quickly. It should be measured for your whole journey.

You just skip the parts where your car is not efficient and start calculating it in perfect conditions. Like the manufacturers "used to" do.

Dont rely to much on the car display either. Just because it tells you 99mpg doesn't mean it is true.

You need to average your consumption over longer distance. And not based on the car readings entirely.

Kramer

OK, I'll bite & stick up for the pure electric people here.......
So I covered 10 miles & charged my battery up by 3kWh (self charging electric).

So.........I averaged -114.93405 MPGe.

In other words, I put an extra (US) gallon of gas in my tank (battery), every 114 miles I drive. Free, from thin air.
It's not enough for me though :P.

Proof....

I live on a hill. I drop about 100 metres in to the valley every trip. I add range every time I leave the house through regen. I lose it though when I return though.

Kramer

Deleted User wrote: »

I live on a hill. I drop about 100 metres in to the valley every trip. I add range every time I leave the house through regen. I lose it though when I return though.

Have you tried resetting the trip counter?
That purportedly seems to help :P.

Nephilim Wolf

silver_sky wrote: »

You're reseting the trip after the initial higher consumption due to warmup, so it's not realistic consumption. If it makes you feel better fair enough but you're only fooling yourself. You'd be far better to track the tank to tank consumption as with any petrol/diesel car. I used to use fuelly.com or spritmonitor.de websites for that.

I didn't reset the Disp button at all today, and yet I still got between 71 - 77 mpg (58 -60 mph) to 80 + mpg at lower speeds of 30/40 mph. I have air-con completely off and a very light feather foot. I did join up with fuelly.com, so I'll see what it says on my next fill which won't be for a while yet.

xebec

Kramer wrote: »

Have you tried resetting the trip counter?
That purportedly seems to help :P.

Might have the opposite effect here though…

zilog_jones

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

By the way I don't have the air-con on at all. I just don't find it cold enough for me.

If it's not cold then maybe it needs regassing. The air at the vents should be around 6 degrees or lower with it on. Your traction battery is cooled by the cabin air, so not cooling the cabin = not cooling the battery.

sumo12

zilog_jones wrote: »

If it's not cold then maybe it needs regassing. The air at the vents should be around 6 degrees or lower with it on. Your traction battery is cooled by the cabin air, so not cooling the cabin = not cooling the battery.

Most likely the condensor is leaking as they are made of cheese. Very common on UK production Toyota models of that era. I've replaced mine already. Shine a torch in at the rad and you'll likely see a dark / wet patch.

Be careful when regassing as there is a different compressor oil for these as the compressor is electric. Make sure whoever is regassing knows this

Comment_below

Hi OP,

Thanks for sharing that tip!

Another tip to get more mpg is on the approach to any decline whack it into neutral and roll the car down hil for as long as possible!

Another tip to get more miles out of a tank of fuel is when the low fuel light comes on, make your partner take your car the next day, your partner will drive so efficiently that the fuel gauge will increase! Your partner might be annoyed for some reason I dunno why !

kirving

Comment_below wrote: »

Hi OP,
Another tip to get more mpg is on the approach to any decline whack it into neutral and roll the car down hil for as long as possible!

This is not correct. Pretty much any car from the last 20 years, probably longer, will not use any fuel if you leave it in gear and coast. The engine will be turning as it's connected to the wheels via the gearbox, but the ECU will not demand any fuel from the injectors, so it will just be pumping fresh air.

If you put it into neutral, the car will then need to use a small amount of fuel to keep the engine rotating.

The exception to would be some automatic cars (normally at least mild hybrid) which will disengage the clutch, and let the engine go to 0 RPM, so as to minimise any friction losses in the engine.

KCross

"reset the mpg after the car heats up and you get better mpg that way"

OMG!

This is the craziest thread on the EV forum.

zilog_jones

sumo12 wrote: »

Most likely the condensor is leaking as they are made of cheese. Very common on UK production Toyota models of that era. I've replaced mine already. Shine a torch in at the rad and you'll likely see a dark / wet patch.

Interesting you say that, as the condenser cracked on my Prius a couple of years ago (it's Japanese, not UK built, but probably same Denso part). Going to the main dealer was probably a mistake as it wasn't cheap

Besides routine maintenance and consumables, it's the only thing that's failed so far after nearly 9 years.

ineedeuro

Nephilim Wolf wrote: »

Hi everyone, I found a small trick to get quite a bit more from your Hybrid. What I do is when I start the car wait until the temp gauge goes to the middle/optimum temperature then provided your on a level piece of road and not a hill just reset the disp button. When I do this my Auris Hybrid says about 60 or so MPG which is not good enough for me, so when I reset it I get between 70 to 80 + MPG for pretty much the rest of the day.

I hope this helps.

I set out on a spin on Sunday, and I got 70 - 80 MPG for the whole day and I only used one bar of fuel out of the ten fuel bars. I went a distance of about 110 miles. I personally think that's great.

How much fuel have you burned while trying to get the car up to temp?

sumo12

zilog_jones wrote: »

Interesting you say that, as the condenser cracked on my Prius a couple of years ago (it's Japanese, not UK built, but probably same Denso part). Going to the main dealer was probably a mistake as it wasn't cheap

Besides routine maintenance and consumables, it's the only thing that's failed so far after nearly 9 years.

That is unusual on a Prius - did something hit it? You're right, Jap ones have Denso and European are *I think* Valeo

zilog_jones

sumo12 wrote: »

That is unusual on a Prius - did something hit it? You're right, Jap ones have Denso and European are *I think* Valeo

I don't know but it was fractured at one side on the front, so maybe I got unlucky with a stone? The lower grille seems fairly big and open (3rd gen facelift) which probably doesn't help there.

sumo12

zilog_jones wrote: »

I don't know but it was fractured at one side on the front, so maybe I got unlucky with a stone? The lower grille seems fairly big and open (3rd gen facelift) which probably doesn't help there.

Yeah bottom corner is usually where they go. Can't remember which way around the rads are in a Prius - whether the aircon rad is front or back. I know the Hybrid one is right across the top, I've seen those leak very occasionally

zilog_jones

sumo12 wrote: »

Yeah bottom corner is usually where they go. Can't remember which way around the rads are in a Prius - whether the aircon rad is front or back. I know the Hybrid one is right across the top, I've seen those leak very occasionally

In the Gen 3 the condenser is at the front, with the small inverter radiator mounted along the top of it.