Auris Hybrid And The Cold

[ultraposty]

I have an Auris Hybrid and absolutely love it. The automatic is the match for any I've driven including Rover, Volkwagen, Toyota Supra etc.

It is a very smooth car and rivals most much larger cars for the quality of the ride.

I had no problems with it at all until the onset of winter but now doing exactly the same journeys I did in summer my average mpg has dropped from about 64-65 to a miserable 50 mpg.

I am driving it. if anything, even more carefully than I did before being frustrated by my ability to get more mpg.

I finally took it to my dealers today to have them check it over and they tell me that it is perfect and it is normal for the mpg to drop by this amount in winter.

Does everyone have this same experience and what is the general feeling about it?

Was anyone told of this situation before they bought their car?

Do you all think it is right for Toyota to advertise the car without making this point obvious?

I would appriciate other members views on this.

Barry

[daveybee]

Hi Barry, welcome to TOC.

What you're reporting is nothing unusual, although a 15 MPG drop sounds a little extreme. My HSD probably dropped about 10 MPG last winter (roughly the same now in the recent cold weather), but came back to normal when temperatures rose again.

It's unfortunate that you weren't aware of the MPG drop as it is a known phenomenon, and something discussed fairly regularly on this forum, and you could argue that your dealer should have warned you (as mine did), but I think that's down to the individual sales bod and the importance they place on the drop in economy.

You can reduce the problem a bit by dropping your cabin heat (the ICE runs more & hence uses more fuel to heat the cabin), even using the ECO button will help a little bit by restricting the heating / A/C operation, so saving a small amount of fuel.

One positive to finish on though - 50 MPG from an automatic car, this comfortable and quiet, isn't half bad when you think about it. My old oil burning Avensis (2.0 D4D) never managed more than 40 MPG sat in traffic at this time of the year - the HSD beats that hands down!

Hope that helps just a little bit.

Dave.

[Cyker]

All cars do this, dependent on driving style, journey length etc. and tbh 50mpg is still !Removed! good for a petrol car!

The problem is that combustion engines of any sort suck when they are cold, and in the winter hybrids get hit particularly hard as the engine either won't be running long enough to stay at optimum operating temp and thus be very inefficient, or will be running a lot and using fuel which drags down the mpg.

I think this is one reason they don't want to make a diesel hybrid as diesels are affected worst by this; I know if I only did short journeys right now, my D4D Yarisususeses' MPG would drop like a stone and by an even bigger margin than what you're getting - I can get halfway to work before the cold engine light goes out as it is!

My dad currently gets about 30mpg in his diesel Focus driving to work, but if I took it on a drive to Birmingham I could probably get 70+mpg out of it!

So yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. Or you could take it on a 55mph motorway run to drag the average mpg figure up :P

[ultraposty]

Thanks Cyker

I understand all about the reasons petrol engines lose efficiency in the cold but I still stick by my comments that this drop is rather excessive (it is 23%)

My wife has a Yaris she got about 51 mpg in summer she now is getting about 47 mpg - a drop of about 8%

So what we are looking at is not really what you would expect from a pure ICE the general problem seems to be really exacerbated by the Hybrid design.

Although daveybee says it is a known phenomenon I would reply that it may be on this forum but how many people are going to be on the TOC forum before they buy a Toyota?

Please don't think I am knocking the car as I love it. The dealer I got it from has been superb over the years with service on mine and my wifes Supras ond since on her little Yaris.

I am somewhat surprised from their past record that they did not tell me of the large drop in mpg in cold weather and I am very disappointed with Toyota.

I look forward to more discussions on this forum and am impressed by the quick response to my post.

Thanks guys.

Barry

[johalareewi]

I understand all about the reasons petrol engines lose efficiency in the cold but I still stick by my comments that this drop is rather excessive (it is 23%)

My wife has a Yaris she got about 51 mpg in summer she now is getting about 47 mpg - a drop of about 8%

You are looking at it the wrong way round.

In winter, hybrids run the ICE to generate heat to warm things up, as well as to drive you around. Non hybrids do pretty much the same.

In summer, hybrids don't have to run the ICE to generate heat, they are only used to drive you around. Non hybrids can't do this, they generate heat all the time.

So instead of saying you get a drop in mpg in the winter, you should be saying you get a massive mpg increase in the summer which your wife's Yaris can't achieve.

For the record. The difference in mpg for me (gen3 Prius) between summer and winter is about 15mpg (a 30% increase winter to summer)

[kithmo]

43 mpg Winter, 58mpg summer on my 2.5 mile on my short commute.

If my maths is correct, a 26% drop from Summer mpgs is about what I get in winter.

If you run the figures the other way it's a 35% increase from Winter to summer.

Show me another 1.8 petrol engined Automatic family sized hatchback that does 43 mpg in winter and I'll complain to Toyota.

[ultraposty]

I give up

We beg to differ on what is responsible advertising - if Toyota gave an average per year figure for their advertising I would be happier!

Barry

[Sagitar]

I give up

We beg to differ on what is responsible advertising - if Toyota gave an average per year figure for their advertising I would be happier!

Barry

The

I give up

We beg to differ on what is responsible advertising - if Toyota gave an average per year figure for their advertising I would be happier!

Barry

I give up

We beg to differ on what is responsible advertising - if Toyota gave an average per year figure for their advertising I would be happier!

Barry

The EU legislation on this topic is designed to create a level playing field on which customers can compare the consumption performance of different vehicles. You can argue (and I would agree with you) that the test specification is inadequate for all vehicles under all conditions, but it is very difficult to do better and it would be most unhelpful IMHO to allow individual manufacturers to publish their own figures outside some internationally agreed test specification.

The information supplied to me in the Prius brochure that I read before purchasing makes it very clear that the consumption figures given in the brochure are those produced by measuring in accordance with the current EU legislation. There is also a footnote that makes it clear that the actual values that I achieve may vary from those measured and will depend upon a wide range of variable factors.

Knowing from experience of previous vehicles that the EU figures are unlikely to represent fully what happens in reality, I made a point of carrying out my own research and arriving at my own judgements. There are masses of data available about what real drivers achieve (on Fuelly for example) and I have to say that the figures I am achieving with my own Prius offer no surprise and are entirely consistent with the information that I considered before buying it.

I am sorry to be so blunt, but I think your comment on responsible advertising is more than a little naive.

[daveybee]

I can see both sides of this discussion, but at the end of the day, the disclaimers in advertising are there for one reason only - to protect the manufacturer, not the purchaser.

In this case, ultraposty appears to feel aggrieved (and is quite entitled to feel so) because he was not made aware of the "issue", and the fact that he was not party to the knowledge that is available on this forum isn't his fault - if you're not aware of a potential problem, you don't go looking for it. I remember that my introduction to TOC was to find a solution to a smoking Avensis and I was shocked to find that my problem was well known and a well documented issue on the forums, but I would not have been searching if I had not had the problem.

Anyway, the important thing is that ultraposty is now part of the TOC Hybrid family and as such, is party to all the information we share between ourselves. If he has questions, he can ask them and he knows he will get an answer.

Dave.

[johalareewi]

I guess it can depend on when you got your first hybrid. I got mine in winter and the mpgs were better than my previous car so I was happy. :) Come summer when the weather warmed up, my mpg went up even more. :D Conversely, had I got mine in summer and been very pleased about the wonderful mpgs, it would be disconcerting to reach winter to find the mpgs dropping like a stone. :(

There are lots of other things that can cause the mpgs to vary (like tyre pressures, the wrong oil, etc.) and you can only really find out about these on forums like this. I wouldn't really expect the dealer to know all of this (except perhaps Parts-King?).

[Cyker]

The Yaris comparison is tricky as the Yaris has some big advantages over the Prius; I'm guessing you have the 1.0 VVTi one, so already the engine is much smaller and it weighs something like half a ton less than a Prius.

Even vs the fancy electrics, weight and engine size are probably the two biggest factors affecting mpg.

The thing with smaller engines is that they warm up faster too so the temperature differences don't affect it as much.

As I said before tho', just be glad you aren't doing that in a diesel!

On a slight tangent, it will be interesting to see how the HSD Yaris does :) They've somehow crammed the biggest engine of all the Yarisusseses AND the HSD into it so the weight will suffer a bit but it should still be a lot lighter than the Prius and Aurisususeses :D

[AEO]

Hi Barry,

There is something we can do about this problem.

You have an Auris HSD, and you have it, because you want to save energy, at least, that`s what I think why you drive in a car like this.

I also have a Auris HSD (frost blue) and I like my car very much, because it is a very good efficient car, I don`t feel ashamed to be seen in this car.

How to save as much fuell as posible?

In winter the low temperatures are our worst enemy, and that`s because we lose to much heat, as others told you allready.

I have my Auris HSD since late October 2010, and when I started driving this car, I tried to keep record of it`s fuell consumption in my computer.

Here in the Netherlands we have no gallons and miles, but liters and kilometers.

So I keep to my liters and kilometers.

I don`t know how many liters you can put into a gallon, but I know 1 mile is exactly 1,609 kilometer.

At first, when my car was new, it was at it`s least efficient, the engine must have a couple of thousand kilometers on it, to become more efficient.

And now to the point. At first my Auris got 19,8 kilometers on one liter petrol.

When the weather turned very cold in december 2010, my worst mileage was 16,6 kilometers on one liter of petrol!

Sorry, you must calculate my numbers into miles and gallons, but to me these numbers were shockingly disappointing!

So I decided around mid-January 2011 to have the grill blocked.

I went to a store where they sell all kinds of things for DIY, so I bought a kind of black foam with self adhesive backside, I cut it the size of the grill and blocked it, and I got back to 19,8 kilometers on a liter, but now at freezing temperatures!

I blocked both lower and upper grill, and when ambient temperatures got above 10 degrees Celcius, I removed it.

You can read a lot about this on the Toyota Prius Forum (USA), and that`s what I did.

The upper grill is small, but it keeps your inverter cool, so above 10 degrees Celcius you must remove the upper grill blocking.

The lower grill blocking, this year I will keep it closed up to 15 degrees Celcius to test how that will work.

So far it saved me quite some petrol.

And I have never seen my temperature indicator turning too hot!

Think about it, when you drive in city traffic at low speeds, your ICE turns off, so you go electric only, but the wind, coming in through the grill, takes away a lot of heat, and while you wait for a traffic light, yout engine does not turn off because it can`t reach it`s ideal temperature.

With grill blocking it turns off, because you lose less heat!

Succes and greetings from the Netherlands, where it is very cold right now (but still 20 kilometers per liter),

AEO

[Cyker]

Y'know, I'm surprised Toyota haven't added some sort of vent that closes airflow to the radiator when the engine is cold yet.

Apparently some new gen Fords are getting that; I hope they haven't patented it like their damned heated windscreens or we'll never see it!

[kithmo]

I think the Ford heated screen patent has expired, so I don't know why other manufacturers don't fit them.

[Red diesel]

What kind of driving do you do - if its urban and/or all short journeys - then 50 mpg

is excellent. Contrary to what their fans will make out - diesels don't do much better in the real world. And the Hybrid is a more reliable set up - no modern diesel type issues - lovely.

I would suspect the hybrids computers are a tad more sensitive to weather then a normal car (fuel economy wise). But looking at it from another view point - the old 1.6 diesel used in the Mk 1 and 2 Golfs - were considered to be able run on the whiff of fuel.

But your getting the same mileage from a petrol car thats more comfortable, safer

and its automatic. Whats not to like - it really does show how far cars have come.

(and i speak as someone who likes said old VWs and doesn't like most modern cars lol)

Red diesel