Poor Yaris Hybrid Mpg?

[wayneanddee]

I am hoping for some helpful expert opinions and advice.

I recently bought a new Yaris hybrid. It's a really lovely car and I'm very pleased with it - however, the MPG doesn't seem to very good. I've done research on how to get best MPG and my wife and I are doing all the right things - driving in ECO mode, careful with braking, anticipating road conditions, getting into EV mode whenever possible, etc. I am only getting 48 - 50 MPG.

Although this seems lower than I expected, is this probably right, or should I be doing more?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

Wayne

[Parts-King]

I would not drive in Eco mode, but normal mode and EV where possible. The weather is the biggest influence and it will get better with a few miles on it and during the warmer summer weather (if it ever arrives) We have customers getting 55 ish and I have had the same sort of figures out of one

Kingo

[FROSTYBALLS]

See Honest John Real mpg - http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/toyota/yaris-and-yaris-hybrid-2011/15-vvt-i-hybrid - as an indication of what to expect once the car has got some miles under it's belt.

[wayneanddee]

Thanks for advice guys

[timberwolf]

For those advocating lots of use of EV mode, can you explain how the thinking has moved on from the following thread, the interesting stuff starts at message 12 or 13 where it is not recommended except in specific circumstances.

http://priuschat.com/threads/2010-prius-ev-mode-hack.64614/

I'm also mindful that you are referring to the Yaris Hybrid, but physics is still physics?

And for light relief ...

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2012/09/what-does-this-button-do-2.html

[rotty]

My wife's Yaris HSD is extremely variable with MPG. I have managed, on a good country run, to get 71mpg shown. However, any sort of M-way trips seems to kill good MPG dead.

Our 'old' Prius T-Spirit would get 55mpg at worst ... but not much more than 60mpg at best. I assumed that the Yaris would be much better, but the first tank of fuel showed an average of 53mpg, which is worrying. Ours wasn't new, but 11 months old - so had an oil service before we collected it, and I made sure to check it had 0W20 oil used as this can kill the consumption if 0w30 is used instead.

I'm hoping the warmer weather will improve things somewhat, and having just been down to the car to put the Touch&Go map update on (don't update unless you want your 7-digit postcode downgraded to 5-digit entry only) it was showing just over 65mpg avg.

[wass]

I was wondering why the new yaris hybrids didnt seem to perform well as regards fuel consumption. I would imagine that with all these high efficiency modern oils, the cars just arent run in until they've covered about 5000 miles since the modern oils dont allow the components to wear themselves in quite so easily as good old duckhams 20/50 used to.I certainly found this when I ran a motorcycle in recently. My fuel consumption generally improved steadily up to about 5000 miles and then found a plateau. I am guessing that a lot of the new Yaris hybrids arent being bought to cover astronomic mileages and therefore very few of them have sufficient miles on the clock in order to make any judgement as to what normal fuel condsumption could be.

[rotty]

The other thing I forgot to mention is the tyres. The tyres fitted to our Yaris are Continental Premium Contact 2 and checking the new tyre rating system shows them as poor performing for economy (F rated). You'd have thought Toyota would have put on the best Eco tyres available to keep MPG up and emissions down wouldn't you? Something like the Michelin Energy Saver+ which is a C rated tyre and about £3 per tyre more expensive.

[timberwolf]

Are they factory fitted tyres? Maybe the previous owner changed them?

[Mkuk0]

Keeping tyre pressures on the high side also helps the MPG figures, I have found.

[rotty]

Are they factory fitted tyres? Maybe the previous owner changed them?

Previous owner was Toyota UK ... and no, they are the standard tyres. No point in them being changed as the car has just over 4k miles on.

[johalareewi]

The mpg will get better as the car 'runs in' and as the weather warms up.

Also keep your tyres pumped up.

Under inflated tyres really hit the mpg.

[geoffatstanpit]

After 3500 miles my Yaris has done between 50 and 57 mpg. Usually less on motorways than pootling round the New Forest.

I've not been able to detect any difference between normal and ECO mode either in the way it drives or the fuel consumption - what is ECO supposed to do?

The reversing camera is magic! I've only had 2 insurance claims in 55 years driving, both reversing in car parks! Hopefully no more!

Shame about the tiny petrol tank though. My Leon did nearly 600 miles on a fill; the Yaris has never done more than 380.

Geoff

[Ethanedwards]

Since it got warmer and my 62plate Yaris HSD has just done 11K miles (in 8months) the MPG has improved and I'm now getting close to the 62mpg I was getting when I first bought it. Just had the first service and Lancaster Toyota Rayleigh did it for 145 quid.

Lent me a 1.33 Yaris Edition with 500 on the clock. Six gears drove like a rocket ship but only 46mpg. I think I made the right choice with the HSD it's just a nice place to be.

Shame Toyota cheaped out (on my T sprit) by not giving us the rear deck boards and centre arm rest console.

Now bought a service plan so the next four are already paid for.

[Cyker]

I think the main reason for the low MPG is simply because of the engine hasn't worn in; It takes forever on hybrids but the mpg should keep improving, esp. as the weather temps go up!

The Premium 2E's are good rubber so I don't think that would hurt too much; I'm quite sceptical of the tyre lableling atm as older pre-labelling tyres seem to get ratings much worse than they perform in real life.

Over-inflating them a bit will improve the rolling resistance without affecting grip noticeably (The 2E's are pretty grippy so pushing them a few psi above specs will improve mpg but the grip level won't be any worse than the Eco3's).

I routinely run my Premium 5's 5 psi above the full-load and high-speed pressures printed in the manual and have gotten high 50's to low 70's!

[Ancient Nerd]

Eagles may soar but Weasels don't get sucked into jet engines....

Who knows, weasels might fly, just like pigs!

[johalareewi]

what is ECO supposed to do?

PWR - normal - ECO change the way the accelerator responds.

With PWR you get most of the acceleration up front, with ECO you have to push the pedal down further to get the same acceleration. ECO is pretty good for driving on snow and ice.

On the gen3 Prius, ECO also throttles back the aircon a bit and will keep the petrol engine off more when in start stop traffic. I guess the Yaris hybrid will be similar.

[Terry953]

Are your figures accurate tankful to tankful quanities and calculated with the mileage done or taken from the on board computer?

I have found the computer readouts to be very optimistic, like my latest from my New Icon 60.xx MPG on the computer - 56.xx MPG from calculations [verified by Fuelly]

So be realistic and subtract around 4-6 Mpg from the computer - Sorry.

[timberwolf]

Are they factory fitted tyres? Maybe the previous owner changed them?

Previous owner was Toyota UK ... and no, they are the standard tyres. No point in them being changed as the car has just over 4k miles on.

Oh, okay. It seems a little odd not to fit that model with more fuel friendly tyres, I assume they are available?

[DMGbus]

The mpg of a hybrid can be seriously reduced by short trips - the petrol engine will be running cold for a higher proportion of a short journey than that of a longer journey. This is particularly noticeable in colder seasons. A cold (warming up) petrol engine is very inefficient in terms of fuel consumption.

The first 5 minutes of a journey in (for example) a Prius hybrid might only achieve 20 to 50 mpg ( cold weather more like 20 mpg, warmer weather more like 50 mpg). I have the facts and figures recorded over past 8 years to prove this and other mpg figures for the Prius. Fortunately most journeys are over 5 monutes from cold, so overall mpg comes in at 53 mpg (3rd gen 2009+ model) and 54 mpg (2004+ model). Note that the 2009 model returned slightly poorer mpg for me than the 2004 model.

The lowest ever mpg that I've seen on the display is 2 mpg (yes - two mpg). This was for a 5 yards movement with a cold engine and HV Battery too low to use EV mode.

See .jpg showing very poor starting mpg for a 2nd gen (2004 new) Prius - well below 25 mpg for first 5 minutes in January 2008.

[Petroleumblownapart]

Best I've had (once) is 78mpg over a 5 mile tun on the flat. I have had my Yaris HSD since September and in the warmer weather I averaged 52mpg over 4,000 miles of mixed driving. In the cold weather I averaged 48mpg but now summer?? is here again I am back up at around 52-54. Car is run in now and last week from Sheffield to Lincoln at legal speed limits I returned 62.5mpg. I think that is impressive. However I had used Premium petrol. Before you say it makes no difference I can tell you that after careful trials over 6 months IT DOES MAKE around 10% improvement on long journeys but not as much on short town trips (because the car is using electric drive more in town anyway). For long trips I use Premium but normal running around I use Regular, There is no change in performance which we all know is not sparkling but the HSD is nippy and smooth especially in town. I love my Yaris HSD and much prefer it to my previous Lexus for driving enjoyment.

Toyota have missed a trick by not having an independant heating system using a small diesel heater (which would need it's own fuel tank) or better still having a 240v plug in preheat system for use at home. Most wasted fuel in cold weather is to run the engine up to hot so the heater works and the engine is so efficient that it takes longer to get to that point.

Toyota's customer service with regard to the Satnav is CRAP however but that is another story!! I now use WAZE (Android) which is better to use than Google Maps and TomTom plus it is free with constant updates and instant traffic rerouting at no cost.

[Yolina]

Had my Yaris HSD since late October - winter mpg per tankful (calculated by me, not the car!) was in the 60-63 range, with the warmer temperatures it's 70+

I just leave it in "normal" mode and drive it like I would any car - I've always anticipated traffic and the likes but I also have a reasonably heavy right foot when pulling away from lights... I mostly drive in the London area, in usually fairly flowing traffic on a mix of 30/40/50 mph roads. As already mentioned, the first couple of miles in winter are really not that great and short trips are not good for fuel consumption. Plus your car needs running in, mpg will improve after that. The biggest difference for me came when I worked out exactly how much to press on the pedal to maintain speed whilst staying on electric power - there's a sweet spot - so a smidgen more and the petrol engine kicks in, a smidgen less and you're losing speed.

[johalareewi]

However I had used Premium petrol. Before you say it makes no difference I can tell you that after careful trials over 6 months IT DOES MAKE around 10% improvement on long journeys but not as much on short town trips (because the car is using electric drive more in town anyway).

The science says otherwise...

http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/topic/131470-supermarket-petrol/page-3#entry1220674

http://miniwww.tripod.com/gasoline.htm#6

Toyota have missed a trick by not having an independant heating system using a small diesel heater (which would need it's own fuel tank) or better still having a 240v plug in preheat system for use at home.

On the prius, there is a hole to take an engine block heater so it is easy to fit one.

Not sure if the yaris is the same.

[Teemu]

My Yaris Hybrid has now 27 000 km on the clock, one month until the first year birthday. Last two full tanks (calculated) 3,7 l/100km or 75,4 mpg and 3,8 l/100 km or 75,1 mpg! I have 15 inch wheels with Nokian tyres that I got dealer to fit when picked up the car. Always use 95E10 fuel.

Clearly mpg is excellent when driving with moderate speeds. In the weekend with driving only around town with speed limit 40-60 km/h ScanGauge shows unbelievable 83 mpg! Obviously Hybrid loves to be driven around towns and likes warm weather. Do not miss winter with 57 mpg...

Recent 400 km trip showed how much mpg improves when driving with EV. First 150 km on highway with 80-100 km/h speed limits than last 50 km on a smaller road with 60 km/h speed limit. Same trip back and the total was 74 mpg.

Don't like the navigator with expensive map updates, but other that just love the car!

[RK123456]

I am very sceptical about just how "green" hybrids are.

When my company car was due for renewal 4 months ago, I had a prius plug in on a 3 day extended test drive, I hated it, had an overwhelming feeling of disappointment and decided that it was not the car for me doing 30k plus miles per year, mainly on motorways. The only motivator for me considering a prius plug in was the 5% company car tax due to 49 gm/km CO2 and a salesman telling me the prius plug in was the best thing since sliced bread.

I chose an Avensis T2 2 litre diesel tourer and it does everything it says on the tin, it pulls like a freight train, it is torquey, it swallows a huge load, it has a set of robust steel wheels not a set of fragile alloy wheels and it has averaged 55 mpg without trying over the first 7k miles from new.

From some of the posts here, some are struggling to achieve this sort of mpg from a yaris hybrid.

I realise that hybrids are "green" but how green is it to charge a plug in car from the national grid with electricity from mainly coal or gas fuelled power stations? Also, the hybrids produce less CO2 but if they achieve similar or even worse mpg figures than a comparable diesel car (and the 2 litre avensis is by no means the most economical 2 litre diesel car on the road now) what is the hidden cost in CO2 produced in the refining of the extra fuel used in a hybrid compared to a modern diesel?

I am no petrol head but my fear is that in a few years time, we will all be forced by government policy into driving 1.6 litre or smaller diesel engined cars with low torque or hybrids.