Drive train quiery

[simoncrnfrth]

I have owned my Hybrid since February, I'm not sure if what I'm going to describe is just a characteristic of the car.

So here is the scenario,

From a cold start I drive my car to the local post distribution centre 2.5/3.0 miles away. When I press the power button, the ready light illuminates and after a short period the engine will start and idle. When I pull off the engine will not doing anything than just idle but after 2 minutes or so when I'm accelerating I can hear the engine now is under load and the rev's will vary depending on how I'm accelerating. The rest of the journey the engine will run when required. I get to the post distribution centre and I collect the item I missed delivery for. My car has probably been shut down for 5-10 minutes if that. I get back into the car and press power button, and the ready light illuminates. The engine does not start. I crawl through the industrial estate to the junction with the main road which is on a hill. There is a break in traffic so I pull out and start going up the hill back home. Because I'm going up a hill I'm obviously wanting more power so when the needle gets to about the 'C' in ECO the engine starts but it is just idling. Accelerating up the hill the needle is now in the top half of ECO just before POWER and the engine is still just idling. When I left the post office distribution centre I had 6 bars of Battery power but now with climbing the hill and the engine just idling the motor has done all the work and I'm now very quickly down to 2 bars. There is a very brief loss of power and now the engine starts to rev and power my car the remainder of the way up the hill to where it levels off and if I'm unlucky with the traffics light are against me and I have to stop. Whilst waiting for the traffic lights to change the engine will remain running and is now recharging the Battery that has depleted.  I notice that the engine will shut down when it has put 1 bar of charge into the Battery so I have now gone from 2 bars to 3. The remainder of the way home the engine will run when required.

The car has done the above scenario on slightly longer journeys of say 10 miles where the car has been shut down briefly but when the engine restarts it just idles and then eventually just shut down if I'm accelerating in the lower half of the ECO range, coasting or have come to a stop or if I'm in the upper part of ECO the engine will then start to rev.

Is this a characteristic of the car or have I got a problem which I need to get the car to Toyota for then to look into.

 

Many thanks

 

Simon

[Catlover]

I have had my 2010 Auris Hybrid 4 months now and it seems every day I am learning something.  When I am gong out I have to go through the estate I live on. So I press the "start" button and immediately press the EV button. This means I am going round my estate using Battery only. When I get to the main road I face a hill, not steep, but long. If there is traffic going my way I dont want to hold them up, if I stayed in EV mode it would and even in Eco mode it would, so I press Eco Mode button again and it switches ECo Mode off. This gives me the engine and more acceleration. When I get to the top of the hill I press the Eco Mode button again and I get the eco fuel economy and in that mode it handles the flat ok ie acceleration. If you press the Power button you get the full engine power PLUS the full Battery power and the car will shift speedily (but not very economically.

You need to play around with these buttons, cause you really dont want to be holding up the traffic. Note that in EV mode the acceleration is not going to be brisk because you are on Battery and the Hybrid is not running wholly on battery, and battery cars can be very brisk. Certainly on colder days the petrol engine will kick ini more, especially until it warmed up.

Forgot to add, the battery will not fully discharge, but when it gets low the engine will kick in.

Just try those buttons.

 

 

[simoncrnfrth]

The car is in eco mode. I will put the car into 'normal' mode and see if it still does it. Cheers for pointing that out catlover.

[Catlover]

The default is Eco Mode, press it again and it drops out of Eco Mode and you will feel a power boost (mine has a 2 second lapse). Pressing the PWR power button (not your START button) and you will feel loads of power. EV will only run at slow speeds - up to say 20mph then drop out.

You probably had no one to show you whats what. My salesman a t a VW dealer knew a bit about Toyota Hybrids but I have had to learn it by myself really. Today I learnt something else.

[Anthony Poli]

Hi Simon
Your car is operating normally, on the first part of your journey, the hybrid system is warming up the ice. On the uphill bit the system will use both electric and ice, while you are keeping the needle in the middle of the eco.
My own commute to and from work, is the same less than 50mpg in the morning and then upto 70+ on the return journey.
Still this is far better than my previous cars, the advantage of the hybrid system is with coasting and braking where your moving and still generating electricity to put back into Battery.
To get the best out of the electric, your best option is to pull away from the lights on the electric for the first few seconds, building up your speed and then just keep the car moving on the electric again.

The good news is, the hybrid system has designed to stop you from doing damage.


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