Crawling up steep hills (painfully slow!)

[CurranShelter]

I've always found with the Auris Hybrid that performance on hills is not what you'd call sprightly, but just recently I've been driving a new route involving quite a steep hill (gradient sign says 17%) and the performance up there is truly pitiful. The limit there is 60mph (fairly rural A road) but there's no danger of getting anywhere near that going up - I find I'm usually sat there, engine roaring, creeping up at no more than 25mph while folk stack up behind me and then seem to streak past effortlessly when the road widens out enough to do so. I've had caravans go past before now and the highlight last week was being swiftly overtaken by someone towing a livestock trailer. OK, so I don't generally floor it (feels like thrashing the car and I'm not sure my ears could take it) but I've been close to the mat even in PWR mode and can't say it feels like it will ever pick up much speed... it just feels gutless.

I realise it's not the sort of setting that this car is optimised for (despite the whole 'Touring Sport' branding), but sometimes it feels like it's verging on unsafe. I can't say I've ever read or heard much said about this, so I was beginning to wonder if this really is normal for the car, or if there could be anything amiss. It's going in for a service fairly soon, so it seemed like a good time to compare notes with people on here. I'm also interested to know if things are much different with the Corolla (1.8 or 2.0) as I believe there have been a few significant powertrain improvements since the Auris HSD came along (though I realise that's maybe a question for the Corolla forum!). Any thoughts?

[Mojo1010]

That's how it is, I have the MK3 Yaris hybrid and have to floor it going up steep hills if there wasn't much momentum to begin with and have put up with the engine roar. You have to floor it!

Have not driven the new corolla, the 2.0 will definitely be good. 

[Cyker]

I don't have an Auris hybrid, but that doesn't sound right to me - Even my old gutless Fiesta could get up a steep hill, but I would have to thrash it in a low gear.

Don't be afraid to give it some beans - The hybrids tend to be noisier under heavy acceleration as they can rev to whatever they like and aren't tied to road speed like normal cars are, but when you back off to cruise they quieten down.

One big advantage the newer ones with the dynamic force engines have is they can switch to Otto-cycle mode which gives them a lot more power and torque (At the expense of fuel economy) - Really nice for a quick burst of acceleration on steeper hills!

[TonyHSD]

Well the OP experience uphill it’s just about right for these cars. Can be bad or worse and it will depend a bit of Battery charge but if we exclude that all can be managed with accelerator control. When going uphill, joining motorways, overthinking other vehicles in Toyota hybrids all comes from the accelerator pedal. Because the transmission has no gears and the engine power is maintained by the mg1 speed you have to push it, if you sharply push the pedal to the floor the car will launch itself using all power available from petrol engine and hybrid Battery and all that power will be delivered in quickly and effortlessly. If you push halfway through the engine will be screaming high revs while electric motor will try to compensate lack of petrol power and the car will feel sluggish and noisy. Quick full throttle push for a few seconds to gain speed and momentum then slight release accelerator to maintain that speed  at lower rpm is the key for more pleasant experience. Efficiency will not be affected. Same pulse and glide technique but at higher speeds. 👍

[AisinW]

I drive in Alps every spring and summer for about 2000 miles a year.  I have  Auris TS and know the behaviour of the car going uphill in the Alps.  First, only fools driving 60mph uphill unless they have diesel with 400Nm torque or V6 hybrid like Lexus GS450h.  Our 1.8L hybrid has higher torque at low speed from MG2, especielly from 0 to 10mph, higher than diesel.  However the optimum torque per rpm ratio  is around 40mph, right at the border of  ECO and Power at the tachometer.  If we floor it to the max Power level, it accelerate well for short burst until the hybrid Battery is at low level.   We need Torque for climbing, not Horse Power alone.

Any Turbo charge car has very nice high flat torque from 1500 rpm to 4000 rpm, and that's why turbo engine works better on towing and uphill.  Meanwhile in hybrid cars the torque is like a roller coaster. The MG2 torque is very high at 0 rpm and going down until about 1000 rpm on ICE. It start climbing again at around 1500 rpm but not reaching the level of Turbo engine.  If you lug the engine right at the middle of the Power level on the tachometer, it is not optimum and the mixture of rich gasoline can be smell once the car stop.  The catalytic converter works really hard from the unburned fuel, it smell like melting aspalt.  I know it at the very first time climbing some hills on the Black forest during winter at about 50mph.  I prefer climb at speed 35-40mph and keep our sanity.  There is no need to climb fast anyway if we still want 4.5-5L /100 km in total climb up and go down.  I don't mind if a 1.0L TSI car pass me, because physically, this is the down side of naturally aspirated engine with Atkinson cycle (opposite of Turbo).  However, in flat road, the HP and passing capability is better than any 1.4TSI engine.  The towing capacity in Auris and Corolla 1.8L is only at 750 Kg.  The 2.0 L engine is more powerful and have much higher torque than 1.8L. 

If you want a better car with higher torque, get plug-in hybrid with much bigger Battery like Prius Prime, RAV4 Prime, or with larger engine like RAV4 or Camry. 

[Guest]

On 6/1/2023 at 5:18 PM, Mojo1010 said:

That's how it is, I have the MK3 Yaris hybrid and have to floor it going up steep hills if there wasn't much momentum to begin with and have put up with the engine roar. You have to floor it!

That's exactly what I learned with a Multidrive CVT Yaris. The first time I encountered a steep upward incline, part way up, I thought it was going to stall. I "floored", well almost, the accelerator which had the engine at high revs and the transmission must have selected a lower ratio to suit.

Now under similar circumstances I either try and gain momentum or get those revs high BEFORE the incline.

[TonyHSD]

All that is needed because cvt and eCVT has no gears. In classic auto transmission and manual do dsg  they will shift down to rise engine rpm so necessary torque is delivered and the car can overcome the gradient.
In hybrids it’s  even slightly more complicated as when you push the accelerator not only rpm rises but also mg1 changes it’s speed and in some cases can start turning in opposite direction to provide extra torque and together with mg2 to push the car accelerate quickly. 
Toyota hybrids are by no mean are fast cars but they aren’t slow at all. It’s just how they deliver the torque from the hybrid system to the wheels, it’s linear smooth while most other type cars are jerky with shift shocks and a lot more noise and bangs.
John ‘s example above is 100% correct and the best way to get the ultimate balance between performance and efficiency., trying to accelerate with moderate power keeping at the border between normal and power field on the power meter and when cruising to stay as long as possible at the middle. 👍

[Cyker]

TBH it's not much different in any low-power petrol car - The first time I went up a fast hill in my Mk2, I was in 6th and it was pretty obvious the 1.33L VVTi would not be able to maintain speed, but I was still used to my Mk1 D4D and its wide large torque band, and made that classic mistake of dropping to 5th, only to find the car had lost so much speed it was going too slow for 5th, so had to drop to 4th, but in doing so lost too much speed for 4th! By then I'd figured what would happen next so skipped 3rd entirely and did a block change to 2nd instead.

Engine was really revving at that point but I pushed it until it was well into 3rd gear territory before shifting to 3rd, and slowly building the speed back up.

The moral of the story is don't be afraid to rev the engine (albeit only once it's at operating temperature, and not before!!) - If your engine redlines at 7000rpm, it's fine to rev it up to 7000rpm. It'll not feel good if you're not used to it, but it's built for it so don't worry, otherwise they would have set the redline lower. With automatics, esp. CVT-type boxes, just floor it until you get to the speed you want and then back off enough to hold that speed and let the computer sort it out.

It's something I had to get back used to when I had the Mk2, as with the Mk1 D4D I never had to go above 3000rpm ever because the engine had so much mid-range torque, so going 4k+ felt like I was murdering the engine, but you can't drive a petrol engine at low RPM in high load situations as they're not designed for it, and I'd have to push that 1.33 up to 6000rpm sometimes, albeit briefly, to get it to move!

 

[Gray86]

The 2.0 Corolla is a big step up over a 1.8 Auris (I made the swap after a brief stint in a 2010 Auris Hybrid. The 2.0 Corolla has turbo-like torque, particularly when the traction Battery is well charged. 

[Cyker]

It's really nice  

The original Atkinson/Miller cycle-only engines always felt like smaller engines because of the delayed valve closing pushing a chunk of fuel out - I equated the 1.8 to a 1.3-1.5 in terms of feel, but because the new engines can switch to Otto-cycle mode, they feel like you've suddenly gained 0.3-0.5L of displacement when they switch and it's a very noticeable power boost!  

 

[CurranShelter]

Thanks everyone. I'm learning stuff here. 😁 So tempted to try a 2.0 Corolla, but the annoyingly sensible part of my brain tells me it wouldn't make financial sense just now (especially not with a new mortgage coming up), and I did get an Auris with longevity in mind, so I'll just have to be patient a while longer (and make sure I drive it properly up hills). Thanks for the tips!