Hello From A Proud New Prius Owner

[Plane Sailing]

I've been lurking on this site for a month or so, while I was weighing up the possibility of a Prius, and I'd just like to say a big thanks to everyone here for their various contributions.

After the first test drive my wife and I loved the car, we just had to work up the justification :) We were able to buy a 2003 TSpirit from Steve Eagell toyota in Milton Keynes, and we had a great experience with them.

The day after we got it we drove up to the lake district and were pleased to see that contrary to expectations we got 57mpg average on the motorway at 70mph, which was nice. The SatNav worked extremely well too - a wonderful toy.

Our driving around town is a much lower average at the moment - only just creeping up to 50mpg. The only thing I can attribute that to is that the first 5 minutes of each drive gets much lower than average consumption, something to do with the engine warming up perhaps? I don't know yet.

So far I've seen two in the lake district (one silver, one black) and two in London (both silver but one had green trim on the handles and spoiler and a personalised numberplate - the rather amusing EGO3 ECO!)

After starting with thanks, I'd like to close with a request. I'm planning to get a bluetooth mobile that will work well with the Prius. Does anyone have experience of one that works? I've heard of Nokia problems with transferring phonebooks...

Cheers

Alex

[T600]

Welcome to TOC Alex.

Glad you like the Prius - great car if you do lots of miles. Surprised to see your comments about the round town mileage - I thought that was it's strongest point as the regeneration doesn't add much on the motorway unless it's stop start driving.

T

[Plane Sailing]

My observation over the 12 days I've owned it so far :) are that acceleration more than velocity is the key factor in mpg... if I'm sticking at a consistent speed (50/60/70) on level terrain I'm generally getting higher mileage - it was where cruise control certainly came in handy. I was interested to see that on a level section of road yesterday I was doing 40mph and suddenly the electric motor took over and my next minutes cruising was entirely electric with the petrol engine shut down. Speedy EVA?

Around town there tends to be more speeding up and slowing down going on, and that seems (at the moment) to be reducing the overall mileage. It will be intersting to see how things develop over the next few months.

Cheers

[gordypix]

WELCOME TO TOC and Toyota ownership

[Guitarman]

Another convert! Great stuff!

I've had my 2001 vintage for 3500 miles now. Last weekend a did my first longish distance motorway trip from the Dorset/Hampshire border to North Finchley. On the way up, with the exception of the roadworks on the M25 I was doing a good 75mph and my consumption fell from 59.9 to 59.7. Disgraceful! On the way home I paid attention to the mpg and the average had increased to 60.00 when I got back home. So it's all to do with the old right foot and understanding when's best to put it down or lift it off. Since the weekend I've hit 60.01! I can't see it getting much higher than this, but you never know.

The next long trip is a hilly run down to darkest Devon so that will be interesting!

Happy motoring!

G.

[Braindead]

Welcome to the small but growing band of enlightened drivers

Eighteen months in and I still think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Went up into the peak district a few days ago. Got 60mpg on the 35mile round trip.

[Mindings]

Good to see someone local. Steve Eagell are great - my wife has a Yaris bought from them and although my company car - Prius TSpirit is leased - they will be getting my servicing business. My Tspirit is Blue so if you see one travelling between J13 and J9 of M1 fairly regularly then it may be me!

I have a Nokia 6310i and it works great, once I figured out how to upload entries in the phone book. These have to be done one at a time using the Send Business Card feature. The sequence is a little tricky - you need to prepare the prius entry first which effectively disconnects you - the phone then reconnects through the bluetooth section under the business card. This is a little painful first time round, but once the data is in the car's system its no problem at all. I can send you the full instructions if you go that route.

You are right about the first 5 minutes its the main thing that can upset an overall great mileage performance. Most of the time my runs are long enough to cancel this period out, but sometimes at weekends I may do a few very short journeys, which is not so good. However we must bear in mind that its still better than most cars on the road where the start up performance is even worse.

All I know is that my weekly fuel costs have dropped dramatically - at a rough guess I am spending about 40% of my previous spend and my mileage has gone up (Due to the novelty of the car!)

Anyway - good luck and have fun!

Phil

I've been lurking on this site for a month or so, while I was weighing up the possibility of a Prius, and I'd just like to say a big thanks to everyone here for their various contributions.

After the first test drive my wife and I loved the car, we just had to work up the justification :) We were able to buy a 2003 TSpirit from Steve Eagell toyota in Milton Keynes, and we had a great experience with them.

The day after we got it we drove up to the lake district and were pleased to see that contrary to expectations we got 57mpg average on the motorway at 70mph, which was nice. The SatNav worked extremely well too - a wonderful toy.

Our driving around town is a much lower average at the moment - only just creeping up to 50mpg. The only thing I can attribute that to is that the first 5 minutes of each drive gets much lower than average consumption, something to do with the engine warming up perhaps? I don't know yet.

So far I've seen two in the lake district (one silver, one black) and two in London (both silver but one had green trim on the handles and spoiler and a personalised numberplate - the rather amusing EGO3 ECO!)

After starting with thanks, I'd like to close with a request. I'm planning to get a bluetooth mobile that will work well with the Prius. Does anyone have experience of one that works? I've heard of Nokia problems with transferring phonebooks...

Cheers

Alex

←

[Plane Sailing]

I'm glad to hear a good report of Steve Eagell, confirming the good feelings I had about them.

We're still getting the hang of driving well with the Prius. Among the things that are helping are using the B setting more often to support braking (which leads to more occasions when the car goes into higher-speed Battery powered cruise) and starting the car off on EV when possible - we live near the top of a shallow hill and that gives us about a mile or so on EV, often getting right down the hill to the supermarket :)

My goodness this car is fun to drive!

Cheers