Electric Buffalo Chips - A Prius Adventure

John Welsh said:

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Personally, I like the "trunk shade". For the when you fold the seat or carry bulky items there's even a dedicated storage area for it under trunk floor in the black bin.

I never knew that 

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Another Prius tidbit...  To the left of the steering wheel, on the dash is a roller dial for the brightness of the dashboard, specifically just the "combination meter" which is the speedometer et al.  I have never had a car where I have to adjust this dial with any frequency much less the constant adjusting I seem to do on the Gen2 Prius. 

During the day, it is it's brightest but if you drive with your headlights on during the day, it self dims the speedo lights when you turn on the headlights.  This self dimming is too dim, So I have to up the dial.
In the evening, if the dial is set for a good daytime brightness, even just it's normal daytime brightness, I then find it is too bright for night time.  Sure, it self dims for night time but maybe it doesn't dim enough.  Either way, I tend to make a lot of adjustments to the dial.  Its within easy reach but its something I have to do more than I have on any other car.    

The black squares on the door handles and trunk...  

With the smart key, proximity key, as you approach the front doors or trunk with the key in your pocket the car automatically unlocks the front door or trunk, easy!  Side note: this proximity key never unlocks the rear doors.  For that you have to either hit the fob 2 times or as I do, let it unlock my door and then I hit the unlock button on the armrest to unlock the door for my daughter entering the rear seat.  

So, you can approach the car and never have to take the key out, and the door will unlock.  Then when exiting the car, to save you the indignity of having to reach in your pocket for the fob to lock the door, instead, with the proximity key still in your pocket you can just close the door and then tap the black square and the whole car will lock. 

Common for me in a parking lot is to exit the car and then hit the trunk square to lock the car.

myf16n said:

I had a 2007 that the prior owner lowered (springs only), installed a body kit and big wheels. The wheels dropped mpg to 40-42. They likely hurt acceleration too. 
 

The suspension on the Prius is a parts-bin affair. I don't remember what car shared the front suspension, but if I remember correctly the rear was shared with the Pontiac Vibe and its twin Corolla. I found a larger rear swaybar from a Vibe and it bolted right in and had a noticeable effect.  The car railed around on and off ramps. I didn't get around to upgrading the front bar before selling it, but it was possible. 

[…]

Thanks for the reminder on the rear bar.  Looks like the Corolla bar is more available around me than the Matrix/Vibe, might be good to get it just to confirm that it's 22mm (24mm?)... since there's some "upgraded bars" between 24mm and 26mm.

also, dropping this link/thread here for later, as "research":   
https://priuschat.com/threads/1nz-fe-cam-swap.180991/

So, why am I considering some of this stuff?  We'll, digging into some numbers via "spreadsheet magic"...

if 15hp and 150#s of weight can be found to take out of a 2G Prius, it would be on the outside edge of competitiveness with GridLife's SundaeCup.  Even without that, thanks to it's drag ratio, lower h base height, and increased track width... it has some distinct dynamic advantages over the 'benchmark' '07-08 Honda Fit.

Do I want to win SundaeCup?  Nope.  I probably won't even compete in it (afaik, my driving experience is short of TimeAttack experience requirements).  However, benchmarking against those times, while experimenting with "the right way to track a Prius" and some minor mods, I feel will help provide a baseline for any future endeavors to expand the known 2G Prius performance envelope.

Some of the options are outside what I will/should-do to/with a cream puff example such as what I've bought from Dusterdb13.  But, one of its benefits are a "fresh NiMH pack", and low buy-in.  So, combined with the imperative of "don't screw it up too much"... I hope provides a good "toe in the water" of driving a Toyota HybridSynergyDrive on track, and hopefully better characterizing the drawbacks and benefits in doing so.  While also maintaining a car that "simply turns the miles, cheaply and headache free".  We'll, that's the current goal at least.

John Welsh said:

The black squares on the door handles and trunk...  

With the smart key, proximity key, as you approach the front doors or trunk with the key in your pocket the car automatically unlocks the front door or trunk, easy!  Side note: this proximity key never unlocks the rear doors.  For that you have to either hit the fob 2 times or as I do, let it unlock my door and then I hit the unlock button on the armrest to unlock the door for my daughter entering the rear seat.  

on my 05, you have to touch the inside of the door handle or press the rear hatch release to unlock the door. 
 

if I touch the driver's door it just unlocks that door.  If I press the hatch button or touch the passenger handle it unlocks everything.  So I will touch the pass handle as I walk around to open the car for my kids if I'm on that side.  Otherwise I'll do what you do and unlock the rest with the armrest button. 

I might have to rename the car to "flash"...

It's now Titled/Rego'd/Plated.  !yay!

Sleepywife had a day of running around the Metro area, a good chunk of it during rush hour.

I think her time driving the Leaf has made her a bit of an efficiency expert (that and the traffic creating conditions the Prius excels at)...

Holy crap. 

Only time I saw numbers that high was downhill off the mountain 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Holy crap. 

Only time I saw numbers that high was downhill off the mountain 

True.  We're averaging mid to low 30's on our Priuii during the winter months.  Running the heat causes the ICE to run more, decreasing mileage.

Amazing mpg.  Well done Sleepywife.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Holy crap. 

Only time I saw numbers that high was downhill off the mountain 

it would really be something if you could manage to go uphill off the mountain.

we're having a bit of a heatwave here.  pretty sure temps were above 65 for most of that, so headlights/radio were the main "draw" beyond motive power.

considering the MDX (the other option she would have had before now) would have probably been in the 12-16mpg range... this was easily 4x better than that.  Discussing it, she mentioned that as she was driving she was wondering if the fuel gauge was broken:  "why isn't it moving?"

I think there's a pretty good chance a Highlander Hybrid or RX450h is going to end up in the driveway instead of the MDX sometime this year.

Great mpg at 57.2

I also see the temp is 57. Near perfect conditions of not needing heat nor needing AC. Heat comes from engine temps so need for heat causes engine to run more. AC is an electric draw which then causes engine to run more to recharge battery.  I have seen my best mpg during similar weather on hours of rural two-lane staying below 55 mph. Outside of that, 42-44 mpg is my common result and that is without giving any consideration and commonly setting cruise at 77 mph. 

I should probably begin at the end-ish...

that's how this evening ended... with all the accoutrements back in their respective places.

I'm an engineer; and while I reckon if I posed the question of "what are engineers good for?"  Most of y'all on the forum would resoundingly chorus back something like:  "nothing!";  "making things overly complicated";  "being pedantic"

maybe those are all true.  but, one thing we end up having to do a lot of is measuring.  I'm about elbow deep into some spreadsheets thinking about wheels and tires that are available in short order.  I'm still thinking through that, so in order to do something, anything, on the car this week... I decided to measure some things.

So, before that above, I took all of the 'easy to yank' pieces out of the hatch area and weighed them.

First the carpet (5#s):

Then the cargo cover (7#s):

The Cargo Tray with Tools (8.2#s):

The Jack/Holder (4.2#s):

The Spare & Hold-down (25#s):

The 'Side Plastic/Carpet Covers' (1.4#s):

The 'Side Cargo Bin' (0.8#s):

and, just because John said it was easy for indelicate younger persons to yank out (and just as easily put back in), and I should probably get some experience with this fix... the Rear Seat Cup Holders (1.4#s):

For a grand total of easily removable (and re-replaceable) weight of:  ~53#s

Running at 1/2 a tank, would theoretically raise that up another ~30#s

no pictures, and a few hundred miles late... since the TL has been horking up the free spot in the garage... but I've got the oil changed on the Prius.  130,480-odd miles on it now.

Mileage has dropped into the 49's the last week or two.  But it's still doing what we need it to do, filling in backup duty whenever sleepywife decides it's too cold to take the Leaf.  Plus it's helped take some load off of my mind as I've had to step into a burgeoning new roll with the sleepyparents... which is adding some extra miles than I expected.

Took a peek at the front pads, and they're maybe getting a bit low.  Guess I'll have to start studying up on that, and rearrange the garage a bit so it's easier to get unfettered access to both sides of a lifted car (and lift both sides of said car).  Next up, roadtrip to see how much ire... it can stir up at GridLife CMP.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Cool stuff on the weights.  Thanks for the effort.  

Front pads go about 130k miles.  I wonder if yours are original.  Did Michael ever replace them (while replacing nearly everything else.)   The rear shoes are good for 200k.  I once thought there was so little on my rears that I was going to change them.  I ordered new rear pads.  When they arrived I was dumbfounded at how little the thickness was of these new pads.  That's what made me realize that I still likely had better than 50% material remaining.  

Picture lifted off Rock Auto to try to show how thick (thin) a new rear shoe is:

I never changed the brakes or flushed the fluid that i recall. It'll be in the logbook if i did, and when. 

Im glad its serving you well, mr buffalo 

We did our part in decimating thr bug population yesterday.  Car did go, although pushing to get down here lowered us to 48.9mpg.  Maybe I can blame that on the bug carcasses?

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Seems to me you need to scrape the bug guts off and weigh them...then you'll need to calculate the effect they had on aerodynamics too...haha!

All of this Prius talk is inclining me to grab one for my young soon-to-be-driver.