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Old 05-14-2007, 02:31 PM   #53
HungLikeJesus
Only looks like a disaster tourist
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: above 7,000 feet
Posts: 7,208
Quote:
Originally Posted by LabRat View Post
What distance is it to work for you? (I can't remember if you mentioned that already) How does warm weather increase your gas mileage (besides having to let it idle to warm up in the winter)? Is that typical for a Prius? Wow.
LR - my drive to work is 19 or 20 miles (depending on route). I have an Insight, not a Prius (whenever I see one of those I say "gas hog," which makes my wife laugh).

My house is about 2500 feet higher than where I work, so there is a lot of downhill on the way in. Coming home I usually struggle to get over 50 mpg.

I don't fully understand why the mileage is so much worse in the cold weather (usually under 90 mpg on the commute in). It's partly because everything is tighter when it's cold (bearings, pistons, etc.) and partly because the engine idles very high for the first few minutes. But I almost never let the car warm up. If I could, I'd push it to the end of the driveway and not start it until the bottom of the first hill. But it's really just a game - the Insight game - the difference between 110 mpg and 90 mpg is only about 0.04 gallon for that distance.

I'm about to drive to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I'll see how it does.
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