Toyota Prius, Fact or Fiction

[twstanley]

Very True Pat! If you want to be totally green, walk. I can't walk to work, so I have to drive something, no public transportation from my home in the country to downtown KC.

So...I drive a diesel VW, 45 mpg. So it;s greener than my diesel truck, not as green as walking would be...haha.

It is far more cost effective and feasible to put a 99.9 % effective scrubber on the output of a coal fired power plant than to attain that level of clean air output on the huge number of hybrid autos that same plant could charge up at night when those autos are plugged in....

[Pat]

twstanley, Right agin. Walking is greener. Staying home is greener still if you could telecomute or live near where you work. Many people living closer to where they work, reducing their commute could make a decent impact on polution and dependence on foreign oil.

The "PLUG IN" Prius will not have the energy storage capacity to give enough range to support many of the commuters' required range. Of course it wil help but bailing the Titanic with a thimble would have helped too, just not very much.

Your diesel vehicle is a good one. Unfortunately there is a huge anti-diesel bias here in the US (mostly ignorance and hearsay unsupported by "modern" fact,) hence the small number of sales for family and commuter vehicles where in contrast in Europe diesels are a huge segment of the market. If it wasn't for this bias the Prius might have been a diesel electric.

The concept of the electric commuter is appealing but the technology just isn't here yet. A plug-in Prius type hybrid with FUTURE TECH batteries could make a big step toward a mostly electric car with ICE for backup as much as anything for shorter trips.

My best ever MPG for a tank was only 52.8 and we typically get 45-51 MPG with a mix of the two drivers. My wife gets significantly less MPG. Of course I would argue that we are more comfortable than you while we are doing it.

I'd like to have a small diesel PU like the old Isuzu but not very likely these days.

Patrick

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[twstanley]

I heard a couple interesting stories on NPR ( this might have been mentioned in this thread already ) about companies making 'plug-in' kits for the Prius. I guess these consist of a charger and some additional battery packs, I would guess a bit of modification to not engage the gasoline engine until the additional battery capacity is used up...

I would debate the comfort issue with you, our VW is a Passat four door and is a nice comfortable car, at least comfortable enough that my wife, me and our 18 month old daughter drove straight back from northern Michigan to KC at the end of our vacation in July (that was 900 miles and a bit, we were pretty tired after that). I guess it depends on which comfort factor you were considering, driving quality, room, etc. The most uncomfortable thing about the Passat is with an 800 mile range between fill ups, you can't just wait until you need gas to stop and get a bite to eat or visit a restroom...at least I can't. [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

Oh! (edit) I blame GM for ruining the diesel car market in the US...those GM diesels they put out that were basically reworked gas engines were terrible and I think folks still recall them. I know some were fine but most were really bad. And the Army had the wisdom to let them build the Hummer with that 6.2 liter GM diesel in it....the gutless wonder. My hummer in Iraq had such a weak injection pump in it (and maintenance couldn't get one to replace it with for a long time) that I had to open the hood and pour cold water on the injection pump to get it to seal enough to restart .... not something convenient to do on your average Baghdad street. The maintenance folks had lots of problems with the injection pumps over there, mostly because the fuel we were using was JP4, not standard diesel, so a lot of the lubricicity wasn't there. It also did a great job of cleanin g gunk out of the fuel system, which was a problem, as some of that gunk was needed to keep the injection pumps sealing. Ahh well. All's well that ends well so to speak.

I also think market forces (cheap fuel) here have kept public demand for diesel cars from developing...in europe with their $5 a gallon fuel they have long had support for diesel cars that get 50+ mpg....

[Pat]

Tim, There are web sites devoted to hybrids, www.Priusonline.com for one. The computer sys of the Prius has been hacked and all sorts of goodies have been added by follks, not just extra batteries. Japanese version of Prius has a switch to lock out the ICE for electric only operation. A stock Prius isn't going far on batt only (never was intended to) but with the new batt technology and larger batts to boot, short drives at moderate speeds will certainly be possible. Apparently Toyota thinks it will do well enough to warrant a plug in. Hopefully it isn't marketing hype with no engineeering behind it.

Like guys arguing (mindlessly) that the color of a tractor makes it better than another, I was just tweaking you a bit about comfort. I have no problem with your ride. I do find that the Prius has more leg room than many cars anywhere remotely near its size. If I put the driver's seat all the way back I can't reach the wheel comfortably. If I adjust the drivers seat to my liking: a decent tilt back and back far enough for comfortable leg position to give a near straight arm "Sports car" hands on wheel position and then get out of the car and get in the back seat behind "myself" I still have ample legroom clear space between my knees and the front seat. I am 6'2" and NOW 250 lbs. I looked at Subaru Foresters and Outbacks and scads of other cars and I wouldn't want to sit behind me in most of them. Although advertised as a 5 passenger (5 sets of seatbelts) 4 adults is comfortable, 3 in the back is at best a temporary measure for adults.

I was researching the VW diesel (my wife likes diesel) but I was "scared off" by declining quality as reported by Consumers Reports.

Roger your comments on GM. What BOZOS. Milling the heads for compression and replacing the spark plugs with injectors doesn't make a very good diesel. I had a friend who sold his GM "diesel" truck right after the second engine replacement under warranty before it got sick again. What the hummer needs is a Cummins 5.9 or maybe better yet one of the Mercedes (OOPS, Daimler Chrysler) truck diesels.)

The lab where I worked did lots of trick stuff on hummers so I saw a lot of them in various configurations. Used to think I wanted one but too expensive and too GMC under the hood. Ever see a hummer with a hydraulic mast that telescoped straight up in the air with a radar on it? Just one of many toys I saw at the lab. We also were involved a lot with SEAL stuff, being neighbors so to speak to the unit at Coranado.

The range on the Prius is less than your Passat. It holds only about 11 gal so 500 miles is about it. I don't usually go over about 400 without fueling and without a "Human Element Range Extender" My range does not exceed the Prius range.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[twstanley]

The bad rep the VW's have is fairly justified....I have been using the resources on the internet to work out the little quirks that my VW has developed.

It came (used) with a bad main power relay that would just kill the engine at random, it happened twice in my first week of ownership, I looked it up on the web, got the $25 part at the dealer and stuck it in relay/fusebox under the dash, no further problems...I would bet that was the reason the car was traded in, if you don't know about those relays how would you diagnose an intermittent failure like that?

One of the glow plugs went out, not a big deal so I changed that. Then I got this strange ROM error code from the computer with the check engine light being on. Again, looked it up on the web, turns out there is a 2 inch piece of vacuum hose INSIDE the electronic control unit (ECU) box that measures turbo boost...and this eventually fails and gets a hole in it. Talk about a design goof, having a vacuum hose inside an aluminum box...how about just have the vacuum hose plug directly into the boost sensor from the outside of the box? Ahh well.

The door handles have a roll pin that wiggles out, you take out one phillips screw, slide the door handle forward and pull out, then take needle nose pliers and squeeze the pin back where it needs to be...little quirks like that.


I have read a number of stories where the VW dealers didn't know these common problems and spent lots of money replacing ECU's and sensors to no avail...so if you buy one of these, it's just about like starting a new hobby, you had best be prepared to diagnose these things yourself.

www.tdiclub.com is a great resource, fyi.

I agree with you completely that the best thing for a hummer would have been that 5.9 Cummins engine that oddly enough, is in our Dodge 3/4 ton truck. We have had great luck with ours.

[Pat]

Tim, Ditto on the Cummins. I bought a Cummins 5.9 and it just happened to come installed in a 1 ton 4X4 Dodge truck, which I only drive when required, with the Prius being the first priority.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

I'd like to have a small diesel PU like the old Isuzu but not very likely these days

Pat, you just may be able to do this by converting a small plder PU to a diesel engine from a tractor or some other source.

[Pat]

Egon, I used to have a source for retired diesels from British cabs but those days are gone.

Pat

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

web page

One location for a plethora of diesel engine choices.

Kubota sells diesel engines that should be adaptable to a vehicle.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, I have never found adapting an engine to a non-related vehicle to be an easy or innexpensive task. It is all possible but typically expensive, even if you can find a source for adaptor plates and such they are typically only made for common-popular engine adaptations. You can put a RX-7 Mazda into an A-H Bug Eyed Sprite or a Chrysler Hemi into a Model T pickup but it wouldn't be for economy or practicality, all things considered.

It is amazing to see all the adaptor plates that have been prolduced for replacing the aircooled VW with other engines but retaining the VW transaxle. I was tempted to "UPDATE" my buggy but I understand the primitive VW engine with its total lack of sensors and mechanical simplicity and wouldn't be able to do anything to a modern engine. At least with the VW I can adjust the valves and time it and all you need is simple hand tools. I like the timing method...

Drive up a moderate hill at full throttle and if the engine doesn't ping, advance the spark and repeat. Repeat this approach till the engine pings and then slowly retard the spark till it just stops pinging plus just a hair more. This is as good as it will get. Timing lights? We don't need no stinkin' timing lights!

Oh by the way, the BugEye would hit 130 in a heartbeat but if you sprint and stop on the third sprint you will not stop because the brakes on the sprite couldn't handle the job and converting to sufficient disks was another small mint.

Thanks for the URL, I didn't know Perkins was doing diesels in China. Perkins and Westerbeke both used to make good little diesels but I have been out of touch.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]