I bought (two months ago) a 95 previa SC, and I am pretty happy with it except that the gas mileage is really low: 19 MPG HWY and 15 on City. That is with a 4 cylinder engine!. I am nit sure if this is typical or I should get it checked. And if anyone recomends a goo previa mechanic in the San Diego CA area. TIA

165,000 and slowly replacing parts as they break. Hey, I just put on BFG Land Terrains from Walmart and I love them! For the price, performance, and style, they can't be beat.

A while ago I did the math and figured that given the choice between an Echo and a Prius, I would have to drive the Prius 400,000 km to make back the difference in gas savings.<br><br>It doesn't make sense from the standpoint of personal economy. But it makes sense for the environment. Don't forget that the Prius is not just using less gas, it's burning what it does way more efficiently and putting less poisons in the air. It will also have significantly less impact on the acoustic environment.

&gt; midas89 said:<br>&gt; drive on mostly flat terrain. I take the <br>&gt; freeways sometimes, but local streets more <br>&gt; often. I have never exceeded 40 MPG (even <br>&gt; though my screen says I'm getting 45 MPG). <br>I am consistently seeing 42 to 48 MPG here in NJ's cold weather. Mixed driving: 55 MPH on stoplight choked US 202 and 68+ MPH on I 287.<br>What I DO: I DO start and begin driving within 45 seconds - slowly thru my development to US 202. On 202 I drive, stop and go 55 to a WAWA about 5 miles away, park and shut it off while I get a cup of coffee.<br>Back into the car 5 minutes later and then it's non-stop - well... depending on traffic :-) till I get off 287 about 35 minutes later. Then it's 10 minutes at 40 MPH and stoplights thru Morristown and finally onto the EXXON campus where I drive the remaining 2 miles in stealth mode.<br>Oh - my ICE only sometimes restarts when I put it in park.<br>Coming home - it's pedal to the metal in reverse - er... the other way without the WAWA stop.<br>Park at home for a couple of hours and then seven minutes out to dinner and stop again. About an hour later home again.<br>I am doing VERY little to get better mileage outside of opportunistic driving and an occasional experiment.<br>Oh - speaking of experiments - got 100 MPG for about 5 minutes tonite - in STEALTH MODE - and at 58 MPH! Down a LONG very gradual downhill run. Must have needed less than 9 KW to keep it going.<br><br>Hope you find things improve with time,<br>Bill Powell<br>(Prius: Just Drive It!)

I hit my personal best of 55.9 but stayed exactly on 63mph with no hills or wind.When i went up to 60mph I fell off to 50.9. Interesting? I have only 1500 miles on my 04 David Hall

Hi, Here's a physicist's point of view about the effect of highway speeds on mileage. Air resistance varies with the cube of the speed. So if you decrease your speed from, say, 70mph to 65mph, air resistance will changed by a factor of (65/70)^3 = 0.8. In other words, the air resistance drops by 20% when you drop your speed by about 7%. Of course this does not mean that your mileage will change by 20%, since there are other factors besides air resistance that affect mileage, but I bet dollars to doughnuts that at highways speeds, air resistance is the dominant effect. Doug

Doug-Living in San Francisco, I get about 35 MPG in The City (sorry, an SF affectation). Bad mileage going uphill and great mileage going downhill. I noticed the same on a trip from Albuquerque to Phoenix where I got 55 MPG at 75 MPH from Flagstaff to Phoenix which was I thought flat but must have been downhill. (I couldn't get 55 MPG at 75 MPH on any similar stretch. I assume it is better to go around up hills. Any guidance on how far to go to avoid up hills and still break even?

Fred, I live on the San Francisco peninsula and when I go to "the city" I also get bad mileage on the hills there. Actually, going up hills is efficient because the engine is running at high rpm, and even if you have to stop when going uphill, the kinetic energy is largely converted to potential energy and much of the rest is stored in the battery through regeneration because you can use gentle braking. Going downhill is also fine if can go in stealth, but the killer in SF is that you often have to stop when going down a steep hill so you need to brake heavily and thus lose a lot of energy. If you don't have to brake much, then going up and down hills can be more efficient (only in the Prius!) than driving on level ground. In fact, you can think of the Prius HSD as simulating hills to achieve its efficiency gains. Storing energy in the battery is analogous to going uphill and drawing on the battery energy is analogous to going downhill. Gas engines are inefficient when running at low rpm (low power demand): the Prius avoids this by either turning off the engine and using battery energy or increasing the power output and storing the extra energy in the battery. Instead of using battery energy, it can also use potential energy (going up or down hill) or kinetic energy (speeding up and slowing down, i.e. pulse driving). Driving so as to take most advantage of these three energy stores will increase your mileage (as well as driving slower on the highway to reduce wasted energy from air resistance as described in the previous message). I am sorry if this is more analysis than you wanted! stephen