Low MPG XLT Hybrid

[dak78]

I’m only averaging 33 mpg on my hybrid with mostly city miles. I’m not driving heavy and score 100% with the brake coach most of the time. Anyone else experience this or have any idea on what might be happening? I kind of wish I got the ecoboost engine if this is the norm.

Sponsored

 

[Waterick]

First off, are most of your trips short? Like 15 minutes or less. Do you start your heater immediately. Many cycles of short trips where the vehicle barely comes up to full operating temperatures will yield less than optimum fuel economy, in hybrids especially.

 

[dak78]

Yes. I live less than 4 miles from work and a lot of 1.5 mile trips dropping the kids off at school. MPG seems to have gotten worse as the temps have dropped. So this is normal. Nothing wrong with the truck. Thanks

 

[SteveM]

Yes. I live less than 4 miles from work and a lot of 1.5 mile trips dropping the kids off at school. MPG seems to have gotten worse as the temps have dropped. So this is normal. Nothing wrong with the truck. Thanks

Try turning off your Heater, and use the heated seats/steering wheel if you have them. If the High Voltage Battery is sufficiently charged, the gas engine will not kick on, (if the heater is off), until the HV Battery hits about 34% state of charge. Once the gas engine kicks on, it will not turn off, until the coolant temp reaches above 120 degrees F. It will then shut off, until the coolant temps drops below 120*. If the heater is on, the warmer you have the temp set for, the higher the coolant temp needs to be, so the gas engine will run longer, and more often. If yo can run without the HVAC heater on, and use "Eco" mode this will help your mpgs. Eco mode has a more aggressive Regenerative Braking profile, which will recharge your HV battery faster, keeping it's charge level up, and allowing more "EV" operation. The Battery Management System for the HV Battery keeps the state of charge between 27% and 73%, this is for longevity of the battery. More often I find my HV battery stays between 32% and 70%. I use an OBD module and an app on my phone to monitor real time condition of my HV Battery, coolant temp, 12V system status, etc. I occasionally see my HV battery get as low as 27.8%, and as high as 72.4%. Hope this helps.

 

[MakinDoForNow]

Actually your 33 mpg sounds good considering the majority of your trips are 4 miles or less. You will help mpg if trips are close together and truck does not completely cool down between trips. However as ambient temp drops in winter the engine will have to run a greater percentage of time to keep everything warm and moving will suffer. To get my mpg using "This Trip" setting up to 39-42 mpg takes about an 18 mile trip at 65-70°F ambient.

 

[dak78]

Thanks, good info. I’m going to try turning off the heat off on the short trips. Not like it’s going to warm up that much on 2-3 mile round trip anyway.

 

[dak78]

Try turning off your Heater, and use the heated seats/steering wheel if you have them. If the High Voltage Battery is sufficiently charged, the gas engine will not kick on, (if the heater is off), until the HV Battery hits about 34% state of charge. Once the gas engine kicks on, it will not turn off, until the coolant temp reaches above 120 degrees F. It will then shut off, until the coolant temps drops below 120*. If the heater is on, the warmer you have the temp set for, the higher the coolant temp needs to be, so the gas engine will run longer, and more often. If yo can run without the HVAC heater on, and use "Eco" mode this will help your mpgs. Eco mode has a more aggressive Regenerative Braking profile, which will recharge your HV battery faster, keeping it's charge level up, and allowing more "EV" operation. The Battery Management System for the HV Battery keeps the state of charge between 27% and 73%, this is for longevity of the battery. More often I find my HV battery stays between 32% and 70%. I use an OBD module and an app on my phone to monitor real time condition of my HV Battery, coolant temp, 12V system status, etc. I occasionally see my HV battery get as low as 27.8%, and as high as 72.4%. Hope this helps.

What OBD2 scanner are you using? Didn’t realize you could pull that kind of live data with an app.

 

[SteveM]

I use an ELM327 OBD327 and I use the Torque App. The app cost like $5 or something. There is a free version if I remember correctly, it didn't include all of the data PIDs I wanted.

Link for my ELM327:
AMHTDOL Obd2 Scanner Bluetooth ELM327 with PIC18F25K80 Original Chip,Obdii Diagnostic Tool,Car Code Reader Bluetooth Compatible for 1996+ Vehicles,Work with Android,Windows and Symbian System https://a.co/d/2M3CybZ

Hope this helps.

 

[SteveM]

I use an ELM327 OBD327 and I use the Torque App. The app cost like $5 or something. There is a free version if I remember correctly, it didn't include all of the data PIDs I wanted.

Link for my ELM327:
AMHTDOL Obd2 Scanner Bluetooth ELM327 with PIC18F25K80 Original Chip,Obdii Diagnostic Tool,Car Code Reader Bluetooth Compatible for 1996+ Vehicles,Work with Android,Windows and Symbian System https://a.co/d/2M3CybZ

Hope this helps.

 

[Ozarkbeard]

Thanks, good info. I’m going to try turning off the heat off on the short trips. Not like it’s going to warm up that much on 2-3 mile round trip anyway.

It's definitely the heater causing the ICE to run a lot more during short trips. My trips are mostly short - less than 10 miles 1-way. MPG drops a whole lot more using heat than A/C.

That being said, I still get about 5mpg more than you're getting on similar trips. You mentioned the Brake Coach pop-up screen, which does help teach you how to maximize regenerative braking and reduce brake pad wear. But are you also using the EV Coach screen? It's great for helping you stay in Electric mode more often.

Also, learn about Pulse & Glide Hybrid driving. https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/f...got-the-hybrid-model.54611/page-2#post-931260

 

[MakinDoForNow]

It's definitely the heater causing the ICE to run a lot more during short trips. My trips are mostly short - less than 10 miles 1-way. MPG drops a whole lot more using heat than A/C.

That being said, I still get about 5mpg more than you're getting on similar trips. You mentioned the Brake Coach pop-up screen, which does help teach you how to maximize regenerative braking and reduce brake pad wear. But are you also using the EV Coach screen? It's great for helping you stay in Electric mode more often.

Also, learn about Pulse & Glide Hybrid driving. https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/unbelievable-fuel-mileage-i'm-really-happy-i-got-the-hybrid-model.54611/page-2#post-931260

Pulse and glide mpg is even better in slippery also.

 

[Optimus]

I’m only averaging 33 mpg on my hybrid with mostly city miles. I’m not driving heavy and score 100% with the brake coach most of the time. Anyone else experience this or have any idea on what might be happening? I kind of wish I got the ecoboost engine if this is the norm.

I would agree with previous replies in that your short trips are the cause of low mpg. Anytime we leave our house, it’s either 1.5 miles one way (maybe 10% of the time), or it’s 10+ miles one way the majority of the time. On our trips of 10+ one-way, our mpg is normal.

We’ve owned other hybrids for almost 2 decades now. The first 5 minutes always sucks for mpg. Gas engines are designed to run most efficiently at full operating temp. Yours is just barely getting warmed up by the time you shut it off again.

An ecoboost would have been proportionally worse for you too. You wouldn’t have gotten it’s typical mpg for the same reasons.

You can try things like using your heated seats instead of the cabin heater. At least during the first 5-minute warm-up of the engine, the cabin heater will be trying to steal engine heat, further prolonging how long it takes the engine to warm up. But, if you need cabin heat, you need it. It can get to -40F where I am. Ain’t no way we can rely on heated seats alone! In winter, we still get high 30’s, never below 36. But again, our trips are longer (despite also being 50% highway, of which also lowers mpg).

 

[notfast]

An ecoboost would have been proportionally worse for you too. You wouldn’t gave gotten it’s typical mpg for the same reasons.

I agree. The short trips and city driving are the killer, so I'd consider 32mpg in a hybrid on short trips to be pretty dang good.

My Nissan Frontier gets 16-18mpg tank averages when I'm in the greater LA area (a lot of freeway but at low average speeds due to traffic), but that plunges to 12-13mpg when I'm in Las Vegas (basically no freeway and all city driving except the occasional hop on a ring road if I want to get from one end of the valley to the other).

That is "only" a 6mpg drop, but fuel economy measured in distance per unit of fuel consumed is non-linear, and proportionally worse at the low end of the scale. Going from 18 to 12mpg is a loss of 33%, where as going from 42mpg to 32mpg is a loss of 23%.

A more equitable scale is fuel consumed over a fixed distance (gallons per 100mi, or liters per 100km). For example, my Frontier goes from a high of 5.6gal/100mi to a low of 8.3gal/100mi, a loss of 2.7gal/100mi. 2.7gal/100mi is about 37mpg, so I am losing the fuel efficiency of a whole Honda Civic by going from freeway to city!

 

[Ozarkbeard]

Pulse and glide mpg is even better in slippery also.

Definitely!

 

[dak78]

Just filled up and my mpg average was 30 mpg for this tank so even lower. I have noticed that the mpg is significantly better if I turn the heat off so that must be the contributing factor, but 30 mpg actual vs 42 mpg published is a big difference!

Sponsored