How to Get Better Gas Mileage out of your Toyota and Lexus Hybrid

hello and welcome to the car care nut channel so with today's gas prices on the rise we feel lucky that we drive hybrids that get very good gas mileage but in today's video we're going to discuss how do you even get better gas mileage when you have hybrids every mile counts every gallon of gasoline counts because this is becoming very expensive gold so in today's video we're going to talk about ways and things you need to know and do to get better gas mileage out of your toyota and lexus hybrid but before we get started if you're new to the channel welcome consider subscribing to the channel check out some other videos if you are a return to subscriber well thank you so much for watching another one of our videos without further ado let's get right into it so before you actually get better gas mileage there's a little bit of theory to understand what is the theory what are we trying to achieve to push this magnificent hybrid system that already gets great gas mileage push it even more one thing you need to know about hybrids hybrids are mild electrical vehicles they use the electric system for such a short time and then they use the gasoline engine to charge that battery and keep that cycle going but the key to get more gas mileage is actually to over utilize that very short interval of electric mode or ev electric vehicle that's what that stands for every hybrid owner knows that you got that ev button but every time you press it it says excessive speed ev not available and you can only reuse it at a very short interval then it goes you can never go into it so basically you are trying to overuse that ev mode and keep your engine run time down and here are some ways you can actually do that the first thing is avoid keeping your engine always cold in hybrids the hybrid system will force that engine to stay on to warm up the faster the engine warms up the less emissions you're making the better gas mileage you're getting and life is great so when your car is cold disregard all the advice that you're going to hear in this video because it's pointless the engine will run all the time if you have extreme cold weather it's just not going to happen because you're trying to warm up this engine and the cold air outside is cooling it down very fast it's just not going to happen you have high heat demand inside so when the engine is cold and weather is extremely cold unfortunately you are at a disadvantage good thing is gas prices are high right now we are heading into summer so this will potentially work for some time for us here and then the other thing is gasoline engines in non-hybrid cars they actually consume the most gasoline when they're about to move this car from a stationary object to a moving object we are always very tempted to kind of zip away from a stop i do this you do this many people do this don't do that in hybrids actually in a hybrid your ideal start is one that starts with the engine off because you're at a standstill and then you take off gently until you get to like 25 30 miles an hour that's when you want your engine to come on and not come on to rev up and drive be gentle on your takeoffs that's the key thing here that means you want to anticipate don't hog the traffic don't make other people with their big v8s that it doesn't really matter no matter what they do they'll get past cash mileage but do it safely and being mindful of others take off slowly and following that up with the most important thing and the thing that we're going to talk about the most every time this engine is warmed up and you're at operating temperature and hybrids you coast the engine will shut off every time you let go of the gas the engine will shut off unless your defroster is on you have high heat demand like when you're driving in winter very cold weather otherwise the engine will shut off and that's what we want so you need to program your mind without being distracted from the road of course to let coasting be your majority of your driving and there's a method that you might read about called pulse and glide when utilized correctly you're really going to get good gas mileage the idea of pulsing glide is you want your engine runtime to be as low as possible so how are we going to do that let's say you took off gently you got to 30 miles an hour speed limit in the street is 45. you got your 30 miles an hour the engine just came on don't keep driving slowly as soon as the engine comes on accelerate kind of medium acceleration get yourself to that 45 and let go of the gas let the car coast the engine will shut off when you slow down you get to 35 do this again do this again and some people will say well this is not good for my engine my car it actually there's no evidence that that's not good for your car don't jolt the engine but just when you hear it run just accelerate every time your engine runs you utilize that runtime to get you up to speed and get you into coasting do this repeatedly and you will get used to it and you'll kind of your inner conscience will start doing that without you having to think about it be distracted you'll notice your gas mileage will start climbing climbing and climbing on highway driving it's going to be very difficult to do that because the higher your the faster you're going the more the car will have a tendency to slow down when you coast so you're going to be doing this constantly and at higher speeds at some point your engine will come on not to drive the car but actually to create a reduction in the hybrid transmission so this is why hybrids get better gas mileage in the city than they do in the highway because higher speeds really put a strain on these and your engine will run continuously when you drive your hybrid and you're trying to get better gas mileage you want to have the battery screen in front of you many people look at the gas mileage that's not the screen you want to look at when you're driving conservatively and you're trying to get the best gas mileage you'll want to look at your battery if your battery is always near the full mark near the full mark it will never be at the full mark unless you really push the envelope then it'll be full bars it'll always be one bar below if you keep it one bar below or two bars below majority of your drive you're doing pretty good and you'll notice when you get on the highway and you start accelerating and now we're going 60 70 miles an hour that immediately will drop to half or less because now you're you're always using that battery you're always the engine always is running and not charging the battery is running to drive you at these higher speeds without rubbing up or bringing this battery charge level very low so this is the mentality utilize pulse and glide but do it mildly not just parallel to the metal as soon as the engine comes on to get you to speed so you can coast do it mild medium acceleration you will notice in city driving if you use this pulse and glide method your gas mileage will easily exceed the advertised numbers which is something pretty cool and something else about regenerative braking regenerative braking is something you want to utilize when you're on a mission to get the best gas mileage so here's how you're going to actually utilize that the first thing is when you're coasting you're actually light regenerating and that is very good thing but when you're coming to a stop kind of plan what you're doing most most of us thrive unfortunately i will admit it most of us drive distracted not really paying attention to the world we have a lot going on we have families we have jobs we have all our life that we're thinking about as we're driving we're not really paying attention but you'd want to pay attention when money is involved because of the high gas prices when you are coming up to a traffic light most people have a tendency of accelerating and then hard on the brake to stop just to get there and stop don't do that when you're on a mission to get better gas mileage because here's what you want to do you see the traffic light coming you're going to come to a stop or a stop sign or whatever the case may be immediately coast and push your brake but you don't want to just slam on the brakes you want to push your brakes and with models that has the charge gauge as you see here these are the ones you're going to watch just kind of eventually you get used to it but look at the charge gauge you want to make sure you're not pushing that charge gauge all the way down just pushing the brake until it's at max because then you're going to engage your hydraulic brakes and now you're slowing the car faster you're going to get to a point where you're going to slow down before you get there now you're going to have to accelerate and that's not what we want so what you're going to want to do is get it three quarters of the way you're trying to increase your generate you're trying to recharge the battery as much as possible utilizing your stop and then when you take off you can take off slowly again and then we do the pulsing light again see this is a question i get from my viewers all the time how do you know in hybrids when you are using full generation or you're using hydraulic brakes and the simple answer to that is this look at the charge gauge whenever the charge gauge goes all the way down and you push the brakes more you actually engage your hydraulic brakes that's how this works and the feel of hydraulic brakes when they engage is different than that is of general regeneration the best way to practice to tell between the two go at 10 miles an hour and then slowly press the brake as you're about to come to a stop you're going to feel the braking feel change because at the very very end of your stopping you're always going to use hydraulic brakes because that's what actually holds the car that's how hybrids work we're using that mg2 motor motor generator 2 to charge the battery the force of the wheels turning is what's turning that motor and charging the battery but you get to a point where the turning is so slow you're actually not it's not going to effectively bring the car to a screeching halt so the hydraulic brakes will have to come in practicing that and knowing that feel of the hydraulic brakes is important because you don't want to be wastefully stopping you want to full regeneration until almost the end of your stop so having that mindset of we're not going to just accelerate to a stop we're going to coast to a stop makes a huge difference because now you've charged up your battery and you're ready for that slow ev mode takeoff and you never turn on your engine and that makes a huge difference folks let's talk about some additional things that are not related to the way you drive but other items that you need to be aware of to get best gas mileage are your hybrids first one is cold weather we talked about cold weather but when we eventually head into winter here are some things that will help you get the best not like the summer but the best gas mileage see most people start their car get in the car it's cold freezing or shaking turn on the heat full blast do not do that that is actually a mistake and even you can actually apply this to your gasoline-only car not just hybrids see when the engine is cold you have no heat that coolant is ambient temperature by the time the coolant warms up all you're doing by turning on the fan to full blast is this coolant gains a little bit of heat you're taking it away this coolant takes a little bit more heat from the engine you're taking it away it actually ends up being common reproductive this car will take much longer when you have the fan of full blast full heat and the engine is cold to warm up than if you just have it off i know that doesn't sound like something that's ideal to do but actually when you get in the car in the winter have the heater completely off start driving then engage it once you see your temperature gauge starts rising this will help you a lot in the case of hybris because the faster you get to operating temperature the better things will be and the more engine off time you're going to have but the other thing that is additional when you get to that point don't put your heat super high i see so many people they almost want to be at 80 degrees inside the car and wear t-shirt when they're driving don't do that one thing you might want to do and i know this might sound common sense and some people will wonder why am i saying this you might want to run your heater lower and wear a thick jacket hey gas prices are expensive if we're on a mission we're on a budget we're going to do everything everybody has a thick jacket where you live in the cold climate areas like here in chicago wear a thick jacket and lower that heat instead of keeping that heat at 75 in the car if you have automatic climate control leave it at 67. 68 if you have automatic climate control utilize it 100 percent because you're basically letting the car can take control over things and it will do the best job if you notice the cars that have automatic climate control when you hit auto and you set a temperature you the car is cold it will not turn on the fan the modern ones that are smarter than the previous ones that are older so think about that for a second something else that is actually very easy to do a lot easier than the cold climate situation weight adds a lot to your gas mileage the heavier your car the bigger it is the more effort it'll take this hybrid system to take it from stationary to moving so what we're going to want to do here is not go buy a tiny hybrid we have a sienna right here which gets crate gas mileage if you kind of do the few things lower the weight we all have busy lives we all have big cars that can carry a lot of things and we always do that we always have all this stuff that we carry in the car that we'll never need and we'll throw all it all out when we buy another car because it's time to empty everything out of the old car we all do this but let's try to be conscious of that because all that weight you're carrying all this engine rebuild tool that you'll never use that you always have in the trunk and the extra jack and all this stuff all that weight is actually affecting your gas mileage get rid of all the weight keep the necessities because that makes a huge difference in your gas mileage especially when you're trying to do pulsing glide you're trying to coast you're trying the less weight you have the better and last but not least and we move now into the mechanical stuff your tires make a huge difference in your gas mileage see majority of hybrids will have some kind of eco tire or a specific tire don't go changing brands and types of tires without researching because some tires they just have they don't have a low rolling resistance and now your gas mileage is going to suffer and you won't find that out until you've paid a small fortune to replace the tires they're already in the car and now it's it becomes a hassle research your tires and more importantly than researching tires and replacement check your tire pressure regularly you want your tire pressure let's say your recommended tire pressure is 32. you can go a little bit up don't overdo this keep your tires 35-37 that is a safe range that gets you the best gas mileage the best driving characteristic the least wear on the tires and you're not high enough where things are potentially dangerous that's important and i see so many people pulling the shop their tires are 29 tires are 27. this even applies to non-hybrids this is very common you want to make it a habit of checking your own tires have a little one of those little gauges just check your tires weekly you wouldn't hurt it'll take you five seconds but it could potentially save you a lot on gas if you keep driving on these slow tires you're going to waste a lot of gas like that so check them tires another thing that is equally important is tires and this might be a little bit more involved brakes third generation prius loves to lock its rear brakes if your brakes are dragging or especially this isn't the rust belt where i'm at if you have rusty brakes that are dragging you're basically something is chaining you down you're gonna need more effort to keep this car going as soon as you let it go to coast it's gonna just nose dive to a stop because you're always like applying your hydraulic brakes you don't want that regularly get your brakes checked especially if you live in the rust belt as soon as that winter ends and we're all happy the snow is melting get the brakes checked and if you're diy take them apart clean everything make sure the pads move make sure all the pins are free life is good these are the additional things in addition to the driving habits that will really get you good gas mileage folks gas is very expensive hybrids are super efficient who would have thought a few years ago that we can have a massive sienna minivan that can comfortably sit eight people that gets 40 miles to the gallon that was on that was not even something we thought about and here it is and if you push it you can actually get even better gas mileage out of the sienna which is incredible for a car this big this shape and this heavy that's how how hybrid technology is advancing folks and we want to change our driving habits to get them to be the most efficient so their primary function is met and done well hybrids i own this camry this is not a fast car it's potentially not a very thrilling car i love it but i love it for its efficiency i love it because it's it's an honest car that gets you really good gas mileage while saving the environment as well not gonna drive it fast although i do admit to having a heavy foot here and there but i will not drive it fast i will drive it efficiently and that's what i wish you would do as well in these tough times with the high gas prices folks i hope this video is helpful or informative i hope you learned something new if you like it consider giving a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber consider subscribing to the channel check out some other videos and until the next video folks may the lord bless you and keep you and you have yourself a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 358,360

Keywords: how to get better gas mileage, toyota, toyota hybrid, lexus, lexus hybrid, gas mileage, better gas mileage, how to get better mpg, gas prices, toyota hybrid system, toyota hybrid efficiency, should you buy a toyota hybrid, should you buy a lexus hybrid, the car care nut, car care nut, car wizard, toyota prius, toyota camry hybrid, toyota corolla hybrid, toyota maintenance, toyota mechanic, gas mileage cars, gas prices to rise, gas mileage mods, gas mileage improvement

Id: ElSJtOTtxec

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/flattop100]

Keep your tires pressurized, clean your battery filters, drive using the pulse and glide method.

[u/flattop100]

We've had our 2022 Sienna for 3 days and are trying to figure out how to maximize gas mileage. I found this helpful for starters. I'm surprised he only mentioned tire pressure at the end though.