New Prius V - out of gas - need clarification please

Re: Like I said

I thought Bob Wilson indicated that you can't continue to drive on traction once the gas is depleted in the 2010 Prius, as you could in previous years? My impression was that the new Prius had extra safeguards to prevent depletion of the traction battery, even at the cost of taking away some flexibility and safety for the driver when they run out of fuel. In any case, when my wife ran out of gas, she hadn't depleted the battery, contrary to what the dealership suggested might be the issue. More gas and some time is what it took.

 

Good ideas, but I have to point out that while they would reduce the likelihood of occurrence, based on my understanding from this thread they would not prevent the operator from getting into a "must tow" situation if they continually attempted to start the vehicle.

 

Re: Like I said

I thought that you couldn't continue to drive in the gen III, but there are a couple of other threads about running out of gas and I remember one in particular , the op indicated that the car still moved. It wouldn't go as far as a gen II. I will go dig up the thread. Since the OP has only posted twice is there a chance that this is a troll?

 

Re: Like I said

Someone provided a link earlier to another thread with information Bob Wilson posted on the potential safety issue. As for the OP, I wouldn't expect them to post again after this reception.

 

Re: Like I said

A comment on the polarized glasses:

I have p. glasses, and whats interesting is that the MPH reading/speedo & fuel tank reading is about half as bright as the HSD display on the right-hand side. Doesn't stop me from wearing sunglasses, but I do have to set the internal display to the highest-setting at all times. Its odd though, don't know why this should be more dim, since its more of a direct-view than the HSD display which is more of an angled view in comparison to where your head/sunglasses are.

 

I think the idea of spoken alarms is a very good one, and cannot understand why they appear to have been discontinued in most cars. I had a Datsun 200SX back in the 80s that had spoken alarms, a woman's voice on tape I believe. It saved me many a case of a flat battery after driving to work in the early morning with my lights on. After parking the car and opening the door, the warning voice would announce:"lights are on". Saved me from many a flat battery!

There were also "door is open" and "fuel is low" warnings, again a recorded woman's voice. I find these alarms far more effective than the plethora of beeps and beep combinations so ubiquitous today.

 

Re: Like I said

And some people just lack all kinds of other good human traits such as forgiveness. Yes she made a mistake so? People make mistakes all the time, at home at work or anywhere. Why are there any warning lights at all if we are so responsible? You can do maths no? Then no need to use any indications at all just calcuate everything in your head that will make everything so much easier.

She was more upset with the fact that running out of gas will lead to her car being towed. She doesn't need someone else to bash in her head that she has made a mistake, and you've done it more than once in just one thread. Give it a break. I personally think you have issues.

 

Re: Like I said

You are talking absolutely rubbish. Which car that runs out of gas cant restart it again after putting petrol or diesel back in? Name us that car. Piston timing? Do you have any idea about cars? out of gas has nothing to do with pistion timings. Please stop writting rubbish.

 

Re: Like I said

It is correct. The new Prius can not run on traction once the gas is depleted unlike the Gen2 ones. Which was why Bob in his main tread about this issue was upset that Toyota chose to safe the Batter and not Human Lives, which a lot of people didn't get in that thread.

But again that shows that a lot of people don't read and then post.

 

Lets not bash the OP anymore. The fact that she is careless is her fault. Talking on the phone is not a crime if it is handsfree.

Running out of gas is a reality and she managed to run her Prius out of gas, which actually showed something to us or Toyota that it can happen and can be missed so should be addressed in the future. The indications are not enough to make her aware that she was running out of gas no matter how careless or stupid she is. And I have pointed out that it is not hard to miss the signs because when I first got the Prius I thought the indications were inadequate.

The blinking indcator is fairly poor. It doesn't blink very fast and also it is still the same colour as before so it can be easily missed if you are not constantly watching the fuel meter and even if you looked at it for just a split second you might not see that it is blinking before you turned your head away.

I was experimenting the Prius a few months back and I wanted to see how far I can go once the warning lights came on. To my surprise or should say disappointment there were no other lights with amber or red colour signs that came on to show the fule is running low (all the cars I've ever driven had amber or red lights inidcating fuel is low) and the car beeped the moment I turned on the car, which made me thought I didn't close the door properly. I even looked around, opened the door and closed the door again.
My wife was with me at that time and we both asked ourselves what the beep was and what it was for.

The Prius has beeped me various times (for trying to locked the door while wife still hasn't fully closed hers etc) so the beep for the low fuel we could relate.

There are times when my indicator started to blink and I wasn't aware untill a bit later but only because I look at my instrumets all the time, a bit more than ordinary and constantly thinks that one day I am going to get myself in an accident for looking at the electronic dash more than I am looking at the road.

My point is I would like to see a seperate warning light for low fuel in a different and more captivating colour such as amber or red. I don't care for the blink and especially this Prius display has GHOSTING issues it will make the blinking more of a problem in the future.

 

Yet ANOTHER reason to ban ANY use of cell phones while driving. Your MIND is totally elsewhere. You said using your cell phone was "YOUR LIFE" and it may just cost "YOUR LIFE" some day. About 95% of the time I see someone driving like an absolute IDIOT on the road I can see them yapping on a phone. But I'm sure you are an exception because . . . you are exceptionally talented. NO, IF you hadn't been yapping you just might have noticed the warning and NOT run out of gas. OK, maybe I am being too harsh. What do YOU think WAS the real problem?

 

I never ran out of gas, but I unexpectedly reached a point when the indicator said 0 miles to empty once when I first got the car. It had said about 10 miles remaining a few minutes earlier and I drove nowhere near 10 miles. I never heard any beep warning. I immediately drove the nearest gas station and now I know to look more carefully at the gauge and fill up with at least 20 miles remaining on the display.
Most cars have a big yellow gas icon that comes on 50 or more miles before reaching empty. That stands out much more than the weak little monochome bar flashing, Even if the same bar turned yellow or red, that would make it much more noticable.
This is the first car I've seen that didn't have a dedicated yellow warning light for low fuel.

 

Re: Like I said

I don't have instrumentation to monitor the traction battery state of charge beyond the battery charge indictor. There are two bars on the battery SOC:

The only error indication is the "power steering" fault.

I've only run out of gas three times. The first pair resulted in the "power steering" fault and the car losing all traction battery power. I didn't notice the loss of traction power the first time because I was descending a hill and pulled into a parking lot. The second time I had enough momentum to reach a parking lot. Remembering that multiple restart attempts can lead to a 'software' block of further attempts in the earlier Prius, I parked and then added the extra gallon of gas. There was no problem on the restart.

The third time was on trying to accelerate on a highway on-ramp. This was before the "power steering" fault so I was able to drive on traction battery on the shoulder to get away from the on-ramp traffic area. I then stopped and added the extra gallon. Again, no problem on the restart. But there was no error light, not even a "check engine" light.

If you see a road side assistance vehicle, it is mostly likely going to deal with an 'out of gas' problem on its calls. It is the most common road side problem and no amount of posting "bad, bad driver" is going to change that reality. It is reality.

Bob Wilson

 

Re: Like I said

It really is too bad that voice alerts/speech synthesized alerts have gone the way of the dodo bird. A friend's 86 Maxima w/electronics package had the speech synthesizer woman's voice alerts "beep... right door is open" or "headlight are on". A friend's Chrysler New Yorker of around that vintage had it too a male voice: "your door is ajar." I had an 02 Maxima and there was NO way to get voice alerts no matter regardless of trim or option package. I don't know of any current vehicles that have it.

Yet... niow, voices from nav systems are ok.

I agree that voice alerts would be so much better than all the different beeps the Prius can emit.

FWIW, I've had to wear prescription regular glasses full-time due to nearsightedness since around middle school (I'm 35 now).

I've never had a pair of sunglasses after I had to wear prescription glasses full time and thus I've never worn any while driving. (I'd be a danger on the road w/o corrective lenses.) Although sunglasses might be kind of nice, I've never felt I really "needed" them.

If that helps w/the OP in not running out of gas again, then perhaps the polarized glasses ought to be ditched.

 

Re: Like I said

Thanks for the clarification! For anyone interested, here's the link to your other post that tumbleweed kindly provided earlier on the thread-

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-2010-prius-main-forum/64211-warning-running-out-gas-gen-iii.html

 

I still think the way to go here is a Cattle Prod built into the drivers seat for you folks wired to 'warn' you every 30 seconds once the fuel gauge drops below 1/2 a tank. Should end the running out of gas problem for most of you.

 

Just to make sure I understand here... so if any Gen III Prius ran out of gas, we need to tow the car to the nearest dealer. There is no escape at all whatsoever, right?

 

Not at all. It seems experiences have ranged from add a gallon and go, through putting in extra gas and trying to restart for an extended period to needing a tow.

Why the variability? The best reasons mentioned here appear to have to do with draining one or both batteries and/or air entrapment in the fuel system due to no return line.

 

That is incorrect. bwilson has run his GenIII out of gas on purpose on three occasions and did not require a tow.

 

Ok I am a bit confused now... but it sounds better for sure. So let's assume we ran out of gas one day, we can just add a gallon or two and our car should start right up and last it to closest gas station, right?