How many miles can you drive after "0"

Um, if you want to walk, why not leave the Prius at home?

 

Hi twmark

These are just my observations and other may be able to add their thoughts and data.

I don't rely too much on how far I can travel once the DTE (distance to Empty) goes to zero, but rather how far I can travel once I get the "low fuel" beep and the last bar starts to flash.

Once the last bar starts to flash and I get the "low fuel" beep I'm pretty comfortable with the belief that I have 10 litres or 2.64 U.S. gal left in the tank.

So for me with 11 fill-up my average is 4.28lts/100kms or 50.4 mpg, so I feel that I could maybe make about 200kms (about 125mi) once my last bars starts to flash.

I just did 167km on my last tank once the last bar started to flash and did 1010kms or 627mi. Filled up with 41.33lt or 10.92 gals so had 3.7lts or 0.98 gals left in the tank, BUT how much of that 3.7lts/0.98gal is usable?? not sure? but like I said about I figure 200km or 125mi would be about max.

It will also depend on on what your average Fuel Flow for the current tank is.

Hope this helps.

Edit: Jimbo ... good point, but as dumb as it sounds it kinda nice to know how far you can drive on a tank. Or... more like fun to know as least

 

The miles question is indeterminate, as it depends on driving conditions. I suspect the Gen III owners could give you some sort of average remaining gallons figure, but an average figure isn't too useful when your car runs out of gas. The only way to know for certain is to test your particular car. Even then, all you will know for certain is how many gallons remained for that particular test. Given the uncertainty of gas tank sender units, I wouldn't want to trust any figure.

Most of us buy gas when the gauge gets down to two pips or so.

Tom

 

The right answer is ____. Cause there is no one right answer. I drove 110 miles once after the 0 miles left display, and when I filled up, I was able to get 11.4 gallons in (so there should have been about 1/2 a gallon left?

Then several months later, I RAN OUT OF GAS at about 70 miles after the 0 display. (Which really was a pain in the butt).

Now, I try to fill-up within 10-20 miles of the 0 warning, as I do not fully trust the gauge.

 

When I drove to work yesterday morning, the reading said 19 miles left. When i started the car again later on in the exact same spot, the reading said 0 miles left. So, yeah...don't trust the gauge.

I drove 1 mile to the gas station after the "0" reading, and the fill up with 9.71 gal. So, do the math.

 

In three fuel exhaustion tests, there was ~2.1 gallons remaining after the 'beep' and 'flash' started. I've never used to "miles remaining." Note, when the car finally runs out of gas, there is no "check engine" light to let you know the ICE will not run until some gas is added. Without notification, you are running on the last of the traction battery energy needed to park in a safe place.

Bob Wilson

 

The variation car to car and to a lesser extent fill to fill on the same car is typical of automotive fuel sender units. We have the advantage of a nice precise looking computer interpretation of a crude device.

The "miles left" number is based on a computer calculation that is based on the reading of a conventional float and variable resistor gas gauge sending unit.

In the service manual on the "Fuel Sender Gauge Assembly/Inspection " page (page 3053 in my eBay CD copy)

The specs for the fuel sender are 405-415 Ohms at Empty and 12-18 Ohms at full. Then there are mechanical variations such as float bouyancy, and float position vs resistance as the fuel level change due to the mechanical parts tolerance stack-up in the assembly.

 

I've never needed more than 9.5 G US when the MTG indicator hits zero. That would mean somewhere near 2G US in the tank remaining.

 

It might be more useful if folks did like eglmainz and just posted their experience. That gives us something to judge on.

When I first got the car I was all set to squeeze as much as I could out of a tank. The know-nothing salesguy had us believing it held 15 gallons. Then I read some threads here and decided not to push my luck so much. Then my wife suggested we just fill up when the last bar flashes or the DTE gets to 0 (they are pretty close). I like to get 450 miles out of a tank. Each fillup is right around 9.7 gallons. The real question is, how much of that remaining tank could you get at? I'm happy with the 450 mile range now, because in the Honda CRV, 325 miles was fillup time!

Also indebted to Bob Wilson for all his brave tests.

 

This happened to me in the middle of nowhere, Montana. Reading indicated I had 9 miles until empty. I was more than 20 miles from anywhere. When I finally found a station, I had 0 miles but the car only took 9.5 gallons. I asked the dealer who said that when the beep goes off, the car has about 2 gallons remaining, but the evidence indicated it was more than that.

 

Filled up for the first time. Reading was 55 miles to empty but only took 8.5 gallons. I had a feeling there was quite a bit in there considering I've only driven a total of 400 miles. Either the dealer didn't quite fill up the tank or there's some play in that reading. My Tacoma's the same way. With the needle pointing to E, it only takes about 3 gallons less than the tank capacity.

 

Don't know about the prius because i never want to cut it close and run it out of gas (destroying the fuel pump and damaging the hybrid batteries at the same time).

However on my old infiniti, whenever the DTE read 0, and i filled the gas tank, i found there were about 2 gallons left in my 18.5 gallon tank. I'm guessing with the prius there'd be around 1.5 gallons left.

 

Usually when it beebs i have done about 500 miles and there is about 1.5 gallon left

I am pretty sure i can reach 1000km (625 miles) but i never tried it yet. I feel very comfortable squeezing another 60-80 miles off the tank after i have heard the beeb...

I also always wondered.

 

I hope this was planned testing, not a sudden surprise.

 

I would say 2 gallons 7.5 liters are left
I wouldn't cut it that close and count on 1.5 gallons 5.6 liters at the best.

 

I always run the tank down until the last pip starts to flash. There is still plenty of fuel left. I reckon on another 50 miles or even more by going easy on the pedal.

Like vday, there is about 7 litres left in my tank at this point.

YMMV

 

This morning I went about 70 miles past the start of the flashing warning and it took 10.731 gallons to fill it.

This is not the norm for me. Years ago I had a vehicle that I ran pretty low and it apparently had a small amount of water in the bottom of the tank. The fuel pump was inside the tank and the intake had a sock filter over the inlet. The sock was just fine enough that the water coated it enough that the fuel pump could hardly pull and fuel through it. I had to drop the tank and clean the sock with high pressure air. it was a PITA.