Driving past zero miles remaining

Why do you do this?

I'm in a testy mood today I guess, but seriously: I see no appreciable upside to doing this, and lots of pitfalls.

 

At the point gas empty light comes on, there is still ~2 gal of gas in the tank. I think when you reach 0 mile on range, you still have at least 1 gal in the tank. I have driven close to 100 miles after empty light came on, but the car took only 10.5 gal to fill-up.

 

I can't deny its nice to know how much is available in case of an emergency.
I've pushed mine 56 miles past the ZERO mark --(88 past the low fuel warning that pops up on the infotainment screen)-and then refilled 10.826 gallons, I understand the Tank capacity is approximately 11.3 gallons so a little further is theoretically possible

 

I did that ONE TIME. As a learning experience when the car was new. So that I can gauge the distance to empty.

Now days, I never go below 1/4 tank remaining. And sometimes fill up at the 1/2 point. Same routine I followed with every other car I owned. Why should a Prius be any different?? The "mpg games" got old, very fast. I just hope to have a safe, reliable car.

(Am I in the wrong forum again? Call the forum Police! )

 

They need a new forum for posts on this topic: Fred's House of Darwin Awards.

 

Another thread suitable for the new forum:

Who has the most mph over speeding in a prius? | PriusChat

 

Your car.
Your call.

What does not seem safe to me is relying on 'internet experts' to determine whether or not something is "safe" meaning BOTH "statistically" safe and 'real-world' safe.


My work-car has about 145,000 miles on it....and it's a WORK CAR......so other than being inconvenienced I don't really have any 'skin in the game' if I suck the tank dry.
That's about 65-70 fillups, and almost ALL of them were done at DTE<0 miles.

However (COMMA!)
I'm also mostly a daytime Prius driver these days (I used to work evenings.)
I'm a middle aged male.
I drive a repeatable route with good cellular coverage.
I'm always armed.
I live in an area where a 'crime wave' means that TWO houses got rolled in the same week.
I know where every gas station within 100 miles is and how late they are open.
I have multiple offices and work centers that I can use as a divert field.
I do not carry pax.
I ALWAYS know generally what the WX is going to do....and plan accordingly.
I'm tracked by my employer and a vehicle stopped in an unplanned location will draw a welfare inquiry.

In other words....."safe" or even 'wise' is going to mean something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT for me than it might for you.

Generally speaking, it's not wise to run a car to DTE<0.
It's not in any way mechanically bad for your car, but given that your situation WILL be different than mine, I'd say that it's wise to know exactly what your tank range is (and there's only ONE way you can REALLY know that!)

....It's also wise to ALWAYS have enough fuel on board to reach the next place where you CAN get more fuel...........and there's usually only ONE way to do that as well!

Good Luck!

 

I'm at the other extreme: 77,000 kms on the odometer (a bit under 50,000 miles), and about 155 fuel ups (my Fuelly icon stat plus maybe 3 more). I'm filling up whenever it falls below half, at the next opportune Chevron. Maybe a little overzealous, but with our low miles it's still only every third or fourth week.

I'm never armed, lol.

 

Yep. I added my 2 cents. Crazy immature nuts.

 

LOL!

If I lived where you lived, I'd load fuel much more often, and travel armed much less!

 

I'll buy that.

 

Besides safety/security issues, there's a litany of tales of woe here, often predicated with "I ran out of gas and then...". Hybrid battery getting run down mostly, in a turtle-mode crawl to a gas station. Or not putting in enough fresh gas. I think it doesn't help the Prius often doesn't say "YOU'RE OUTA GAS", more likely to say something completely unrelated, or throw up a bunch of warning lights.

 

I just like to be cautious. At least be reasonably prepared at all times. At the very least, keep a decent amount of fuel in my vehicle, in case I have to get out of Dodge. I'm in Earthquake country. And there's been a pretty good riot or two in the past. Lots of crime in certain areas. Major power outage or Earthquake will happen eventually. Looting. Shootings. Robbing. Break-ins. Car-jackings. Heck, just a typical day in the big city.

 

You forgot pestilence.....
Typhus epidemic spreads across LA, health officials say - CNN

(sorry....couldn't resist!)

 

Yep, that too. And the EMP device that China or Russia will drop on us. I'm moving to nice quiet Canada.

 

Brush fires?

 

Safe ? Maybe, maybe not. It depends how many miles PAST zero you go and how long it stays like that.

Is it wise ? Certainly NOT.
It can be hard on the fuel pump AND it takes away all of your margin for error.

What exactly do you think you are accomplishing by doing that ?
Hint: Nothing.