Fuel Tank Capacity

The capacity is listed as 11.8 (or .5) gallons but I hit E the other day and it took 9.75, if 11.8 is really the size of the tank it has a massive reserve.

 

11.9 gallons. Twice I've gone about 30 miles with the last bar flashing, for a while.
In the city near the Sunoco I use.... So I didn't have to walk far to get fuel.
If I remember correctly, when I filled the tank it was +/- 10 gallons.
The display indicated I could go zero miles....
It will depend on where the sensor is. And I do know Toyota, and others, say you need at least 2
gallons in the tank for the computer to reconize there is fuel. So maybe that's why it seems very
rare anyone put more that 10 gallons in.
Someone somewhere did an experiment where they carried 2.5 gallon of fuel, and drove the car
until it ran out, and then ran on the battery until it shut off.
He said he put the fuel in it and it started up quickly. I guess the computer also shuts off the battery
before it's completely drained so there is enough juice to start the car when you put fuel in it.

 

For future reference, fuel, oil, and other capacities are listed in the owners manual.

You can get a free pdf of your manual from Toyota.
Manuals & Warranties | Toyota Owners

 

I don't recall how many miles mine says after I fill up, and I don't think I've ever let it go long enough to get more than 8 or 9 gallons in it. Won't the estimated mileage take into account your overall average mpg, which will depend on all kinds of things: your driving style, whether or not you've used the a/c much, the length of your trips, etc.

 

Range depends on the driver.
There's about 11 usable gallons in the fuel tank if you ignore the [sic] "low" fuel warning.

It really makes for pretty easy math if you know how trip odometers work.
If not?
Use the DTE.

In the 250,000+ miles that i drove G3's I used more or less the same modality.

Drive until DTE=0
Fuel up sometime within the next 50 miles or so.

If you're like me you will wind up putting about 10 gallons in the car....leaving over a gallon for a true reserve.
If you get about 45 MPG then you have a true tank range of about 500 miles with a comfortable fuel reserve.

There are many many MANY posts about this.

NOTE!
G3s are getting a little long in the tooth now so you may want to figure on a true MPG figure of about 40.

Good Luck!

 

when the last bar blinks, there's still a safety of a couple gallons. that's in the o/m.

range is based on your average mpg's over some past history. it's basically a guess o' meter, unless your driving is always the same.

 

Something will be wrong if you ever manage to put in the spec'd capacity, because more-n-likely the first few gallons will come in a gas can, by the side of the road.

My credo is to fill any time the gas gauge is at half or less, and stop filling at the first pump shut-off.

I pay no attention to the distance-to-empty guess-o-meter.

 

If you don't run it to actual fuel starvation, then you aren't filling it up from empty. There is some safety margin built in, to give the un-aware drivers enough warning to get fuel before they actually run out.

For 'customer expectation management' reasons, the top of the gauge is not the real top of the tank, and the bottom of the gauge is not the real bottom of the tank. Short term MPG is more highly variable than most drivers realize, depending on usage patterns and road conditions and number of cold start cycles. At least at this time, it is just not possible to reliably predict what those will be. If the car even tried, it would occasionally get it wrong, and the manufacturer's customer service lines would be getting angry calls from drivers saying "your car said it had enough gas to get where I wanted to go, but then it left me stranded on a dark and stormy night in the middle of nowhere where there wasn't any cell phone service to call for help!"

The best Gen3 fuel tank capacity and range thread is this one: [WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III) | PriusChat
Everything you need to know is in the very first post, so you don't need to read all the nearly 500 replies

These are also why there is some safety margin is built in:

 

With more gauges comes more complacency? If all you had was some sorta dipstick, and it showed just a hint of wet at the very end, you might be more motivated.

my parents ‘58 V-dub was like that: nothing, no gauge of any description. There was a lever you could turn, if-and-when it started sputtering, to release a small reservoir. My dad had a stick next to the gas tank: take off the cap, insert stick, see how much was wet…

 

As @Mendel Leisk said, if you put in 12 gallons, the first few gallons will come from a gas can by the roadside. You can't add the full capacity to a tank unless the tank is empty. Just because the gauge reads zero or the DTE is zero doesn't mean the tank is empty. If it did mean that, there would be a whole lot more people putting gas in their car along the roadside using gas cans.

My Prius? Well, I have a Prime so that's not a fair question. My DTE is between 535 and 560 miles when I fill up. I have gone over 600 miles on a tank on a road trip where I didn't get to use a wall charge. A Gen 3 can't really tough that kind of range.

The smart thing is to ignore the fuel capacity and just buy gas when the gas gauge gets low. How low depends on if you're driving in a city where there are gas stations every couple feet or if you're driving across Arizona on the back roads.

 

What guess-o-meter? I've owned a 2010 ten prius since new and haven't seen the meter. Fueling the Prius used to be painless.

 

Used to be?

 

"guess-o-meter" is unduly negative: isn't the "distance to empty" figure based on one's average gas consumption over a longish distance?

 

Gas gauge is all I ever look at:

 

G3s pretty much fuel the same way since late 2009 when they first came out, and gas prices are even about the same as early 2010.
A properly maintained 2010 is even about as efficient as it was in 2010.

So….
What’s changed since then?

 

That's exactly the thing. When the DtE figure shows zero, your near-term future is going to depend on your actual gas consumption over the coming shortish distance, not on your average consumption over a past longish distance.

One easy way to see how different those two concepts are is to reset your cumulative MPG counter, and then pay attention to how extremely labile it is until you've clocked a large number of miles back into it again.

 

Agreed on both points.

RULE OF THUMB: In average highway conditions/driving, when the DTE hits ZERO miles to go, you can always go 50 miles more.
There was a thread on this a couple of years ago.

SECOND RULE OF THUMB: A thread about the fuel gauge "bars" or "DTE" gauge brings out the worst in people. Your actual question will be ignored and they will tell you how stupid you are for driving after X bars or when there are Y miles left on the DTE. Or they will flame you for driving Z miles without stopping, or say you are silly for not wanting to stop for gas more. Not sure why people get their knickers in a twist on this subject, but it happens every time.