How far can you go on 1 bar (mileage/tank)

the gauges are not accurate. they may be digital and "seem" more accurate, but i would guess that their measurement options havent changed much from the old days.

check out the "DTE" on the Pri immediately after fillup. you will most likely see around 650 miles. that figure added to the distance traveled will slowly decline thru-out the tank until DTE will hit zero usually when tank is at around 550 miles. so some how you lose about 100 miles in the interim.

 

would it hurt anything to run out of gas?

 

I dont think toyota would allow a catastrophic failure of steering and brakes by simply running out of gas.

Anyone know what would happen if the Prius ran out of gas?

 

"catastrophic" is simply an invalid term. the Pri has no steering wheel lock. even with no power assist, in a car that is moving, its still very manageable to steer. heck if you are 50 YO or more, you probably drove a car with manual steering as most cars used to be that way and they were much heavier than your Pri.

also, your hydraulic brakes are do have power assist, but you can still stop them on your own...

 

Only with more flashing lights.

Tom

 

Thanks for the replies.

 

Sorry to be so late with this reply...
I found Bob's post: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii-2010-prius-main-forum/64211-warning-running-out-gas-gen-iii.html
in case anyone had trouble.

I wanted to share that this very thing (running out of gas) happened to me just last week, which is why I was so interested in this thread. It happened shortly after leaving my office parking lot. The car made it up to about 35mph (on a 45mph road), and then I noticed lack of response from the accelerator, even when switched to power mode. Then the power steering warning light came on, consistent with what Bob documented in his post. I didn't know what the heck was happening. Lucky for me, I was headed straight for a gas station on the way, and had just enough momentum to coast to the intersection, make a right turn, then left into the station and roll to the closest pump. This whole time I didn't know I had run out of gas. I thought it was a malfunction or something. It wasn't until I saw the 11.8xx gallons filled that I realized what had happened.

One very strange thing though -- before I filled up, I tried starting the car (because I didn't know I ran out of gas) and lo-and-behold it started right up! I could feel/hear the ICE going. But I shut down since I had to fill up anyways.

How did I get into this predicament? The MID reported 45mpg for the tank, and I had about 477miles driven at that point. Even if the MID was high by 3mpg, it meant the car could reach ~500 miles before needing a refill. After filling up, I calculated closer to 40.5mpg, 10% lower than the MID reading. Either the previous tank wasn't max'd out, or the MID reading was way off. Regardless, I learned my lesson not to trust the MID mpg reading for estimating how many miles before running out of gas. When that last bar blinks, I'm gonna try to fill up soon.

 

That thing on the left side of the display is called a gas gauge which gives a relative graphic value of how much gas is in the tank.

I have never in my life run out of gas, and I dont understand how that can happen if someone can afford to drive a car, and watch that little gauge. Unless someone intentionally ran out of gas for some reason.

 

It's pretty easy to do. The few times it has happened to me fall into the following two categories:

1) Bad fuel gauge - you think you have gas, but guess what.

2) No place to refuel - you know you are low on gas, but there are no open gas stations.

You don't have to be stupid or even inattentive to run out of gas, but it does help.

Tom

 

1. Bad fuel gauge. OK, if you arent paying attention to how far you have dirven.

2. Plan ahead and be prepared.

 

I'll give you an example. On my old Jeep C-J5, the gas gauge would drop as fuel was used. Shortly before empty the gas gauge would jump back up to full. With more than one driver it was easy to confuse this behavior with that of someone having filled the tank.

Easy to say, but not always so easy to do. I take it that you drive in a civilized part of the world where there are plenty of gas stations, and the stations keep some sort of reasonable hours. Not all of us are so lucky.

Here is another real world example. I was pulling a fairly large U-Haul trailer with our Subaru. This was the one and only time I had to do that, and it turned out that the fuel burn rate was much higher than I had expected. We were on a toll road in the middle of nowhere, with nary a gas station or town in sight. At the outset I thought I had plenty of gas. Once I realized my error, we ran out of fuel before we could find a station.

It's correct to say that people should not run out of fuel under ordinary circumstances, but to state that no one should ever run out of fuel is simply silly. The world is too unpredictable for that.

Tom

 

1. My one and only accidental out of fuel incident, was the very first tank of my very first car. The needle was still above E, which was perfectly safe in that particular circumstance in all of my parents cars.

2. You must be fortunate to have not lived or driven in a time and place where there are no gas stations whatsoever for low triple-digit distances, and no open stations for a longer distance than that.

2a. ... and to have not walked into the only station open at this time and had the attendant demand a substantial cash fee to unlock the pump. And no, before you can try to collaborate with the other customer who just walked in, you cannot split the fee with anyone else.

2b. ... or experienced alternate-day gas rationing. Whether or not you can buy gas today depends on the last digit of your license plate. If you must drive a long distance on a day that you cannot legally buy gas, too bad. Some of us who remember that, and want to be prepared when it returns, want to know where the bottom of the tank is somewhat more accurately than a fuzzy 4 gallon ambiguity (on my other car). If you never exercise it, it isn't really there.

Considering the very wide range of uncertainties here, and the refusal of most car manufacturers to provide fuel gauging with any sort of accuracy resembling that which pilots take for granted, then we must expect some drivers to occasionally err if they are to use any more than half the stated vehicle fuel range.

 

You got that right! :rockon:

And its also the best reason I can think of to always be prepared for the extrordinary circumstances. I have driven all over the USA and Canada and parts of Mexico. I never ran out of gas. Do we call that luck, or prepared?

I know people run out of gas. Ask AAA. That is their #1 call. I even had a wife that ran out of gas, once. After that I started taking her car to the store and she never ran out of gas again, until after we got divorced(my son told me.)

I also keep my cars in good service. And I do most of it myself after the first couple of years. I dont like surprises so I minimize my risk by taking care of business. That is the reason I seek out these forums, so I can get experienced advice(good or bad) and prepare myself and my car to minimize my risk.

Tom

(yes my name is Tom also)

 

Shucks, I'm only 52. I aint never rode a bull neither. And I certainly dont intend to start now.

 

I go to one bar, or one bar blinking, and I've never put more than 9.40 gallons in my 2008.

 

with a bladder, you really have to push the limits to get 10+ gallons. that is one thing i like about my 2010. nearly all my tanks are 10+ gallons. then again, they have all been over 600 miles as well.

on my other 2 Pri's. hit 600 miles like 6 times in 75,000 miles which is the same # of times i hit 600 on my 2010 in 5,000 miles