pumped 11.5gal today

On the 2011, it's 11.9 gallons. What was your hand calculated mileage? Six hundred and seven miles on a tank is damned impressive.

 

My 2011 started blinking and beeping at around 470 miles, and then it only took 9.57 gallons. (First post dealer fill up) What is a typical fill-up from "empty" (blinking last bar) to full? I seem to have lost that first "full" bar of fuel a lot quicker this week.

 

As indicated 11.9 gal, you were sucking fumes

That would depend on your mpg. From your info that indicates 49 mpg that is in range of what I have gotten when checking the blinking one bar fillup.

One point to think about when running down this low is that the fuel pump and electric motor are inside the gas tank and depend on the gas for cooling. If you run this low too often you run the risk of overheating your fuel pump and motor.

 

I recently drove 35 miles after the indicator showed zero miles left. I then put in 10.1 gallons. I would imagine that there was still about a gallon left.

 

I routinely run each tank down to the end and I also top it off to the very top, and the most I have pumped is 12.916 gallons after traveling 705.9 miles. My longest tank mile wise was 732.4 miles, after which I pumped 12.363 gallons.

 

I thought the goal was to get high MPGs, not see how far you can go on a tank and possibly strain the in-tank fuel pump which, if damaged, I don't think would be covered under warranty.

How's that for a run-on sentence.

 

When you go beyond the 11.9 gallon tank capacity, you are probably filling up the evap system canister, and doing that may kill the charcoal in the canister:
"Overfilling − Trying to force additional fuel into the tank pushes excess fuel into the EVAP system. This may cause an EVAP DTC and may even require the replacement of some EVAP system components." (http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/Hybrid13.pdf , this is for the Gen II, the Gen III is probably similar).

If the canister is dead, it won't absorb the gasoline vapors and I suppose will just release them to the atmosphere?? Increasing emissions, plus you lose a bit of gas which might have gotten you down the road a bit further??

I think somewhere in the Owners Manual it says to fill up only to the first click.

I usually fill when it says to, which normally means about 10 gallons. If that gets me >600 miles, I'm happy.

 

Yup - You got pretty good "mileage" out of it.

I DO appreciate JD's post/point about damaging the fuel pump, though!

 

How far past the blinking fuel gauge pip, or DTE = 0, did you go? And did you stop the previous fillup at the first click of the nozzle, or did you pack in extra fuel?

 

607 miles / 11.5 gallon = 52.8 mpg.
Good, but I am not impressed.

 

Jeebus. Seven hundred miles?!! That's almost the distance from New York to Georgia. Imagine doing that on one tank! Did you do anything special to achieve that--hypermiling or anything?

 

Tank size = 11.9 gallons (source - owner's manual + others)

How much gasoline can the fuel system hold? I think folks have been able to put 13 or more gallons into it (when you fill it up to the neck and see gasoline sitting there).

When the last pip flashes, the car usually has 2.5 gallons or so left in it. When the DTE = 0, it is somewhere around 2.0 +/- 0.1 gallon. (source - personal observation and other posts, such as BobWilson4web)

 

Well, while I don't know where Cyclopathic lives, 52+ mpg in winter is not bad at all. I think a lot of our snowed in friends would love to get 52+ mpg in the winter.

 

Good, but even better if you had left out the commas

You're right, though, the point is high MPGs, then it becomes almost a game to see how far you can stretch that. I'm willing to bet a lot of people are unaware that running the tank dry can cause damage.

Also, since the gauge is digital and not analog, you have no idea how far "below E" you're driving. In this car, I'm choosing to get to a gas station as soon as reasonably possible when I see the gauge start to blink, and let the MPGs rather than the range speak for itself.

 

I've only watched my 'miles left to go' gauge once and it went from showing 18 miles left right to 0??? ----> 21, 20, 19, 18, 0

 

But it is less than half of any Prius tank record.

 

duplicate post, sorry

 

Thanks! The concentration needed to get those mpg's for that distance is amazing.

The tank distances are fun but less impressive. They're overfilling the tanks by filling up the evap systems, so it becomes a question of how much gas you can cram into the car (nearly 16 gallons in the last case!). And likely damage to the evap system and increased emissions if it can't adsorb hydrocarbons from the gas vapor and just vents them to the atmosphere.

Rather see them set up a fuel consumption record over some fixed distance, say 1000 miles or 1000 km.

 

Do Japanese domestic models even have evap systems? Their Gen2s didn't have our fuel bladders, which allowed them greater tank capacity.