Low fuel warning?

mine doesn't, just a flashing last bar and a quick beep. but i've never owned a non pip gen III.

 

There's a good thread on this from a couple of years back. Low Fuel Light. Look for some good info from Bob Wilson (as always) who took the car to a dry tank a couple of times just to see how much gas is actually left when you get the warning.

 

The 1 bar flashing IS a good indicator. When I see the 1 bar flashing I know I have to get gas fast!

 

sometimes, when it starts flashing, you're not in a good position to stop and get gas. if you ignore it and forget, there isn't a second reminder or a light that stays on, or a beep every so often. nothing. ignore at your peril.

 

The light continues to flash. Also, every time you turn the car off and on, the warning sound returns.

 

So when that light starts to flash for the first time, you have roughly 2 gallons remaining in the tank. Careful driving with it will take you around 80-100 miles provided the terrain isn't bad or the AC/Heat isn't cranked the entire way. 80+ miles is quite a ways to have to find a gas station. I'd say if you have that as a reserve, and still can't find one, your trip planning skills need some polishing.

 

^ Concur.
IIRC, on mine......when the DTE gets below 20. you get a beeeeeeeep and the remaining bar in your fuel gauge will flash. The 'Prius-chic' call the bars 'pips'.....not to be confused with Pips (or is is PIPs?) which are something different altogether.
Please pardon the digression.....it's how I roll.

As stated above...the last bar will continue to flash until you either run out of fuel, get more fuel, or reboot your car...and then it will beeeeeeeeep at you and start flashing again, repeating the above cycle.
Also, as stated above, you have about 2 gallons of fuel remaining in your tank when you get the warnings.

Good Luck!

 

NAH ... depending on your current MPG you can go as far as 100 miles (on your peril of course) I drove about 75 mies past the first bip and about 50 after 0 miles was reported and still could only put in 10.2 gal

MPG for the full tank was 59.9 MPG

So this is a very very early warning.

WARNING I did run out of gas on my GenII when it was about 2 months old. Not fun ... I was too confident in my math and assumed a completely full gas tank (which is not the case in most cases). Also GenII was a lot more accurate on how much gas left ...

 

Those of you that want to flirt with running out of gas go right ahead I prefer to fill up at 2 bars and not worry about blinking bars and DTE readings.

Also, if a blinking 1 bar and a beep at startup are not enough warning for some, then maybe they need to run out of gas one time to verify where the real DTE is

 

My car beeped at me today while still 10 miles from my work.

I'm going to make the 49mile trip back home with the light flashing at me. I cannot stand the thought of filling up at 61.2mpg so I'm going to hypermile home and bring it to at least 62mpg. I knew I shouldn't have screwed around so much on this tank and now I'm paying for that A/C use. Ugggggggggggggggggg

 

What some people will do for 0.8 mpg

 

It's only going to be 90-95F today so at least I am not suffering like I was when it was 109F. A/C is for the weak! /flex

Maybe this is a good time to remind people of how awesome the solar roof is. It was 95F yesterday and with the solar roof and my sunshade (from PriusChat Shop) the inside of the car was very comfortable. Thank you Toyota! lol

 

My average fillup is right around 9 gallons.

I generally fill up when I get to 1 pip (not blinking) and it takes 8.5 gal or so. If I get into the flashing pip for a bit I'll get 9.5ish gallons in.

"Tests" on here have indicated you have around 2 gallons left once the pip starts blinking so that's quite a good indicator and how "far" you want to go once flashing is really up to you. It's also a pretty good safety margin. That's a safe, round trip for my wife and I on our general commute cycle. But we generally fill up at 1 pip, or just into the blinking pip, to be safe.

I think I've put a full 10 gallons in this car maybe twice in the 43k miles I've owned it, and that was when I ran the blinking, single pip the longest. I never "top up."

 

I think my low fuel warning light and beet is wrong. I always get the warning before 1pabout 10 miles left. Then I get to 0 miles and keep going up to another about 30 miles. But as a lesson for myself I should be very careful - since last year on my way back from work I was left without gas in the tank. It was complete out and my engine shot off and i got the yellow triangle warning. I was on the road pulled off until someone brought me gas. Very bad experience and I'm not looking forward to that again.

 

We filled up roughly ten miles after the low fuel indicator appeared. The car took 9 gallons. Very early warning, indeed.

 

I believe that in all modern cars the fuel pump is inside the tank. The fuel serves as a coolant to the pump. Therefore it will be wise to refill your tank when it reaches one third or one fourth of the tank, especially in summer. Leaving the car unfueled until the reserve to kick-in is very unwise to mho.
.

 

There's also the "Empty" estimate trip display shown at the bottom of page 11 of 33 here:
http://john1701a.com/prius/documents/Prius_User-Guide.pdf

...Mudshark

 

unfueled reserve kicking in? Not sure what you are talking about there.

Yes, almost all modern cars have the pump at the bottom but even on empty this car has 2 gallons of fuel in it, plenty to keep the pump "cool." Most cars have a healthy amount of fuel still in the tank once the gauge hits "E."

So unless you plan to drive around with the car miles past empty, pip blinking, car beeping, endlessly, for years (how would you even do that?), then I doubt this is a realistic issue to worry about