Fuel indicator

It may be different with a plug in?
But numerous threads seem to reveal that Prius is conservative in it's gas gauge.

My experience with my Standard Prius is that I can drive past the blinking last pip, all the way to cruising range Zero and when I fill up I have nearly two gallons left.

To me pushing the Prius too much farther really isn't worth the risk. I believe the gauge is conservative, but I also fill up relatively soon once the last Pip starts blinking and especially after reaching cruising range 0.

If it turns out I've only put 9+ gallons of gasoline in the tank? I enjoy the savings and call it a win.

 

correct. in the owners manual, it tells you how many gallons the tank holds, how many gallons are in reserve when the last pip starts flashing and it beeps. i usually get about 8 gallons in when the last pip flashes. you can see my fills in the spreadsheet.

 

From the 2015 PiP owner's manual page 541;
"Low fuel level warning light
Indicates remaining fuel is approximately 1.6 gal. (6.0 L, 1.3 Imp.gal.) or less "
(And a picture of the last pip of the gas guage blinking)

Link for manual; http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47A11U/pdf/OM47A11U.pdf

Enjoy

 

Yes.
Discussed here in MANY previous threads.
Pretty much applies to all models.......and even most other brands too in my experience.

 

After the first click, you can also top off with another gallon. (You can add more... but not worth risk of overfill).

 

A couple of responders have mentioned "not worth the risk". I'll be more blunt: there's zero benefit to running the tank right down . Same thing for filling 'till it's practically spilling out.

 

mine is full after the first click.

 

Just because there are zero benefits for you doesn't mean there aren't for other people.

 

Really? That click must be very precise over many different fuel nozzles and pumps.

I'm betting you are "full" with no more than ~9 gallons in your tank and filler neck.

 

if you look at my stats, the car always takes 8+ gallons from blinking pip to first click. if there aren't 10+ gallons in there after filling, toyota's specs are wrong. but i'm not going to run it out of gas to find out.

 

Yes it does.
To repeat what he said a little differently:
There is no practical benefit to running your tank dry.
There is no practical benefit to over-filling the tank so that gas splashes out (or almost does).
Both of those things can, in fact, cause significant PROBLEMS, especially if done repeatedly.

 

Bob Wilson has run his two Prii dry nearly 50 times, for a variety of experiments and engineering tests. I have found considerable useful information from his resulting reports, many of which would have been far less meaningful without the dry tank.

More personally, I have described in numerous past threads various historic reasons why it has been very useful to have much better knowledge of the true fuel range of a vehicle than the vague warnings provided on most of today's car. If commercial airliners know their range to less than 10 minutes uncertainty, and fly with as little as 30 minutes of safety margin, why should I have to put up with 2+ hours of mixed margin+uncertainty? The risks and consequences of running out of fuel in a passenger car are far lower than in a commercial airliner.

 

I guess it helps that we're tanking up only every 3 or 4 weeks, but I've not no qualms pulling into my favourite brand station, if we're passing by anyway, when the gauge looks like this:



And that's pretty much worst case.

 

I have a number of other worst case scenarios in mind, several from first hand experience years ago.

And this year alone, I remember looking at just 2 bars on the gauge, with $CDN 1.129/liter posted beside the car vs $Bellingham 2.35/gallon an hour away. And $California 4.099/gallon beside the car vs. $Arizona 2.29/gallon less than an hour away. In both cases, the wait saved lots of cash.

 

We don't get out much, lol. All BC purchases, and I purposely don't look at the price.

 

Really ? Thanks for explaining that. I never would have figured it out on my own.

 

I've discovered that you can be excused for not looking at posted gas prices in BC, because there is nothing to be gained by doing so. Price shopping doesn't recover the mental planning effort, or even the wireless data charges.

Vernon -- $Zero spread from highest to lowest price. (Safeway does give 5 cent discount codes to customers who spend enough on food, but the posted price matches the city norm.) Kelowna -- 2 cents different than Vernon, but still zero spread. Peachland was a penny cheaper. The giant metropolis of Kamloops was large enough to have some price competition from two rebels, Costco at 5 cents lower, and some no-name place a couple cents lower, but no other stations strayed from the fixed community price.

Even crossing the mountains, the price gradient per 100 km was too low to allow meaningful price arbitrage. The only useful gas pricing guidelines are to hit Canadian Customs with a full tank, and U.S. Customs with as low a tank as comfort and planning allow. I seem to remember that gas is also noticeably cheaper in Alberta than BC, but the difference across that border is much less dramatic.

In contrast, my zip code is showing a 60 cent/gallon price spread this morning, and that is lower than normal (prices rising, and the cheapest stations move faster). When prices are flat, a 70 cent spread is common. When prices were falling a few months ago, the spread exceeded $1/gal. Folks who don't look at the price -- I carpooled with some -- pay a lot for the convenience.

But that $1.80 CA-AZ spread on I-40 was the largest I've seen in some time, much larger than even the BC-WA difference. Gasbuddy revealed that $1.70 of that spread occurred over less than 2 miles driving distance, but the lower price was across a town bridge and away from the Interstate.

 

Yup. Up here all the boats, I mean stations, seem to go up and down with the tide.

 

Here in California, Safeway gives 20 cent/gal discount, but only on the (high-priced) Chevron brand.