So this is what happens when you run out of gas

Ran out of gas once in my '05 on an empty stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere. Was cruising at 51mpg and the low fuel warning came on a mere 8 miles before the dash lit up like a Christmas tree. Got two gallons from a wrecker and then filled up at a station that turned out to be less than five miles more down the road. Car was fine after that, no problems until a Mercedes driver totalled it years later.

 

So next can of worms. Should we be driving bigger cars to be safe?

 

or should nhtsa require larger cars to be smaller, with same height bumpers?

 

That's my vote but it will take awhile for that to happen. Escalade???

Crew cab?

Really like the Johnny cabbies in the movie Total Recall

 

Not to derail the thread much more... C250 (I think) vs '05 Prius in a rear end collision, the Prius kept us quite safe and without whiplash.

 

Way to go CC, a pioneer for new Prius owners and a new record for consecutive warning messages.

Debris ? in a new car ?

 

It's hard to admonish the OP when some veteran members ran their cars out intentionally (they will remain un-named - to protect the guilty) .

It's not a good idea to run a Prius of -any- generation out of fuel. It's probably worse re complaining by the cars systems with the newer generations. But it happens. No damage no foul. Carry on!

As with most computer generated error messages, much comedy, little truth.

 

and yet, we trust the obd reader to a fault.

 

Trust the OBDII port. Never, but never, question the engineer.

 

First my car fuel bar flashes for me. Then, it chimes a warning to me. I have done this twice, not intentionally. When you drive a Prius, you don't need to fill up as often. I was use to going once a week. Now, its nearly 2 and a half weeks. I have to watch the gauge a lot more closely.

 

No admonishments needed, as I've said before, the Prius is unbreakable, unless you crash it or hack it.

 

So is that like, "lets see what happens if I put my arm in front of a chain saw"

Might check the low light near a gas station but that is it.

 

True you can always spend on the side of the road out of gas and AC or heat. Its not rocket science to check gas gauge and get gas when it shows you are low.

 

This is an important safety feature, the ability to use the traction battery to reach a safe place. If you feel like it, put a 1 gallon spare can in the car when you're getting close and let it run out of gas. Then document if you can the ability to travel 0.5 miles to a safe place to add the spare gallon.

I never tried to measure the traction battery range when the engine is out of gas beyond 0.5 miles at 25-30 mph. This is an important safety fact and could help future, Prius 4 owners. Of course the 'hair on fire' folks will continue to complain but I've been married 40 years and complaints don't hurt. <GRINS>

I was and remain personally very unhappy with the Gen-3 terrible indication of 'out of fuel.' The Gen-3 hides the fact until the traction battery is too low and then throws up a false "Power Steering" light. It still pisses me off but not enough to make an NHTSA report. Now it is moot.

Since I bought a different car than a 2016 Prius on Friday, I won't be pursuing this unless I decide to replace our Gen-3 with another Prius. A future puzzle to figure out.

Bob Wilson

 

ucla107, thanks for telling us about your experience. I think I will start refueling when the gas gauge gets down to the last bar. (I don't think I'll ever make it into the 700 mile club. )

I use AAA Auto Club for emergencies, but I think we new buyers also have free "Toyota Road Service" for 2 years? Has anybody ever used that?

I don't recall seeing the fuel bar flashing in my Gen4. That's a good feature you have. But I think I did hear one, barely audible chime, when the low-fuel message popped up on my screen.

It would be really nice if the loud female Navigation voice I hear in my Prius, came over the speakers to advise me to get to a gas station.

This is what I saw and heard when my low-fuel light came on...

 

On my gen3 I get consistently 6% error on mpg, about half of that if I consider the first click. Let's see what the error will be on the Gen4.
PS: yes, some gas stations are at least cheating by 1-2%

 

The one time I ran out it was at highway speed. I shut off A/C, put on the hazards, and drove at about 40 MPH (to stay below the MG1 RPM limit for EV drive in Gen2) and easily made it a mile or two down the road to the next exit. I even was able to stop, make a left, and travel just under another mile at slow speed on a county road hoping to find a filling station. There wasn't one and I stopped at zero bars on the HV battery display. If I hadn't exited, it turns out that maybe I could've coasted into one at the very next exit.

Either way, it was very nice to have several minutes of locomotive power and options even though the ICE was unavailable due to my own stupidity.

 

Don't you remember your mom nagging your dad, "you need to stop for gas". Your dad said, "no we have got plenty".

 

Back then, Dad was driving a Ford Econoline with two tanks, so... flip a switch and he really did have plenty.