After 11 Years she finally ran out of gas on me and then this happened

Bob ran numerous engineering tests that involved running out of fuel. Here is his more detailed description of running out on his 2010:

[WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III) | PriusChat

 

That was it?????!!!!!!!

 

what happened?

 

Nothin much?

 

"Nothin much?"

Essentially a version of automotive Russian roulette (FacePalm...)

 

I don't know what annoys me the most...folks who let their vehicles run out of gas or folks who don't change their engine oil regularly. I just saw the insides of a ruined Prius ICE engine because the owner drove for Uber and only changed the oil every 10,000 miles "or so". Those pistons were NASTY. I fill my vehicles at 1/2 a tank when it's cold (winter) and at 1/4th of a tank any other time.
That has to be dumbest thing Toyota does...telling folks our ICE engines only need an oil change every 10,000 miles. Well, yeah, IF we only plan on keeping our car for 4-5 years (which is considered "lifetime"). So when we read the transmission/cvt oil is "lifetime" it really should say, "Needs changing every 4-5 years."

 

i ran out once. not intentionally, but the gen 2 only gives you a quick beep and then the blinking bar which is easy to miss.
i heard the beep, but forgot about it after arriving at my destination. then, i ran out a mile from home a few days later.
drove on battery until the dash lit up and the car died. walked home and called aaa the next day.

they put a few gallons in, she started right up, and i was off. i try to put in a few gallons now when i'm down to one bar.
with the pip, you don't want your gas to go stale, it's a double edged sword.

 

Wow, Bisco, I didn't think about gas going stale in a PIP Prius! I guess it starts to degrade after just 3 months so it would be smart to not fill it up if you don't use it all in that time frame. Maybe adding a little gas stabilizer wouldn't be a bad idea and maybe running some fuel injector cleaner through the ICE a few times a year. (I run the cleaner in all my vehicles every month or so.)

 

According to the 2012 PiP Owner's Manual, he needn't worry about it for 6 months:



The Prime boosted this time interval to 12 months.

Remember that fuel systems on PHEVs are far better sealed than on any other cars on the market, so their fuel goes stale slower. GM and the other car makers and CARB worked together to design fuels systems for these vehicles:

"... but now we've got the scoop on the gas tank used to keep liquid fuel in the Volt from evaporating or going stale for up to a year. "

How designing the Chevy Volt's sealed gas tank brought automakers, CARB together | Autoblog

 

since spring of 2020. our driving like many others has been severely curtailed. i don't like burning fuel just because it is old. so i only get 2-3 gallons at a time.

i use more gas in my riding mower these days