Gas (tank?) issues

I have a Prius I actually have four of this model but I have one that has the gas gauge dance issue I don't even worry about it I fill up the car in the morning or whenever it is and I drive approximately 300 mi I don't give a crap what the gas pips show on the display makes absolutely no difference unless my car is one of these bad day Prius these cars get about 40 mi to the gallon on a horrible day that should be 300 miles on a tank pretty easily with room to spare. So I don't even worry about the gas I got close to 300 mi I need to be thinking about gas not the pips. So I get gas nobody cares what the pips is I fill it up until I hear the gas come up to the top of the filler neck It's almost going to start gurgling and I stop and I look around at the sky and stare down at my shoes and then pull the lever slowly again and bring it to the same place I do this about eight times until the fuel when I withdraw the silver nozzle out of the hole in the filler neck and slowly bring it to where I can see the end of the nozzle the gas is at the bottom of the edge where the gas cap screws on not a drop is spilled out and I'm at approximately in my car 8.4 gallons I cap off the nonsense I drive 300 mi and I'll put 8.4 gallons approximately again and this goes on until the car dies or I do so far we're still going. I've run this car out of gas three or four or five times on purpose It only takes a gallon dumped into the tank to restart the car and drive to the gas station I've done it quite a few times there's no hullabaloo restarting the car that's the beauty of an electric fuel pump and fuel rail. The gas moves without the car cranking. Matter of fact I've run all four of my generation 2 Prius out of fuel on more than one occasion to make sure I know what everything looks like when the given vehicle I'm sitting in runs out of fuel what the pips look like all of it I need to know. So I just drive filled up the way described above 300 mi fill up there's no discussion doesn't really matter how many miles I've gone or what the pips say 300 we get gas we keep driving forget that and you don't have any gas in the car You may get stuck Don't be that guy.

 

You say you’re aware of the bladder issue

 

Some bladders are worse than others.

It Depends.

Never used those but my second 08 did run out of gas because of an erratic bladder. Never had any trouble with my first 08.

Lesson learned, fill it up between 1/4 and 1/2. Toyota also learned their lesson and eliminated bladders in the gen3s.

 

No maybe you shouldn't be losing that many pips in 50 miles obviously so there are two choices You're either going to deal with it in your mind because you drive the car everyday and so on and it'll never be a problem generally speaking You just keep gas in the car I mean it's not to the point yet where you keep the Prius on empty all the time is it Is that a thing?. Or you'll be dropping gas tanks and putting in another one a new one is costly if you can get it and so on people have played around with this a little bit I haven't had to yet I'm sure there is another tank that could possibly fit in the space other people have tried some interesting things and so on then this pressure transducers that are going to have to be dealt with that go on some side of the bladder that read that pressure for venting purposes and what have you who knows so it just becomes what's important to you and worth it a car this old may not be worth putting in a thousand or so dollars fooling around with the gas tank and gauge All else being fine but then again to some it may be If it's just a worry of running out of fuel that seems to be an easy thing to deal with just keep fuel in the car You know approximately what you're getting in fuel mileage just by the MFD If you're anywhere near 40 which these cars doing a bad day 300 is a good rule and fuel up should like never be a problem but you never know.

 

sorry, the bladder issue can present in several different ways. best you can do is calculate range by multiplying avg mpg and gallons filled, then refill well before range is zero.

 

The rate of " X pips per Y miles " really shouldn't be the concern. That can vary with HOW the bladder "deflates" as it empties, which can be different from one Prius to the next. The bladder looks kind of like an accordion on its side.

If it compresses (folds) evenly, you have a fairly linear change on the fuel gauge. If one side sticks up while the other side goes down, then the reading can change quickly or slowly over a certain change in fuel volume.

My 2006 uses 8 to 8.5 gallons from full to flashing in summer, at near 50MPG. In winter that is more like 6 gallons at 40MPG. Sometimes the gauge stays at 3 pips for 80-100 miles. Other times it goes from 4 to 2 pips in 40 miles.

Having the gauge go immediately from "more than 2 bars" to flashing would point to a faulty gauge sender. While being unable to fill more than a gallon or two might suggest a fuel tank vent problem.

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