have you run out of gas in your prius?

The mayor of Minneapolis ran out of gas in his Prius the other day, and was late for a public meeting, so it made the newspapers.

 

As part of my gasoline studies, I would run the tank dry before switching to a different brand. The last time I counted, I've run out of gas over two dozen times. Every time I've had a 1 gallon spare can of gas in the trunk.

The last tank went 598.7 miles before running out. I'm currently on 530 miles with my spare can in the trunk. I've gone just over 130 miles on the flash or as little as 40 miles. The average is around 60-70 miles.

Bob Wilson

 

No, I never have.

I often go get to the single, flashing pip, but quickly fill up. One time, however; I thought I could make it to the next town, but while out in the country, I got down to the single pip, and then drove 20 miles, and made it with out running out. I did sweat over that one.

Anyway, I will include this image to tease you.

 

That's 13 gallons. You're over-filling your tank, and may damage the vapor-recovery cannister thingy.

 

Yes, Daniel, so I have been warned by a friend who had a gas tank replaced in her gen 1 Prius, supposedly because she topped off, at 120K miles. Dealer also replaced her computer.

I always top off, though I resist filling till I have a ways to drive, and the price is low. I hate stopping at gas stations, I don't like filling any car. I have not had any problems yet. Maybe I have just been lucky.

 

Should we start another poll?

Who has run out of petrol(gas) with 2 bars showing on the "guess" gauge?

Who has run out of petrol(gas) with 1 solid bar showing on the "guess" gauge?

Who was stupid enough to keep driving with the gauge flashing 1 bar on the "guess" gauge until they ran out of petrol(gas)?

Who has never run out of petrol(gas)?

Who has run out of petrol(gas) deliberately?

 

Me, of course.



~ dan ~

 

You need an EV. Never stop at a gas station again!

 

I haven't run out yet but I almost did today. Toyota should take note of all the people running out of gas.

I'm a software engineer so I look at it from a user-interface perspective. People don't think to check the fuel every time they get into the car. So they need some sort of stimulus (think stimulus-response mechanism) to point out when fuel is low.

The vanishing pips are effectively taking away stimulus as you run out of fuel. On an older gauge, you can train your mind to spot a red needle pointing to the left. It's a lot harder to train your mind to react to an absence of an indicator.

I would really like some retro-kit or after-market solution to the poorly designed gauge.

It would be better if the indicator turned the pips yellow when they got down to 3 pips, orange when they got to 2, red at one, and then flash when almost empty.

 

That would all be good ideas and with the technology in the car it shouldn't add to the cost.

In the mean time maybe Toyota can mover the gauge to directly in front of the driver in the most prominent part of the instrument cluster right above the speedo, minimise the distraction by deleting tacho, temperature gauge and keeping the clock out of the instrument cluster, the last block on the guage could flash when there was 2 or 3 litres of usable fuel until empty a loud siren could sound when there was 5 or 6 litres left and a boxing glove in the drivers side B pilar could pop out quickly toward the driver's head if they run out of petrol(gas) striking the drivers head quite roughly.
That ought to do the trick.

 

I'd like to say "no, I'm not an idiot", but I realize everyone makes mistakes, and in the future I may, so...

 

Not yet.

I've driven on the flashing pip with the beep that warns you. But only as far as the nearest gas station. Since the gauage is so inaccurate, I've never tried to drive it any distance once the warning starts. Although I must say it seems to have pretty much 2 gallons left when it starts warning me.

 

Yes, I was driving up from Santa Barbara and we have two Priuses. On my wifes Prius, we can go 100 miles on a flashing pip. NOT on mine. I can only go about 25 on a flashing pip. Yea, you guessed it,,, we were in MY Prius.
-Paul R. Haller-

 

I ran out of gas today at 460 miles for the tank

and the display says I'm getting over 46 miles to the gallon. I'm in New York and we've had very cold weather so I'm not surprised that my milage has been iffy. However, based on other discussions on here about the PIP coming on when there is still 3 gallons left in the bladder, I figured at 11.9 gallons/tank, I should get 550 miles per tank.

So - this might not be the right thread for this - but how the heck can I be 90 miles short of that? That would have to indicate that the milage listed on the display is bogus - maybe they add an extra X miles/gallon to boost Prius' owners morale?

This literally happened to me five minutes ago - fortunately only a block from my office - but I am majorly mystified. I have less than 2000 miles on my new Prius, I was planning on getting gas at the 500 or so mile mark.

One other note - I once filled up shortly after the PIP began flashing and proceeded to add 8.9 gallons to the tank - so it began flashing with three gallons left!

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Re: I ran out of gas today at 460 miles for the tank

After reading your post from 12/13 http://priuschat.com/forums/showpost.php?p=531574&postcount=26 , I realize that had I seen it at the time I could have predicted this would happen to you. You post at the end of a long discussion that explains that you CANNOT count on 11.9 gallons of available fuel, and that you don't know how much fuel you have available. In your post you state, "I could have driven another 150+ miles after the flashing PIP". That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

The car told you it needed fuel. You chose to ignore the car because you thought that you knew how much fuel was in the tank. The car was right, you were wrong.

The fact that the car ran out of gas doesn't necessarily mean that the MPG displayed on the MFD is wrong.

There are a copule of possibilities here:

1) You forgot to press the "RESET" button the last time you filled up and the MPG displayed is actually the average of your past few tanks rather than of the current tank.

2) You put less than 11.9 gallons of fuel into the tank the last time you filled up. Due to the stiffness of the bladder and variations in gas station pump sensitivity, perhaps the pump shut off when you only had 9.9 gallons in the tank.

3) The MFD is generally accepted around here to be 2% or so inaccurate, so if it displayed 46.5 MPG, it is entirely possible that you were actually getting 45.57 MPG. This would indicate that the last time you filled the tank the pump shut off when you had about 10.09 gallons.

Do you have your receipt from your last fill up? How much did you put in? I'll be curious to hear how much you get into the tank this time. Perhaps you'll finally come to accept what everyone here has been saying.

"Unless the tank was dry to start with and you added 11.9 gallons yourself, you don't necessarily have 11.9 gallons of fuel in your tank when you fill it. As a matter of fact you most likely have less than 11.9 gallons. How much less? Because of the bladder, the gas station pump sensitivity, and other factors, YOU DON"T KNOW so don't try to predict remaining fuel or remaining miles based on MPG."

"When the fuel gauge starts flashing, you really should get to the nearest gas station. Sometimes you might get lucky and have the gauge start blinking early so you actually can get another 100+ miles, other times the gauge might wait longer to start flashing, and you may have less than 30 miles to empty. Since you don't know how much fuel you have to work with, driving while the gauge is flashing is AT YOUR OWN RISK and you really only have yourself to blame."

See also:
http://priuschat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=541963#post541963

 

am at one LED and it just beeped.
i better fill her up now.


but, am i not suppose to have around 3 U.S. gallons of reserve fuel once i hear first beep?

 

Okay, I'll confess. I've owned my 2008 Prius for 2 months and we (my son, wife and I) ran out of gas on a long trip just the other day. I've been driving 40+ years and had NEVER run out of gas before. I was curious about the gas gauge and had noticed there is no linear relationship between the number of pips and fuel remaining. I seem to get 150 miles on a full bladder before going from 10 to 9 pips. And, I had studied the lower end of the gauge and seem to average 50 miles per pip once the bladder is less than half full. However, my son began driving, and I couldn't see the gauge. I asked him "how many pips," and he said 4. Another 50 miles or so, I asked again, and he said 3. Then, for some unknown reason, I just quit asking, assuming he was watching the gauge. And, I guess he wasn't paying attention since he expected me to ask. I should have known something was up, because we seemed to be going forever. All of a sudden, there was a beep, he noticed a flashing pip, and within a minute, the red triangle appeared. We were at least 10 or 15 miles from the nearest gas station, out in west Texas. Luck or the angels were in play...as soon as the red triangle appeared, we noticed the flashing lights of a Texas trooper less than 1/4 mile ahead. The trooper had pulled a car over on the shoulder. We just coasted up behind him, and I got out to inquire about the nearest gas station. At first, the trooper told me he was too busy (he was in the process of arresting someone), so I said "thanks anyway" and went back to sit in the Prius. But within a minute, he went to his car, called dispatch and told them to send someone with gasoline. Within half an hour, a guy with 5 gallons of gasoline showed up, we had half a bladder of gasoline, and were on our way. Thank heaven for the Texas trooper and the fortune of how this played out...although we spent $85 for the gasoline delivery. From now on, we have a new rule. We fuel the Prius once it gets down to 3 pips! For me, there really is no GOOD excuse for running out of gas.

 

I have never run out of gas in the past 45 Years, but have a question.....

My Brother bought a 2008 green after he seen our blue, He says
his last PIP does not flash, it just goes OUT....Ours blinks, are there
some that do not?

Who's crazy Me or Him?

 

yep i have run out THREE times in 2 years!

i am an idiot i suppose, but i will say this in my defense.

MOST of the time, when my gas gauge starts blinking, i will continue to drive as much as 20-30 miles. then, i will pull over when convenient to re-fuel, usually because i am looking for a Shell station.

MOST of those times, it only takes 9 gallons to fill my "11 gallon" tank. Wth? other times, i am filling10+ gallons. Bottom line, the gas gauge in MY prius sucks, and is inaccurate for the most part.

My problem, is that i have a huge commute (80 miles/day), and IF my gauge light starts blinking, and i freak out and pull off the highway to fill up the tank, it will put me behind 15,000 other commuters...so i generally try to make it closer to home before pulling off.

i generally do NOT use the gas gauge to tell me when to refuel. i ran out yesterday, at 451 miles on the odometer, when the computer was registering 44 mpg...i thought i had 484 miles range on that tank of gas, so rather than be late to work, i figured i would fill up after work (given i had 30+ miles left on my tank). instead i ran out, and it would not start after putting 4 gallons into the tank, and i had to have it towed to the dealer to get the computer reset.

bottom line, i am an idiot for not routinely filling the tank AS SOON as the warning light blinks; but i am unfortunately the kind of person who gets irritated when i find upon refilling that i still had 2-3 gallons of gas in the tank. i guess i'll need some sort of therapy.:deadhorse:

 

I'll take a moment to say that you have no way of knowing if there are 2-3 gallons left in the tank, because the tank does not always hold "11 gallons". Learn about the fuel bladder in the Prius, and you might consider filling before the gauge starts blinking instead of after. Fill up close to home the day before when there are still 2 or 3 pips on the gauge, and you'll waste less time stranded on the side of the road, while staying ahead of the other commuters.

If the gauge is blinking, and you fill your tank, and it only takes 9 gallons, that doesn't mean there were 2 or more gallons still in the tank. It probably means that the tank was nearly empty, and that you now only have 9 gallons in the tank.

If you then use your MPG to calculate how far you should be able to drive, while assuming that you have 11 gallons in the tank, you will run out of fuel 60 or more miles sooner than you expect.