Due to being cut off in traffic I was not able to stop and refuel when I needed to. As a result, my pruis ran out of gas. Rather than driving the Pruis in this condidition I pulled off on to the shoulder of the highway as soon as the red trianle appeared, walked the .5 mile for gas and back, filled up and everything appeared to be normal. I took my Prius into the dealership for it 10,000 mi oil change the next day with no mention from them about anything being wrong. There was a moment when I thought there might be but the technician just wasn't well versed at how to turn off the maintenance light in a prius. My last tank has me worried though. I normally average around 450-470 mi per tank with about 49-50mpg displayed and about 47-48mpg calc'd. On this last tank I got 554 mi with 51 mpg displayed and 54.5 mpg cal'd. Did I just reach another milestone or do you think that something might be wrong with my car?
You may not have filled up as much as you should have to get the tank back to your original level, or you didn't account for the gas you put in to get back on the road. It doesn't take much gas to change MPG. Adjusting your MFD readout MPG to 49, as it appears your actual averages -2 from display, the computer says you used 11.3 gallons. Your calculations say you put in 10.1 gallons.
Sorry about that. I thought that I mentioned it in my story but after the car ran out of gas I gave it a gallon of gas to get it going and then 11.051 gallons at the gas station. The numbers taht I quoted were from the tank following that one. I am waiting to see if I can reproduce the same results with this tank. But I am still worried about the effects of running it so low on gas. I just know that alot of the board members are alot more technically inclined than I am. Thanks in advance for any advice that anyone has
hey i chalk it up to your just getting better at driving efficiently. as you will know by reading posts on this site, you can get much higher numbers. keep up the good work!
Thanks for the encouragement Dave, you are probably right. On my next fillup I am going to start a new technique to see what the results are. I want to set the cruise control for speed limit but not above 65MPH to see if that give me any improved results. I know that in the city I can get higher numbers by manually controlling the speed but I think CC will give me more consistant results.
