Last week I was on the interstate driving home (about a 2 hour drive) and my fuel light started blinking. I thought I had gone ~35 miles before when the last bar started blinking but I had gone about 19 miles and my Prius started de-accelerating and all these lights came on the dash and screen- the red car with the exclamation point and the red triagle with the exclamation point. I was able to accelrate again and I made it off the interstate to a gas station and re-filled. When I turned my car back on, the screen said "Problem" but the exclaimation points went away. I took it to Toyota and they said I had simply run out of gas. Has anyone out there run out of gas and had this happen to them? I thought it might have something to do with the recall I heard about.
I'd bet that you ran out of gas, and that that was because of the inconsistency of the gas guage. I've noticed on my current tank that I went from from to 10 bars to 9 after about 110 miles, then I went from 9 to 8 in just another 25 miles, and 8 to 7 in about 50 more miles. This doesn't seem to follow any consistent pattern. Personally, I refuel when I get down to 3 bars, no matter what.
-if the dealer says you ran out of gas, you ran out of gas. if it were anything else, they would be happy to charge you to replace the problem part. -people are pushing these cars too far and personally i think that's why people's engines are "stalling" -there is no "recall" as of yet. it's still being investigated. don't believe everything you hear on the news. the bladder makes for inconsistent miles-on-last-blinking-bar so don't count on getting the same amount each time. just stop and fill up. we don't have to do it too often anyway :mrgreen:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"galaxee\";p=\"99344\")</div> Hey, I resemble that remark. No stalling Prius here. Just a string of 700+ mile tanks.
I've never waited until the last bar started blinking to fill up. I have waited until the last bar, however. How many miles from final bar until final blinking bar? Just curious.
How old is the car? It might need the fuel TSB. The guage is not off for me. About 170 miles for first bar, 30 miles until 4th bar remains, then about 50 miles for remaining bars until blinking. No guages on cars are linear, but since ours is digital, we tend to expect it. It is possible you got the stall problem specified by a TSB, but since you were in an Add Fuel condition, the ECU will flag that as Out Of Gas. Sounds logical doesn't it? After all, that would be a reason for ICE not to run. ECU makes the first check why ICE won't run: Low fuel. Gee, must have run out. Even if there was a legit failure causing ICE not to run, ECU has no choice but say it was because there is no fuel.
The only real problem is that it is absolutely impossible to know how much fuel is in your tank at any one time due to the bladder's ever fluctuating size.
just did my next fill up - 40 miles from last bar till it started to blink, went 6 miles and fueled up ,it took 11.5 gals. you dont have many miles left when she starts flashing.
