600 Mile Club

Does the flashing change at all when it's really going to run out, or is it just a constantly blink and then out of nowhere the car just dies?

 

Constant flashing then it dies as far as I know.

Someone posted on this board (I can't find it) a snapshot of how many gallons you have left and range per bar. I think you have 2 gallons of gas left when it first starts blinking.
I drive around 30-50 miles after the MTE reaches zero, even when I was only getting 44-45 mpg when I had my 2011.

 

I regularly do it when running a gas tank dry as part of a gasoline or safety study. Perhaps you remember this thread:
[WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III) | PriusChat

Further in the thread, I posted:

Read more: http://priuschat.com/threads/warning-running-out-of-gas-gen-iii.64211/page-22#ixzz20qhu9KAy

Also, my mileage record for the 2003 Prius shows a few:
2003 Toyota Prius - Hybrid Fuel Economy Data - NHW11 2003

• 615.6 mi - June 18, 2011
• 615 mi - May 24, 2011
• 629 mi - June 24, 2008
• 623 mi - December 23, 2007
• 600 mi - November 10, 2007
• 607 mi - October 5, 2007
• 610 mi - September 7, 2007
• 649 mi - August 15, 2007
• 616 mi - July 19, 2007
• 669 mi - June 29, 2007
• . . . and others

I've thought about going for 700 miles but I am only driving to empty the tank as part of changing fuel. Heck, I've even thought about going for 1,000 miles on a tank but I don't think there is anything to learn from the experience. It would take about 50 hours of butt-busting labor with nothing learned.

Perhaps if I built a home-made cruise control, lane following, and collision avoidance system . . . so I could put the car on a course and let it 'do laps.' Just I don't find sitting in a car for 50 hours to meet some 'tank record' all that interesting. Worse, the one time I took an engineering interest in a marathon driving effort, some folks took umbrage.

Now I can appreciate the Japanese 1,000 mile tank club. I don't get the impression they get too wrapped around the axle about it. Like bowling a perfect game or shooting expert on the rifle range, neat but not something to be the center one's life.

Bob Wilson

 

I don't qualify due to lack of a picture. But the other details:
* 620.7 miles, with an HSI indicated mpg of 64.1;
* June 12 - July 1, 2011, in my former 2010;
* OEM 15" Ecopia tires, 28k miles;
* 10.396 gallons (59.7 mpg actual);
* 57 miles after the blinking pip;
* mostly commuting, 36 miles round trip, mostly city streets or slow congested (but not stop-and-go) highway;
* lots of terrain-matched and traffic-matched P&G;
* no bike commuting that month due to recent back injury.

Had I paid slightly more attention, I'd have circled a couple blocks first to reach 1000 km (621.4 miles).

I pointed many newbies to this thread after they complained about refills coming up quite short of 11.9 gallons.

After seeing the 3000 km tank, I wonder if anyone will achieve a 2000 mile tank.

 

Remember? There are people still hyperventilating over that.

I appreciated the way you cut through all the folklore and BS on gas tank capacity and what actually happened when you ran your tank dry.

 

Last tank I did was 950 km (590 miles) and I filled up with 40.5 l (10.7 gal), If I knew there was this thread I would stretch that extra 10 miles. Maybe next time.
One question, there is PID for Torque app that teals you fuel level (Fuel Input), how accurate is that? It probably displays 0 when there is still gas in the tank.

 

Ahh, Charlottesville, makes better sense now. Ok, I'm not posting again in this thread until we've earned it.

 

I could have gone more miles but it was convenient to fill up and I reached the required 600 miles. It's funny, because when I left my driveway this morning to go fill up it was at 599.9 miles. My actual for the tank was 57.1 mpg which was .1 mpg off of my best tank. Usually when I fill up I go to the first click and then round off to the next dollar. The first click was at $33.98 so I just filled to $34. Over the long haul it all averages out.​

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When the cruising range was at 0 miles, I had about 558 miles on the tank. It started blinking at 25 miles before that. Since I put in 10.54 gallons I had almost 1 1/2 gallons to spare. The most I have ever gone was 608 miles between refills.

Most of my driving is my commute (70 miles RT) to work and back. I use a variety of techniques from P&G (high and low speeds) to looking for the sweet spot between mpg and mph while I'm cruising along with traffic. I have the Ultra Gauge so I use that to monitor my RPMs. I also will draft sometimes (1 second behind). My biggest savings comes from which route to use and when. If I take the HOV too early I will get worse gas mileage because of the higher speeds and hills. If I take the southern route, there aren't any hills and typically more traffic (no HOV) so the speeds are slower. It can mean a 10% difference in my mpg.​

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My front tires are at 43 psi and rears are at 41 psi.​

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My DTE is 8 miles. Lowest I've been. Gonna fill it in morning.

 

You can fill up at any service station within 75 to 100 miles of your house!

 

I'd like to join this (600 mile) club one day but forget about the 700 club. Now that I have my stock wheels & tires on, I'll have a go at it.

 

Yes, I know few techniques but still have much to learn from u & other seasoned veterans. My 1st tank back to stock, I'm at 62 indicated, although only 100 miles have been driven & it may not be able to hold up, it looks promising. And u are so right, some routes especially if I'm driving over 10 miles, I'm able to rack up my mpg while others(especially short routes) are a struggle.

 

600 mi club? Jeez.

Even right now, I am only getting 500 mile tanks occassionally with some effort and with running the tank for a while past 0.

For quite some time, I was struggling to even hit 400 miles a tank!

 

Hit 600 today but am going to wait to post the pic until the tank is finished, hopefully the pic will be in the 700 thread.

Side question:
I have another 100 miles once my DTE hits 0 right?

 

How confident are you that you got the tank full on your last fill-up? You'd know if you didn't, because your calculated mileage would be artificially high on the previous fill up.

If confident, you could look at your displayed mileage and multiply by 11. Since the displayed mileage is likely 5 - 6% optimistic, if you multiply by 11, you should have about 0.5 gallons left in the tank when you hit that mileage mark. I'd treat this as a much better estimate of your distance to zero. For "normal" fillups, I'd multiply the displayed MPG's by 10 to give an indication as to when you should fill up (if you don't mind running the tank down to the last couple of gallons).

So, if your displayed mileage is reading 63 mpg, it would be good to start thinking about filling up at 630 miles. For your max range, I'd multiply by 11 (630 + 63) = 693 miles. You would probably be close to a 700 mile tank if you pushed it a little.

If your displayed mileage is 65, I'd recommend filling up at 650 miles with a max range of 715 miles (650 + 65 = 715). You should hit a 700 mile tank with little difficulty (but your heart will still be racing wondering if you are running out of gas).

 

It seemed to be a pretty normal fill up and the numbers would agree. I always stop at the first click.

I think I should be ok getting to where I want to be. Thanks guys!