All this technology and no washer low warning???

hmm. never had a car that had one of those. never even heard of one of those lights.

glad it takes the whole gallon though, i hate having one of those bottles with a cup of fluid in it roaming around the outside closet at home.

 

my Tundra and my T100 before that had low warning lights and ya it's like a good drunk, glug glug glug.

 

Matrix, where ya been. Haven't seen you around in a while. I have to agree with galaxee, though. I've never seen that feature. Would be a nice one though.

 

My Sienna has it, but I'm anal when it comes to washer fluid, I'm always topping off when it's 2/3s full. I was caught out in a day of melting snow in my 86 Sentra when I was young and ran out of fluid...it was pretty frightening since it was the NY Thruway and the next rest stop was pretty far away. Never forgot that drive...the way that salt water mucks up the windows.

 

Ran out here not that long ago - and not only could I fill up using the entire gallon but there was more room to spare. I'm terrible at checking this, but usually have a gallon along in the car because it can be very scary to be out!

 

Are you sure? I'm not near Cousin Presee at the moment so I can't check on this but...

I Googled 'prius washer fluid capacity'. I did not find the amount of washer fluid it holds but, I did find a bunch of sites which say it does have a low washer warning light.

At least one site had, what looked like, an official Toyota brochure in PDF form. That brochure said the 2005 does have a low washer fluid warning.

jrohland

 

Features mentioned in the manual may have no impact on what's in the car.

I do think a lot of fluid isn't hitting my windshield. I use it occasionally, then notice a gallon is gone way earlier than I would have expected...

 

My '86 Mazda 626 had headlight washers (very useful in the winter). It had a HUGE tank, at least 1.5 gallons. Good thing too, without wipers on the headlights, the spray had to do it all.

 

It's funny. My old Audi had tons of warning lights for all kinds of stuff, including low fluid. Why Toyota hasn't put that in their new "high tech car" is beyond me. Still, this car is WAY BETTER than my old one.

 

My 1990 Ford Probe had something called a System Scanner. It had a display (I mean not just lights), which would show up things like:

SYSTEMS NORMAL
WASHER FLUID LOW
OIL LOW
HEADLAMP OUT
BRAKE LAMP OUT
FUEL LOW
DOOR OPEN
HATCH OPEN

One of the things (which included power seats) I gave up for the Prius, but I don't mind.

 

Wow, no washer fluid warning light. I just assumed it would be there. My last two cars had one.

I counted 34 indicator symbols in the instrument cluster (Page 6&7 in manual). Maybe they just ran out of room (or symbols)

I do like the spray pattern of the washer, better then any other car I have owned.

 

I also just assumed this would be standard... and I am surprised that it is not. Oh well... not a huge deal.

/Jim

 

What!?

Actually, it does have a fill indicator. When you use the washers and they sort of sputter and crap out, it's telling you to fill it.

Seriously, you check tire pressures monthly don't you? At that time it'd be a good idea to check oil level and washer level. If you live in snow country, de-icing fluid isn't merely a good idea, but a necessity. If you use the de-icers frequently, every fill up isn't too soon. You know the net across the back of the "trunk" area? It holds a gallon w/o movement pretty slick. Just a suggestion for winter driving. Run out during a storm and you'll wish you had that gallon back there.

I agree, the reservoir holding a full gallon is great.

 

I read somewhere that it will hold 10 liters of washer fluid, that would be + 2 gallons, right?

 

I had it in my 2001 Malibu.

 

Warning lights are good. I mean to check the fluids regularly, but I just defer that activity to grabbing a bottle of beer out of the garage