Gas gauge bar Issue

every bar is about 1.2 gallons. but since you're aware of the bladder, you know that isn't true.

 

The gage won't register less than 3 gallons, so if you were to put in a couple here, then later add more that could explain it. Hope that makes sense to you.

Gen II Prius is funky on the gage with the durn bladder, but I think you already know this.

Main thing is won't see two gallons added, must be a minimum of three gallons added at a time for the gage to register anything.

Gen III seems to not exhibit this problem IMO

 

trade for a 2010.

 

The Gen 2 bladder does a phenomenal job of controlling gasoline vapors. Cherish this thought. Because it greatly hinders knowing how much gas you have.

Fill the tank. Set the trip meter. Get gas in 375 miles. And repeat.

Or carry a 3 gallon can with you everywhere. Your choice.

 

no, but really what's reasonable is pricing in your area. and i have no idea where that is.

on the plus side, they say it's good for prius to be driven, so you have a younger, high mileage car. that's a good thing. my daughter has an '08 with 100k, runs like a champ. she can't figure out the bladder either.

 

Based on various past reports from Gen2 Prius drivers, somewhere between 0 and 4 gallons left. It is highly variable from car to car, even season to season as temperatures change.

Yes, a very few drivers have run out with 2 bars showing. I believe some of them were able to get gauge re-calibrations to fix it. More have run out a few miles (3 to 10) after the last bar started blinking. And a substantial number have had no bladder issues at all, going a couple gallons beyond the blinking bar.

You won't know how much fuel your particular car has without testing it out on the road.

 

take 5 gallons of fuel and do a midnite run until empty. use caution and quiet back roads or a parking lot.

 

When you last filled up, did you top off? Also did you fill it at a fast rate of flow or a slow rate of flow? First Pip usually last's the longest on the Gen II.

 

We do not know where you are, the US is a big place.
Here in MS, in summer I was able to get over 11 gallons in my Gen 2, in winter about 8. (get gas in the warmest part of the day, the bladder expands easier. I also found I filled up better with the nozzle upside down)
So in the Summer I often got 160 miles before the first pip disappeared yet in winter sometimes as few as 40.

That is no sign you will get similar values.

 

As Jimbo above has pointed out, filling the bladder can be tricky and you really just never know what to expect. Ours would normally fill at a slow rate (first notch on auto fill). I usually stopped after the first click off. A couple of pumps I did have to rotate the nozzle upside down to be able to fill. I also found that if you run the bladder all the way down, it is hard to fill back up. Seems like once it fully collapses, it does not like to expand very easily. You might try filling up when you hit two pips rather than going all the down. See if that helps. If you uptrade to a Gen III or IV, you will find the bladder is no more.

 

Do not experiment with running out of gas unless you know what you're doing. Often once the car runs out of gas it will throw a code and will have pumped air into the gas lines rendering it unstartable, which will require towing the car to a mechanic to fix the problem. Also as you've shown, the gauge can be wildly inaccurate, and people have ran out of gas with one bar showing (without it blinking). Therefore my rule of thumb is to always fill when it shows 2 bars when I'm in town, and 3 bars if I'm on a longer trip.

 

The above is sound advise for a Gen II Prius IMO.

 

During the summer in FL I have been able to put over 13 gallons into the tank on several occasions. Based on this, I was able to calculate that the low fuel indicator activates with around 1.8 gallons remaining. I allowed 70-80 additional miles around town for these last 1.8 gallons, just to see if that was the case. I know its not advisable to run out of fuel, but it was just an experiment. I ran out twice, knowing there were gas stations within a few blocks. I made it to the station on battery both times.

I don't know how this would apply to a cold climate, but I would say that whenever you're on the road, fill up whenever it goes low. If you're always near a gas station it won't be so much of an issue, but you can definitely not have any certainty of how many gallons you have in the tank at any given time. On one road trip where I added over 13 gallons on departure, I had gone over 150 miles before the tank moved from full, when in fact I was probably down to less than 2/3 of a tank.

 

We always try to fill ours at two bars too. We're never sure how much gas it will take but we know we'll never run out by filling it that way.

Looking over the notebook I keep, we've filled up on one bar left three times, taking on 6.9, 8.7 and 9.1 gallons.

With two bars left I've put in as much as 9.4 and 10.1 gallons.

All at the same station on the same pump.

With that type of inconsistency we just play it safe.

 

Yep. Definitely have to play it safe. My best practice is to always look to refuel after driving a distance equal to the amount of gas you put in last. So if you refilled 6 gallons, you can safely drive approximately 300 miles before you need to look for a gas station.