Has anyone run a Prius out of fuel?

If you drive with the light blinking, you run out of fuel At that point you can't go over 35 and if you try you risk damage to the Hybrid system. Stop as soon as safe and add at least 2 gallons of gas. Do not try to restart with out getting at least 2 gallons.

 

If you drive LONG ENOUGH with the light blinking, you run out of fuel.

I drive regularly on blinking last bar ... but I know how long I CAN...

 

New owners/readers who didn't RTM, and haven't seen any of the hundred or so threads about the subject here, could have previously driven a car model in which the last bar of the digital fuel gauge does turn off before fuel starvation. (My household's new Subaru does that, as I found during an intentional out-of-fuel test, BWilson-style, bringing along a can of spare fuel.) In an information vacuum, that experience could lead them to nice person*u*me the same on other cars.

But after RTM'ing on my 2010 Prius, I certainly had no expectation of any additional warning beyond the flashing light. But thanks to Toyota's wonderful indexing, I cannot immediately find the relevant passage in my 2012 owner's manual.

 

what was the point of the post, oh, to warn everyone what could happen if you run out of gas. that was very nice of them to go to all the trouble of searching the net, finding pchat, signing up and letting us know their negative experience.

 

How much warning that you need to buy gas do some people need?

OK...it's NOT a mechanical needle gauge.

Which means that it has to do something as the tank approaches empty.

Hmm....last bar...flashing...? Think it might be time to get gasoline?

 

Maybe devolving to "mechanical" needle is what's needed, even if it's just a faux needle. More urgency.

 

The more you make it foolproof, the harder the fools will work.

 

maybe the nav lady needs to come on every couple miles. 'make a left into the gas station in...100 yards.'

 

Laughing aside, you may have just given Toyota a feature to add in their cars.

The first warning would address the driver politely. After a series of intermediate warnings, the nav lady turns nasty, turn off his AC and radio, vibrates the driver seat or something.

 

lexus might get it, but it'll never filter down to prius, unless they come out with package Six on the gen IV for 50 grande.

 

Seriously, yes. Even if they aren't precisely calibrated, analog gauges provide much better resolution than the ultra-low-resolution bar graphs of which Toyota seems to be so fond.

 

I'm thinking more along the lines of Hollywood movies, say Dennis Weaver in Duel, watching his fuel gauge dropping, dropping, with sure death on his tail. Ironically, it's a tanker truck, maybe with gas.

 

I have to doubt it.

I mean, you can pretend that a needle is pointing at each pip...they are arranged in an arc from Full to Empty. When you see that last Pip flashing at the bottom of the arc....how hard is it to imagine the concept EMPTY?

With all the feedback The Prius gives in regards to MPG per tank, instantaneous MPG readouts, as well as the fuel gauge and Distance To Empty and Cruising Range...

If you're NOT feeling urgency when all those things conspire to tell you it's about time to refuel? Then I'm not banking on the idea that a good old fashion needle gauge would change that apathy to action.

In my history of vehicle ownership, many of my needle gauges were incredibly inaccurate. Perhaps their vagueness DID create a sense that I needed to be more vigilant...because they COULD be so inaccurate. But if so....should I blame The Prius for attempting to actually tell me more?

 

Ah Duel, Spielbergs last good film, seriously

 

Ouch!

 

I think a built in radio and bluetooth shut off when the car is low on fuel would prevent many from running out of fuel

 

Yes, analog gauges weren't necessarily "accurate" (whatever that would mean with the usual vague scale markings), and inconsistent from car to car. However, once you learned to interpret a particular car's gauge, it was normally very consistent, and provided much less coarse resolution than the Prius does with its small number of bars. You can burn roughly a whole gallon from the time one "pip" goes out until the next one does, with no visible change.

 

All I'm going to say is that with Blinking FINAL pips--accompanied with a warning beep upon start up...and DTE and Cruising Range, as well as near instantaneous MPG estimates, I have no problem "interpreting" when my Prius is getting low on fuel.

I can't say the same for my old 1992 Nissan Pick-up which for whatever reason had a gauge in which almost randomly and without any warning the needle for the gas gauge would seemingly "stick" at about 1/4th of a tank, only to suddenly plummet to below The "E" mark.