New Prius V - out of gas - need clarification please

First, beep or no beep, you as a responsible driver should have been aware of the gas state. You should not rely on the car to warn you of impending error conditions. Guess what the number reason for "engine failure" in single-engine airplanes is? Yup - out of gas. At least they have a (partial, not really effective) excuse - it's a bit more difficult to "fill up" a plane mid-air. As a driver, if you noticed that gas was getting low, shouldn't you be planning for a re-fill or at least keeping a closer eye on it? Don't blame the car or Toyota for your failure to remain aware of your surroundings and paying attention to your own car. I shouldn't have to remind you that it's only you who's got "skin" in this game - if you didn't notice the low fuel state, what other important conditions/potential collision hazards may you have missed? I, too, would strongly recommend you reconsider the use of driving and phoning at the same time - may save your life one day when you notice that big tractor trailer coming up fast BEHIND you instead of gabbing aimlessly on a phone and not paying attention to the road and the other vehicles around you.

Second, when the car runs out of fuel it's in an error condition/state. Toyota cannot promise to the expected behavior of a car that's run out of gas (nor can any other manufacturer). In most cars (probably Prius as well), simply adding gas is sufficient to make it start again. Count yourself lucky.

I don't think there's a "rule" that states that the car will need to get towed after running out of fuel, but neither is there a promise that the car will work perfectly fine once gas is replaced. The solution is simple and effective: avoid running out of gas.

As you indicated - you have never run out of gas on a GM car. Care to guess what would happen if you did? Perhaps, you were less distracted before while driving GM cars perhaps without BT? If anything, that's the major "fault" with the Prius in this example.

Why do people run the cars outside of designed parameters and then blame the manufacturer when things no longer work properly, expecting that a magical "UnDo" button exists for all cases?

 

I ran out of gas in my 2004 frequently and was always able to make it to a gas station on battery power. I got warnings but they would go away once I refueled. I never needed a tow. I'm so sorry you had so much trouble. I'm going to have be much more careful with my 2010.

 

I think the reason a tow was needed was not simply that gas ran out, the battery was run down to the point where it wasn't able to start the engine. One thing the salesperson clearly told me when I bought my car was to never run out of gas, and the manual definitely has warnings about running the battery down.

However:
The "empty" indicator is not orange, which is common in many other cars.
The beep is a single beep - easy to miss.
The tank is not big - you can go a little farther than most cars, but not that much.

However: this is all in the manual. And all cars have limited range - no car goes "forever" without a refill.

 

I find the beep quite loud - at least loud enough to startle me. There is also a warning text banner on the display (not sure how it works on the 2010 because I haven't gotten to that point). If the OP was on the phone she might have missed it -- but I think the warning sound and message gives one at least about 10 miles so she must have been on the phone for a long time -- unless it didn't give the alerts it was supposed to have.

But I have to agree with those people that say we should show a little empathy towards the OP and stop bashing her, regardless of whether she was at fault. I raised the question about why it didn't start after filling with 2 gallons of gas. You are probably right about the battery having been run down too low. I didn't think of that even though I've being driving Priuses since 2006 (2nd and 3rd Gen).

I have never run out of gas in any vehicle and I hope I don't ever find myself in that situation. It's not because I am super cautious and always fill up at a quarter tank. I do generally fill up at 2 or 1 pips if it's convenient, but I have at times found myself close to empty and no gas station in sight. It's probably luck that I haven't run out completely. However, if I did run out, I would expect it start up after putting in a couple of gallons.

 

In some countries ( like Germany ) it's illegal to run out of gas on highway!!!! If you get off the phone, pay attention and get out from the right lane ( right lane is for passing other vehicles only ) and not for you to stall traffic while you are on " important business call " we all may be little safer on the highway and there is no need for emergency crew to risk there life's by saving ignorant people like your self.
O and why do you think Toyota is responsible because YOU DIDN'T STOP AT THE GAS STATION ?!?

 

I have no 3rd gen Prius and I've never run out of gas on any of my cars. I think the lack of empathy is because of the items I quote below, for a first post. She ran out, she was inattentive due to talking on the phone (I agree w/Harold), she's pissed, says Toyota is negligent, she "hates per Prius" now because the warnings didn't get her attention and thus, she is "considering back to GM."

Being inattentive while driving is a much bigger issue here and a safety issue.

On the 2nd gen, IIRC, adding 2 gallons in an out of gas situation, should be enough. I don't know for the 3rd gen.

Now, if the "guess gauge" read 1/2 full and suddenly she ran out, w/o warning, then yes, that's a legitimate complaint. (Someone at my work, who I don't personally know had nightmares w/their Mini Cooper and crap dealer [the only one in Western Washington]. Their Mini had a completely untrustable gas gauge where the car would run out of gas despite the gauge reading 1/2 full. The dealer fed them BS and was unwilling to fix it making BS claims like the car's sophisticated, electronics, blah blah...)

IIRC, bwilson4web has run out of gas, intentionally, at least 3x on his 3rd gen, probably more but he's always carries sufficient extra gas with him. I don't recall him ever needing to have his Prius towed due to his experiments nor ever having to go to the dealer to reset any codes. If anything else, they either cleared themselves, or knowing Bob, I'd wager he had the equipment to clear them. (I can clear codes w/my ScanGauge).

I wish I could find Bob's post where IIRC, he mentioned he's run his cars out of gas at least 40x, intentionally as part of some gasoline experiment. I believe most of those were on his 1st gen (NHW11).

 

You can find it, I referenced it in post #23 of this thread.

 

Well written and to the point. Had the OP simply asked if anyone else here had a similar outcome when running out of gas without bashing the car or the company, then most if not all would have answered in an appropriate manner and given their honest feedback. OP approached the post and problem wrong from the get go and in turn deserved any harsh responses.

 

(I have run out of gas ONCE in my 2009, it does not 'feel' like running out of gas in a normal car as the electric motors continue to provide motive power)

I am not an expert, and so this is an 'off the wall' guess, but as I read those codes, I thought 'out of Battery power'. There are two batteries it could have been:

You may have driven the car so long after you ran out of gas that the HV battery shut down in self defense. (it would be several thousand dollars if it was ruined)

Or you may have left something running once the car stopped, and run down the 12 volt battery, did you turn the car off? Did you leave the 4 way flashers running?

I coasted into a gas station and my 2009 started back up but was sluggish for some time, as I had driven it not realizing that my symptoms meant I was out of gas, and it's first priority was to recharge the HV battery.


What I do now is always get gas at the first station beyond 400 miles.

 

The bashing (and its not bashing really) is coming from posters who have been on this site a long time years and years maybe and have heard this ridiculous I ran out of gas Toyota sucks post time and time again. It really gets old. Most accompanied by a tow to the dealer as they overdrove the traction battery to get to gas.

The posters complaining about the bashing are fairly new. Stick around.

I distinctly remember one guy back in 2007 angry that the car wouldn't go over 70 miles per hour after he ran out of gas and was driving on battery alone.

If you need an alarm to tell you that you are low on gas thats being a very unaware and dangerous driver. I say dangerous because there's really no reason to run out of gas and put yourself and others in danger on the road. The gauge is right there on the dash.
This type of driver probably never look's at there tires either
everytime they approach the car. You probably never check under the hood and are outraged when you run low on oil. And you probably never lock the car always no matter where it is including the garage. Which usually eventually results in a dead battery because someone left the door or rear hatch ajar. This is a classic btw. The car will warn you about it if you lock it. But...its hard to touch that door button. So hard. Damn Toyota. Seen that post about a thousand times before too.

Hard to feel sorry for them when they are not even making the most minimum effort.

And as far as alot of other people's point about all the things that happened after she ran out of gas, thats a moot point as none of it would have happened if she had not run out of gas.

 

If a person can not give full attention to driving while on a cell call, don't be making cell phone calls while driving. Your hand book tells you it is a good idea to keep atleast 1/4 of a tank of fuel at all times, I think Toyota told you how to manage your fuel.

 

Sure they could. It's called smart design and anticipating problems customers may encounter. If all products were unable to recover from typical anticipated error state without intervention of the manufacturer/dealer, you wouldn't be using most of them. Your computer would be a good example.

Perhaps you think Toyota engineers aren't clever enough to do this? Maybe that is the case. If not, there is another option. Instead of giving the driver no indication of why the car can't be put into gear, put a note on the information screen to the effect of, "If you have run out of gas, please try adding over 3 gallons of gasoline and waiting 5 minutes before starting again." After all, this is presumably one of the smartest cars on the road with plenty of sensors and processing power to piece a few error codes together and figure out what the likely issue is. Also put that note highlighted in the manual in the appropriate sections. That would have been a perfectly good solution to a poor design, also. To placate those who can find no wrong with this obvious design error, the note could instead read, "If you have run out of gas, please try adding over 3 gallons of gasoline and waiting 5 minutes before starting again, you idiot."

If you reread the OP, you will notice that the driver got no information from the display and that highway patrol put 2 gallons of gas in. Had they known 3+ gallons might have done it, the battery might not have gotten too low in the mean time (if that is indeed what happened) and a tow would have been unnecessary.

Instead, what Toyota did was laid an egg and put the driver at increased potential harm because of the extra time it took to resolve the issue. That's not to mention the issues Bob Wilson has mentioned that may exist as you run out of gas the Gen III Prius compared to the previous version. It's not than an uncommon a scenario to run out of gas. It happens. Toyota could have easily designed around it, instead they opted to rely on ultra loyal owners to scoff at anyone who might have the misfortune to be human and make a mistake.

That's fine I guess. As I asked earlier, I wonder if other manufacturers do the same with their hybrids.

 

I would not have expected there to be a causal relationship between time registered at PriusChat and the amount of understanding, empathy and patience you have as a person.

I do see where there could be a possible link between the time registered and the inability to admit that Toyota could have done a much better job with their design, though.

 

There is no relationship or link in either case. It's just that some people have good manners and some don't.

 

Don't beat yourself up over this, there obviously are plenty of others who are willing to do it for you. <grins> Running out of gas is a fact of life and no amount of second guessing or backbiting will change that reality:

Every road side assistance vehicle you see carries spare gas because running out of gas is the most common reason a car stops in trafffic or the highway.
​

Last year, there was a brewhaha about running out of gas including a poll:

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...ng-running-out-gas-gen-iii-37.html#post886678

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...ing-running-out-gas-gen-iii-2.html#post889573 - the poll, 56 responses:

• 61% - never ran out of gas
• 30% - 1-2 times
• 7% - 3-5
• 2% - 10+ (my vote but I study such things)

​

I'm sympathetic and can only offer that the earlier NHW11 and NHW20 handled running out of gas by at least raising a "Check Engine" light and not the false, "Power Steering" light:

The previous, 10 years of Prius models all handled this with abundant lights so the driver could deal with it. Even Motorweek, which had an engine problem during their testing of the NHW20, commented favorabily about the ability to use the traction battery to reach a safe place to park.

Doing a casual Google search, I found at least three incidents of 'out of gas' pedstrians (not Prius but other vehicles) who were struck and either killed or injured just last year while going for gas. Furthermore, every 2-3 months I see pedestrians walking on the shoulder either to or away from an out of gas car. Just another Prius owner risk we live with.

I've run out of gas three times with our 2010 and each time, I made sure I didn't try to restart the car. We believe the Prius does this to avoid excessive discharge of the traction battery and is consistent with the earlier models.

Past reports are that the car will allow three, fuel exhaustion attempts to start before setting a code that prevents further attempts. Is it possible you might have tried to restart the car before roadside assistance showed up?

The earlier Prius would reset the codes by disconnecting the 12 VDC battery for ~5 minutes. We know if this clears the "backup warning alarm" or if anyone has tried this technique.

I have an NHW11 (2003 Prius) that is getting low on the current tank. Since I have a Graham miniscanner, I'll run a test:

• load a spare can in the trunk
• run out of gas and park in a safe place
• read the codes
• count restart attempts until another code shows up
• add the extra gallon and verify it won't start
• try the 12 V battery disconnect for 5 minutes
• check for any codes
• attempt to restart the car

Suggestions?

I always found plenty of warnings in my test so I can not agree about the absence of warning. My opinion is anytime the engine does not run for any reason, the "check engine light" should come on.

This has been how the Prius behaved since it was first introduced. I'm struck by the irony that it takes 3 seconds instead of a couple of 'quick stabs' to shutdown the car. A better design would be to override or force a power on, allow a 5-10 second push to say, "Yes, I know it is risky but I really want to see if the ICE will start."

Other than the lost time and waste for what should have been a simple "gas out" incident, I'm impressed with the dealer service.

When we raised this issue last summer, we learned "this is how Toyota designed the system to work." The natural answer in kind is this is how buyers of the Prius are designed to work.

Needless to say, folks who have no interest in your safety or future business are quick to criticize you, the one who may decide to look at other, non-Prius cars.

You've asked exactly the right questions.

I'm not ready to say "hate" but I can not respect how the 2010 Prius handles "fuel outage." It reveals a hubris and abysmal ignorance of how frequently USA drivers run out of gas and the blood on the streets when that happens.

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks, Bob. Given some comments here and my one experience, do you think the "3 gallons" is likely to be necessary to get the 2010 Prius going again without intervention of a dealer? We never had to do any other type of reset when my wife ran out of gas. All I could think to do was to put another can into it, since we were on a slight incline and it finally worked.

 

I suspect 'air entrapment' in the fuel line because our fuel system does not have a 'return line' to the tank. The engine has to turn over enough to vent the air and fill the line with gas at full pressure. This should be pretty quick.

One workaround might be to keep our feet off of the brake and push the power button twice to 'enable' the engine and vehicle systems. It won't go into "Ready" but this might give the fuel pump some time to try and replace the air in the fuel line with gas.

Bob Wilson

 

Interesting- we checked the manual, tried a number of power off restarts, nothing worked in the 15 minutes or so we tried after the first can of gas. Once I put in a second can we tried again and nothing until a few minutes later as we were calling AAA for a tow it just came on. I assumed it was an issue with the incline and fuel pump, I hadn't considered that it might be an air entrapment issue instead or in addition.

I'd consider trying an intentional out of gas to confirm it, but our gas can is only 2.5 gallons lol.

 

The manual is fairly clear that you need at least 2 gallons, and more if you're on an incline.

 

I actually read the entire manual when I got my 2010 yesterday:

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