What will happen when you drive til no fuel left

1) Should you drain the traction battery below it's ability to start the engine, no one has a jump start device for the Traction battery but Toyota corporate. Not the dealers, not AAA, nobody. You are looking at tow costs and a week of downtime. Do not drive the Prius when out of gas.

2) Based on my Gen 2: The car gets real sluggish and won't go over 35. Lots of warning lights light. You might make it to a gas station on the next block.

3) Simple rule, works in any Prius: If your mother in law is in the car, get gas at 3 pips. With you wife, 2 pips is safe. Solo or with a buddy who will not tell, you can drive to one pip. If that pip blinks, or a low fuel light comes on, get gas NOW.

 

It is as much as 30 miles between gas stations for me, (50 miles between cheap gas) so I put between 8.3 and 10.6 gallons in my tank.I would hate to be wrong.

I have no idea what you mean by gas in a brake line, so I can't respond to that, other than say I think you are mistaken.

 

Why not just fill up at 2 or 3 bars? Why run the risk of sucking up crud from the bottom of your tank? or even running out and the potential damage caused to the HV battery?

When the car says 50 miles, find a petrol station. Simple

 

I have a v and you have a gen 3, I am not sure we have the same size tank.
(How come my pips don't go to 11!)

 

One of our highly esteemed members has done it numerous times for fun and sport, and engineering curiosity: [WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III)

 

First of all...if you're driving a car whose gas tank size you're unsure about, then you don't need to be playing DTE roulette with a car like a Prius....or really any car for that matter.
I drive a G3.

The manual, and the internet says that I have an 11.9 gallon tank. Since I do not wish to fill drain and measure, and since there's no evidence that I'm being led astray by the MOM (Manufacturer Owner's Manual) I use the 11.9-something value in my day to day life.
I almost always load 10 gallons of fuel with each fill up. This means that I have a theoretical 1.9 gallon reserve when I do so.
The reason that this topic gets repeated over and over and over and over again and again is that in order to load ten gallons of fuel into a (or at least my) G3 then you have to drive until DTE=0.
Then?
You have to drive some more.
Usually?
A lot more.

The Prius MDF (MultiFunction Display) lies about fuel economy, but unlike politicians in DC they are little lies, and fairly consistent. I reset my trip ODO when I load fuel. When the Dizzy-Whiz beeps at me and tells me that it's thirsty I make a note of my distance traveled and my tank average.
Usually my tank MPG is around 53---displayed.
I round down to 50 and drive 500 miles (meaning that I should use roughly 10 gallons of fuel) before I look for a gas station.
This is usually quite a bit beyond DTE=0, and so I can understand why some people get confused about tank ranges for Priuses.
It's YOUR car...well, unless you're me, and then it's the company's car.
Get gas when YOU want to.

If you have big ol' bulging buckets of bright brass balls?
You can go MPG x 11.5....which will get you 600+ miles the way I drive.
Speaking of testicular fortitude, it's a shame that the Aichi Iron Works didn't place more faith and confidence in their consumers and provide a fuel gauge that works for the bottom 20 percent of the tank, but given that there are "700 mile club" aspirants out there.....I guess I can understand some of their reluctance.

But really???
REALLY????
Telling me that DTE=0 when I still have a 100 mile range is a taking the whole buzz kill thing a little too far if you ask me.
Remember.....I usually drive WELL past DTE=0 before I load fuel...and I load 10 gallons. That means that there's still theoretically 1.9 gallons of fuel in the tank!! Since the dang ENGINE only requires 12 quarts of coolant.....I'm thinking that 1.9 gallons should be enough to provide coolant for a small electric motor (fuel pump)...


ah.....
YMMV!

 

I'm very grateful to Bob Wilson for his run-out-of-gas-on-purpose experiments as it told us much about the 2010 gas tank size and DTE and low gas beep and more. When I get the low gas beep, I reset the trip B meter, and that is what I use from that point on, having about 2.1 gallons left at that point. I have several 700+ mile tanks, many 12+ gallon fillups, and one 13+ gallon fillup. I top off all the way to the top. Why you may ask? I enjoy the range of the Prius and I get about 2 gallons beyond the auto pump shut off and that gives me around another 100 miles between fillups. I have not yet run out of gas and don't expect to. You can do whatever you want, but I wanted to point out that Bob's determination that the low fuel beep = 2.1 gallons left looks pretty accurate.

 

Bob Wilson carried a can of gas with him when he was doing the out-of-gas experiment. He was able to immediately add the gas and the car restarted.

Others on here that have run out of gas unexpectedly have reported having to have the dealer reset a DTC code before the car would restart.

So be careful about running out of gas unless you are prepared for the worst like Bob was.

 

All I know is I usually go about 100 miles after the light starts blinking and it says 0 miles left. I have never used more than 10.5 gal at fill up.

 

One of the links I read the battery can be damaged if the car runs out of gas for gen 3

 

when the last pip blinks i know i have at LEAST 50 miles left until its starting to be unsafe. even then another 50 until i run out completely. i just wait for the blink then I fill up. usually just around 10 gallons at that point.

 

What will happen if you drive til no fuel left?

You'll run out of gas.