Ran out of gas

[Prius 07]

Originally Posted by statultra

the moderator(s) should make a sticky saying DO NOT RUN OUT OF GAS, under any circumstances.

i mean you see a blinking pip, u better get to the gas station asap, i always keep my tank above 1/4 full to relieve stress on fuel pump.

There is a gas shortage as proven by the OP (why else would you run out of gas)?!

[jethro]

Tom,
Not to disagree with your "use good sense" comments. But everyone assumes that is the case, so info to that effect is of no value and just rude. If running out of gas could be eliminated by the advice to keep fuel at 1/4, then no one would ever run out of gas. So, it is good advice and all car owners are already aware of that. We are all stupid at one time or another. It may have been stupid to risk running out, but in the middle of 8-lanes of busy mall traffic, it is a safety measure to get my passengers to the parking lot.

And no, bad things did not happen. It just ran out of gas. And everyone expects a car in that condition to restart after refilled without problems. And that is the case with this one, too. Just use the info above if it happens.

And it would help to stay on the topic - "what to do if you run out of gas in the 2008 Prius". Cause it helps to know the new information. Explaining how to avoid running out of gas is in the past or in the future.

So, to sum it up. Running out of gas in the 2008 Prius does not ruin your car or your day. See the above to reset the computer if it happens.

[SparrowHawk60]

Originally Posted by qbee42

...The old VW bugs would vapor lock... Tom

Maybe, put in that case you just took off the oil bath air cleaner, removed the gas tank cap, poured a small amount of gas down the carb and cranked her up till she started to pull fuel from the gas tank.
The fuel pump was/is a purely mechanical item on the old bug. It wasn't/isn't subject to burning out like today's electric fuel pumps. If it ever failed, two 13 mm nuts held it on to the block, nice and simple to replace.
I'll guess and say the Prius has the fuel pump in the gas tank as so many of today's cars do? A very expensive proposition to replace it!

I've been around a few VW's in my time.
Mine that I have owned or still own:
"68 Type III, Squareback FI
"68 Type I, Bug (Still own)
"70 Type 181, Thing
"70 Type I, Bug
"74 Type I, Bug
"74 Type II, Kombie (Bus)with camper
"84 Rabbit
"03 Eurovan, weekender (Still own)
Dad's:
"68 Type III, Squareback, dual carbs
(not the same car as mine)
"70 Type I, Bug (not the same car as mine)
"81 Rabbit, Diesel
"87 Fox
Brother:
"64 Type I, Bug
"67 Type I, Bug
"94 Golf

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by jethro

Tom,
Not to disagree with your "use good sense" comments. But everyone assumes that is the case, so info to that effect is of no value and just rude. If running out of gas could be eliminated by the advice to keep fuel at 1/4, then no one would ever run out of gas. So, it is good advice and all car owners are already aware of that. We are all stupid at one time or another. It may have been stupid to risk running out, but in the middle of 8-lanes of busy mall traffic, it is a safety measure to get my passengers to the parking lot.

And no, bad things did not happen. It just ran out of gas. And everyone expects a car in that condition to restart after refilled without problems. And that is the case with this one, too. Just use the info above if it happens.

And it would help to stay on the topic - "what to do if you run out of gas in the 2008 Prius". Cause it helps to know the new information. Explaining how to avoid running out of gas is in the past or in the future.

So, to sum it up. Running out of gas in the 2008 Prius does not ruin your car or your day. See the above to reset the computer if it happens.

I don't know to which of my several posts you refer. If it's the "you can't fix stupid" one, then yes, that one is simply a straight, nasty, sarcastic barb said with an evil grin. It means people do dumb things like running out of gas, no matter how hard we all try to prevent it.

If you are talking about my post relating to driving on empty, that is important. There have been numerous times where people have run out of gas and kept on driving. They wouldn't do that if their car were overheating or out of oil (come to think of it, I have known several people that did exactly that - you can't fix stupid).

As for new information, we have new readers all the time, so it doesn't hurt to loop back to old topics. I count 458 matches on PC for the phrase "running out of gas" (459 once this post goes up).

Tom

[patsparks]

Jethro, sorry I wasn't attacking you, I just struggle to understand the number of people who run out of petrol in Prius. Like I said, the handbook is clear and yet people still post, "the flashing pip isn't telling you you need fuel urgently". It isn't you really but the people who say that and the clowns who compete to get "the best tank of gas". What are these fools thinking? MPG, L/100km, km/L are universal measures of fuel consumption, why people have to use "miles per tank" is beyond my meagre brain.

My advice is to everyone and it is in your hand books but I am paraphrasing what I read this morning in my hand book,
"it is a good idea to maintain a minimum of a quarter of a tank of fuel and when the last bar(pip) on the fuel gauge flashes fill up the fuel tank immediately."

[Penny the Prius]

This exact same thing happened to me a couple of weeks after buying my 2008 Prius. The gas light was on, but I kept driving b/c I was supposed to have another three gallons left. The manual says the gas light starts blinking with three gallons left After about 45 miles of driving the car essentially went limp. I couldn't accelerate at all - and I, too, had the blinking exclamation point on my dash. Fortunately, I was very near a gas station, so I rolled into it, filled up and all was well.

I called the dealer and told them what happened and they explained it was a safety feature b/c if hybrids really run out of gas, it's "game over." So - even though the 2008 Prius is marketed as a 12 gallon car, we can only access 10 of those gallons. The gas light comes after 9 gallons are used, and then you have one gallon to get to a gas station.

So - I think it's actually impossible to officially run out of gas in this car. Because there's no way one could use 2 gallons of gas when the car is in limp mode.

[qbee42]

Limp mode means you were out of gas, or I should say out of usable gas. When you lost power, all you had left was the battery, so it's a good thing you didn't drive very far to get to the gas station. With a standard car you would have been parked on the side of the road.

The fuel capacity of the U.S. version of the Prius is 11.9 gallons gross, not usable. All fuel tanks have some unusable fuel; in the case of the U.S. Prius it is aggravated by an internal fuel bladder. The fuel bladder serves as a vapor barrier to reduce evaporation, but as a side effect it also reduces the capacity of the tank. Further complicating the situation is that the reduction varies with temperature, age, filling station pump, and possibly the alignment of the major planets. There is simply no way to know how much usable fuel remains in the tank of a U.S. Prius. You can only guess. In the words of Dirty Harry: "Do you feel lucky?" I usually figure on 10 gallons as a safe number, but if my fuel gauge gets down to two pips, I start looking for a station no matter how much fuel I think is in the tank. It's a fool's game to push it.

Tom

[Linden]

I had my first experience with the blinking pip yesterday - happened right in front of a gas station, so I filled up. Then had my first experience with the tank not wanting to fill up all the way .. only got about 18 Litres in before it wouldn't let me put in more (probably because I pulled out the gas thing a bit while filling..??) So, I went with that, then filled up the rest of the way after driving back home. All in all - I only got in about 33 Litres - and its a 45 Litre tank.

But - having a gas tank that doesn't go completely empty isn't new to me .. even with my mazda 3, it had a 55L tank - and even when I had driven with the low fuel light on for a bit, It never filled up with more than 47L of fuel. (so 2 gallons was in there somewhere)

And I'm certainly not going to complain about "only" being able to put in 33 Litres of fuel .. I really enjoyed just spending $35 on gas for 650 KM vs $47 on gas for only 450 KM

[richard schumacher]

Originally Posted by Penny the Prius

The manual says the gas light starts blinking with three gallons left.

It says that where, exactly?

[miscrms]

Originally Posted by jethro

but in the middle of 8-lanes of busy mall traffic, it is a safety measure to get my passengers to the parking lot.

Very true, and I believe this is why Toyota lets you continue running. Remember that in any other car you would have very likely been stranded there. If it was truly a dangerous situation, you should be very glad you we're stuck there.

Originally Posted by jethro

And no, bad things did not happen. It just ran out of gas. And everyone expects a car in that condition to restart after refilled without problems. And that is the case with this one, too. Just use the info above if it happens.

And it would help to stay on the topic - "what to do if you run out of gas in the 2008 Prius". Cause it helps to know the new information. Explaining how to avoid running out of gas is in the past or in the future.

So, to sum it up. Running out of gas in the 2008 Prius does not ruin your car or your day. See the above to reset the computer if it happens.

The problem is, you have no idea whether anything bad happened. There is a decent chance that you have reduced the life of your hybrid battery and invalidated its warranty. This has happened to a few folks who continued to drive after running out of gas. Unfortunately you probably won't know for a few years if that has happened. If driving out of your situation may have saved your lives, then its a small price to pay. If it was simply more convenient than calling a tow truck, it was probably not a smart move.

Any modern vehicle can suffer serious and expensive damage from running out of gas. You can easily burn out your cats, emissions sensors, fuel pump and/or damage your injectors. This could run into the thousands of dollars. That said we're not talking about running out gas here. We're talking about running out of gas, and then continuing to drive the vehicle. Again, the analogy of running out of oil and having the oil pressure light come on is much more appropriate. If its a life threatening situation, you keep on driving and take the risk on damaging your engine. If its not, you should shut it down immediately! Trying to make it to the next gas station to add oil rather than calling a tow truck is a really bad idea.

I think the folks here are trying to impress upon you that running the Prius out of gas, and driving it until the battery is dead is a really, really bad idea. Trying to convince other new drivers on the list that its no big deal, and here's a quick trick to reset your car when it happens is doing them a huge disservice. The main message here has to be don't run your Prius out of gas and keep driving it, unless you are willing to risk serious damage to your vehicle!

Originally Posted by Penny the Prius

The gas light was on, but I kept driving b/c I was supposed to have another three gallons left. The manual says the gas light starts blinking with three gallons left After about 45 miles of driving the car essentially went limp.

First, I don't believe anywhere in the manual does it say you have 3 gallons left when the last pip starts blinking. In fact, as patsparks mentioned what it does say is get gas immediately. How much gas you think is in the tank is more or less irrelevant. When it says "add fuel", do so! Since you don't know how big the tank actually is at any given time due to the bladder, you basically have no idea how much gas is in there. The "guess" gauge that everyone like to deride is actually a whole lot better at estimating how much fuel is in the tank than you are. I also think your dealer guy was full of it. All vehicles have a certain amount of room at the bottom of the tank that they don't use. This helps keep you from sucking up the sludge that collects there and destroying your injection system if you run out of gas. The Prius also has a certain amount of space at the top that you can't use due to the bladder. Once you run out of gas that the car can actually use, it doesn't matter if there is still some gas in the tank. If its below the pickup, then the fuel pump runs dry, the car leans out and then dies with all the usual risks that that implies.

Rob