Prius lost power while driving???

I'm in need of some help/advice on what just happened with our Prius...

IF YOU WANT THE LONG VERSION START READING HERE - IF NOT, SKIP DOWN...
My wife drives a 2008 Prius as her daily driver and it just rolled over 100k miles. It has had a rough life to say the least; it's been through 5 accidents, 4 of which were major with repairs that added up to in excess of $25k. In addition to abuse from other drivers (all 5 were the fault of others and thankfully didn't cost us anything but inconvenience and reduced value) it has been slightly abused by us. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in the spirit of full disclosure we did allow it to run out of gas once. We made the mistake of getting into a long stretch of reasonably desolate interstate while low on fuel and the gage had been blinking for quite some time when we made it to an exit. As we took the exit we ran out of fuel, but with the station right at the end of the ramp we were able to coast in. We filled it with fuel and all was well after that - no lingering issues or evidence of the power outage.

Outside of human influence it hasn't given us a lick of trouble throughout it's life. We have taken it to the dealership a couple of times for recalls, but that tough little bugger has performed flawlessly.

IF YOU WANT THE SHORT VERSION START HERE...
This morning my wife left for work with the intention of getting fuel on the way since she was down to one "dot" on the gage. It wasn't blinking yet, but down to the last dot nonetheless. The gas station is less than 5 miles away and before she could get there (still no blinking dot) the car lost power and virtually every dash light came on from what she tells me. She was able to go very slowly for the last mile or so and make it to the station. She filled it with gas and turned back for home. It seemed to perform normally on the way back home, but the large red triangle/exclamation mark stayed on as did the check engine light.

Does anyone know what may have caused this? Did it run out of fuel before the blinking warning? I haven't started it or attempted to drive it since she returned home with it this morning, so I can't say for certain if the warning lights remain on or not - I wanted to see what the experts had to say first.

Any and all feedback/suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks!

 

I just asked her and she said she didn't fill it completely up. Said she put around 8 or 8.5 gallons in and that didn't fill the tank.

 

Duly noted - new rules will apply!

 

No, she didn't. I think it was essentially a panic situation

 

Well, I figured I would follow up with the status of my issue. I believe you all were right and it was a simple as a prematurely empty tank.

Tonight I checked the CEL with my scanner and it read code P3109. My scanner didn't have a definition for that, so I did some research and from what I can tell it's morIe or less a generic code indicating that the car lost power.

After turning the car on both the triangle/exclamation mark and CEL remained on while I drove it for a couple of miles. When I got home I turned it off for a moment and then back on. This time only the CEL remained. I cleared that with my scanner and took it for another drive. After getting home I turned it off & on again, and the dash stayed clear. Seems to be working fine now, but I won't be completely at ease until it gets a few more miles on it.

Thanks for the help everyone. As you can tell by my post count I'm not active on the sight and pretty much just show up when we have problems or I have questions. It's nice to know though that there are helpful people out there who will still extend a hand when I only come knocking with trouble!

I appreciate all of you.

 

Yep, sorry, I screwed that up...

 

Okay helpful Prius People - I'm getting quite tired of dealing with this crap and worrying about it......

We've been very diligent about not letting let the alleged gas gauge get too low. And, by too low I mean not let it get close to two dots. But, we were recently on a road trip cruising down the interstate. The gas gauge went down to 3 dots just as were were coming up on an exit and I told my wife we'd stop at the next exit as it was only a few miles down the road. As we were approaching the next exit the car did the freak out thing and we were luckily able to coast down the ramp as it had a slight decline. I had to drive slowly a couple of hundred yards to the first station for a fill up.

This is unacceptable. I've since paid even closer attention and have filled up with 4 dots and put over 9 gallons in the car. What can I do to fix this problem? Does it need a new sending unit? Does it need some sort of new module that operates the gauge? Does anyone know anything that can be done to stop this madness?!?!?!?!?

Thanks.

 

You're right, but my point is that I don't want to play the slice here so-to-speak. The purpose of a gas gauge is to gauge how much gas is in the tank. Seems like pretty low hanging fruit to be able to have a gas gauge that can accurately tell you when you need to fill up...