I ran out of gas @ 460 miles getting 46.5 mpg

I take exception to your comments. I think most everyone here is ridiculously nice. Your making it sound like thats a rarity. You should go on other car forums. This place is actually....well...kind & gentle. I've seen moronic post after post in the last few months that deserves a flaming and most of the time I see the long time pro's here be very nice. The things I'd like to say would get me bounced. Reading the manual will answer 97% of most questions. It seems most people refuse to do that. Any short time lurker here will find the trouble spots on our car. But this original guys post was just stupid. Using the angry guy emoticon cause he's pissed he ran out of gas with the dash beeping at him for miles is moronic.
And btw, I don't know about you but carrying gas can's around in our cars sounds just awful. Unlike many other cars we have no trunk and I would think the gas smell would take forever to go away. In an emergency I can see but....jeez...

 

Oh come on, there are PLENTY of helpful PriusChat posters. There are some real a-holes for sure, but there are plenty of nice helpful people here.

The original poster fueled the response he got by insinuating that the car was defective or improperly designed because he ran out of gas even though the car was telling him to refuel.

He would have gotten a different response had his post not put the blame on the car instead of on himself where it belongs. Its like saying "The sign said hot, but I never expected it would burn me".

 

I have to tell what happened to me, and I bet is the same that has happened to many on here. We bought our 2008 Touring the first part of September, and had been living on here for months prior learning. One of the first things I noted was the gas gauge/running out problem some have..Having in the past been one guilty of waiting for the yellow gas pump to flash, I didn't want to submit my new Prius to this so was pretty good at not letting it go below two pips..Until one night...
I work in Austin Tx and live in Bastrop Tx which is approximately 27 miles apart. I left work, and the gauge had two pips. Knowing we were going to drive into Bastrop for Dinner that night (we live 7 miles toward Austin) I figured I would buy gas in Bastrop as it's always cheaper..Got home, and it had just dropped to one pip. Cool..Only seven miles into Bastrop. We left the house later and headed into town, about a mile or so out of our place the one pip started blinking..WTH? Surely we are going to be fine..Only a few miles in..We stopped at the restaurant and had dinner and planned to get gas on the way home..Gas was around the corner from the diner. We left dinner, got in the car, and it made it about 200 feet to the corner, we stopped at the light and the engine got rough and died. No warning lights or anything. We made it to the gas station via battery since it was in the same block (lucky thing. battery was still nearly full when we got there) But I was amazed at how quickly the situation changed in such a short time(from two pips to empty in 27 miles)..When we filled up it took less than ten gallons from "out"
Quickly made me realize the lower quarter of the guage can get you in trouble fast..Now my rule is three pips, get gas..But I can see how easy it is to be caught off guard with these cars..

John

 

wow that is weird... i have always assumed 40 miles under worst case scenarios on last pip blinking. i used CANVIEW to determine that in 04's the last pip blinks at 12% of a tank... so 40 miles is 50% less mileage then i would expect to get providing what i thought would be a good cushion. but that was in my 04 and there have been rumors going around that i was adjusted to where the last pip started blinking with less gas remaining...

mind you, only a rumor and it has not been confirmed that i know of.

 

it's the one feature I miss from my BMW - it would tell me how many miles I had left in my tank - and constantly adjust it for your MPG

 

Put in simpler terms, figure you have appx 1 gallon at the blinking pip. So if you're gettin' 70mpg, don't go over 35 miles, and if you're getting 40mpg, don't go over 20 miles. Then you won't run out (hardly ever )

 

just a footnote when i was tracking the last bar blinking. i was actually tracking all 10 bars...when they disappeared, distance driven, etc and...

drumroll...

you wont believe this...

but... after tracking the pips all summer, the ONLY bar that showed any kind of pattern at all was the blinking bar... none of the rest were consistent enough to have a pattern...

i figured a "full" tank is pretty subjective right?... ok but was it too much to think that the tank would be around the same fullness every time bar #8 disappeared? or #10??

well, nope. not that i could see in 13 tanks...

example: miles driven from time pip 9 disappeared until pip 8 disappeared

26, 30, 15, 9, 30, 14, 18, 20, 21, 25, 12, 28, 20...

so what do we make of that? then we have to factor in the half dozen or so times where one pip came back to life...

ya, have 7 pips, turn off car, work 10 hours, come back, turn on car, and now have 8 pips...

so, all in all, that last pip may seem weird...but its by far the most consistent of the bunch.

 

i'm hijacking this thread so i'll reply once. i never said there aren't nice people here. i said "just b/c most here leans towards the left doesn't already mean they will be nicer than other people." therefore it doesn't negate the fact that there aren't nice people here. which is something i never said. therefore, my point was to say never assume. just wanted to make sure what i said is not misinterpreted.

by the way, i barely managed to get 10 gal. and a b1g1 free ski pass at shell. simple rule of thumb is to "assume" the gas tank holds 8 gal. during winter and 9-10 gal. during summer.

 

Don't play games, just fill up when two pips are lit. Also don't try to keep forcing gas in after the pump clicks off. Once in a while, you will encounter a pump that wants to click off immediately. If you do and can't get it to work, you may have to pull the nozzle almost all the way out and hold it a little to one side so that the seal can vent, then slowly fill the tank with the amount of gas you estimate it will take. Don't over-fill.

That has happened to me once in a year of ownership and the method described above worked for me. I have never seen only one pip on my guess gage.

 

We still don't know how many gallons of fuel it took to fill the tank after it run out of gas. Was it really all away to 11.9? So now that we know how the Prius fuel tank works I'll try that next time I fly my airplane...It has a blader tank, too. Who wants to come fly with me? (It has more than 11.9 gallons, so we can go a little ways...)

 

I'm one of those guys that definitely takes the gas as far down as I can. Since I'm new to the Prius and I've never had an electronic gas gauge, I was wondering what my range really was. Thanks to you I don't have to find out the hard way.

 

I have been driving my Prius for about a month now and have been keeping track of all kinds of data. In my last car I would get gas when the low fuel light would come on, maybe 10 or so more miles after that. I have assumed that the flashing pip was like that light. So far I have done the same with the Prius and have filled up the tank with anywhere from 8 to 8.7 gallons. I have averaged 370 miles at the time I fill up and in all instances my last PIP was flashing. I am greatful for all the info here and wanted to add some of my experience. I have just started keeping track of when the last pip starts to flash. I know I am cutting it close but after 7 fills so far I am getting ready to form the hypothesis that I can go 10 more miles after my PIP starts to flash.

 

Maybe this has been covered earlier in the thread, so apologies if that's the case.

I was always told that it's a bad idea to let your tank get that empty. There are multiple reasons why it's bad (i.e. actually running out of gas), but another big one is that it allows sediment that's usually hanging out at the bottom of the tank to be sucked into the fuel filter, perhaps blocking the thing prematurely.

I have no idea how big a concern that actually is, but why chance it?

 

Im also one that waits till i get a flashing pip. when i do i can usually push it for a while but when i do get gas it says full on the gauge and the pump usually says 7 1/2 or 8 gal max. just because it says it holds 11.9 gal, i dont think ive ever been able to put that much in it. (and that includes the time i ran out of gas) (see explanation in one of my other posts)

 

I have heard the sediment theory as well and don't know if it is urban legend of not. The whole tank bladder thing may add a spin to this, but you can imagine that the fuel pump must be pulling fuel from the lowest part of the tank, or close to it, if that is the case then lowest part is also were the sediment most likely would end up so you would always be pulling this into your system. Second I don't know how much sediment can get into the tank but if the pump pulls from some point above the lowest part of the tank then you would run out of gas before you got to the sediment. Just my theory.

 

We usually push a few miles after the pip starts flashing.
Yesterday we really pushed it and it seemed the pip flashed faster.
Usually we put about 10 gallons of gas in it and do about 440 out of a tank. I think the MFD says about 48mpg average.
I post our info above just so others can compare.
I have the front tires set at 39psi cold, rear 36

 

1. Like Dave, I maintained a 'how many miles per pip' log for a few tanks. And like Dave, I found NO correlation.
2. Once you have had your car long enough, and maintained records of actual gallons in, miles driven and the MFD MPG reading, you can calculate the gauge inaccuracy. Mine is 2% generous so if it says I'm getting 50 MPG, I figure it is really 49 MPG and base my expected fill on that.
3. Like another poster said, it doesn't matter if my lifetime is 48+, that has NO bearing on the current tank. I have had a 59.8 MPG tank and a 29 MPG (beating through the mostly unplowed output of the biggest 24 hour snowstorm in Burlington's history). 10 gallons in doesn't necessarily equal 480 miles of driving.
4. There was a fuel tank TSB (not the fill pipe replacement one) on some '04s that I swear made the guess gauge much more conservative at 1 pip flashing. By calculation, I have used only 8, maybe 8.5 gallons when it starts flashing even though I put 10.5 gallons in at last fill. So yes, I do regularly drive past 'the flash' but I wouldn't make general statement that all Prius owners have used only 8 gallons at 1 pip flashing. I think it is specific to SOME cars. I don't think my wife's '06 is anywhere near that conservative. But then I don't drive it often so I don't know what her calculated usage is at 1 flashing. Based on the miles driven/gallons in calculation, I think her MFD is 3% generous.
5. The ONLY way to make sure you don't run out is to know how much you put in (as has been said) and use the calc from #2 to figure out how may miles you can go on that much gas (with a cautious reserve!). You never know if you were 1 drop shy of empty or 1.5 gallons but you DO know how much you put in.

 

the manual is too big - trying to read it one becomes quickly turned off.

the 'rtfm' response doesn't wash with me when the manual is as large as it is for a prius.

think of the gas tank as variable in size - its capacity is different each day, due to many factors. this takes getting used to for those of use who are used to computing to the last ounce how much fuel we have left.

bottom line - 2 pips left - fill that sucker up with gas...

 

HI All:

First I want to say I absolutely love my car, it does everything I would want it to do but it is different that traditional cars and there is a lot to learn about using it. There is a lot of info in the manual but very little details about how to use this "different" type of car. For instance the only place there is any mention about when to refill the car is a chart towards the end that describes the flashing pip, saying "Remaining fuel (Approximately 3.0 gal........) correct procedure is to "refuel vehicle". Although this seems to be correct what is not mentioned is that you may or may not have access to these three gallons. This chat forum is like an extended detail filled manual. Toyota should take a lesson from this.

Craig