passed first 1,000 miles this morning

I live in Tampa too and have had my 07 since July. Been lurking here for almost a year. I've leveled out to 47 mpg's for a daily Courtney Campbell @ 75 mph's commute. Here's what I've learned:

First tank gets really really good mileage. After that it levels off. Well known oddity...search here for it.

Fill front tires to 43 rear tires to 40. Very very important. Check often as our little cold spells knock 10 lbs out of the tires almost overnight. I check every 3-5 days. By a high quality tire pressure gauge. That will gain you almost 3 miles to a gallon. Goodyear Integra's suck.

Use only 87 octane only. Anything above that will make the car run really great but get awful mileage. It runs best on name brand 87.

Fill up the gas tank when you see 2 pips remaining. I say 2 pips because by the time you find the gas station you like it will down to one pip. When the fuel gauge is at one pip and oh my god flashing you have maybe a mile or 2 or maybe 10 miles to get gas. It depends on the mood of the car or if the car likes you or not whether it's going to run out of gas if its flashing. Do not run out of gas like the hundreds of morons you see here that do all sorts of math calculations between shown use and real time consumption and end up running out of gas because they think the car will run on 1/2 gallon of gas. It won't. It seems the car gets unhappy when it gets down to 2 gallons remaining. Running out of gas will end up as a tow to the dealer. We call the gas gauge a guess gauge. No big deal. Its an oddity of our car. There is absolutely no reason in the world to run out of gas in our car. My car has 375 miles on the trip odo at 2 pips. At 375 its gas time.

When you gas up put the gas in at the slowest speed the pump can deliver. The gas tank has a plastic bladder to recover gas fumes for zero emissions. If you slosh gas over the fill whole it will spill into that bladder and contaminate the bladder and its a $$$ trip to the dealer...so...slow fill and the very first time the pump clicks off hang up the pump. Do not continue to fill and top off the tank like you have done all your life. You will contaminate the bladder and it will be a pain.

It took me months to get these simple points into my head from the experts here. They work and will make owning our car the extreme pleasure that it is. Good luck!

 

completed my 1000 miles 2 days ago. left on a long trip with 130 on the odometer. current reading 46.6 mpg. trip was 850 miles at high speeds on I-95. temps started at 23 and never went above 36. VERY happy with mpg. can wait till its broken in!

 

As much as possible, I get my gas at one gas station only. If I am out of town, I tend to stick with the same brand of fuel. You can't go wrong with 87 octane. That has been my fuel even since I bought my Prius. Now a little over 3K, no problems so far. The 91 octane fuel is about 30 cents higher, so I don't think I'll be putting 91 in the tank at all.

Enjoy your ride.

 

I've had my Prius for about a month. The last tank I let it get down to 1 pip to see it flash. I drove several more miles and filled up. 396 miles of stop and go and 8.6 gallons pumped. I pumped at the slow setting and it shut off. I hit the pump one more click. The Prius has an 11.9 gallon fuel tank. Shouldn't you should be safe taking it down to a 2 gallon reserve? I estimate once the fuel gauge is flashing fill up in the next 30-40 mile would be safe if you had to go that far.

Kelvin

 

1 pip flashing is really cutting it too close for my comfort. One solid pip is all I'll have to go as far as the gauge is concerned. I also read that in cold weather, Prius owners may tend to put less gas in the bladder tank because it does not expand as much compared to warmer temps.

 

You never really know how many miles are left in the tank when the last pip starts flashing. The max gas tank size is 11.9 gallons but it's actually a flexible bladder which stiffens in colder weather and you don't really get the full 11.9 gallons into it.

There are many threads posted here by people who calculate how far they should be able to go on a tank and then wind up surprised when they run out of gas. It's best to fill up when you reach the last pip at the latest - some folks prefer to fill up at two pips.

 

Yes thats exactly what I see also. But there's an oddity here with this car. I guess because of the bladder and outside temps there will be less gas all of a sudden than what you have calculated. The gas gauge is very inaccurate and yet at times for me has been perfect but have been here almost a year and have seen poster after poster report running out of fuel and a tow to the dealer. Or if there really stupid when they run out of gas and the car goes in "emergency" mode and allows you to drive a while on battery and they drive for miles. Seen one guy here reported tried doing 70 mph's on EV battery emergency mode (and complaining it won't do70+) and damaging the MG. It ends up with a tow to the dealer with severely discharged traction battery and a very unhappy car. I refuse to come even close to running out of gas. Have seen many posters say it just started flashing and I ran out. In my better safe than sorry mind if your looking for gas with a flashing pip you have waiting to long For me @ 375 miles its bingo. BTW, there a couple of posters on right now with run out gas stories.Good luck!

 

Try averaging 63 on the highways instead, and pulse-n-glide
where you can on the secondary roads. When I was down there in
December I was tooling around racking up well over 60 mpg on
a tank without half trying. Those long light-to-light stretches
down US41 are totally da bomb for glides.
.
_H*

 

Everyone has their own comfort level when it comes to draining the gas tank. I know people that start looking for a gas station when the gauge hits 1/2 full. I always go pretty close to empty and I have never ran out of gas. For the prius I start looking for a gas station when the last pip starts blinking.

While the gauge may be innaccurate in the midrange, I dont think it will let you run out of gas before the last pip starts blinking. Are there any credible stories of someone running out of gas before the last pip is blinking?