I ran out of gas @ 460 miles getting 46.5 mpg

True, Toyota's owner's manuals are relatively sucky. My GF bought a new Civic and the owner's manual is excellent.

 

in this day and age, we all feel that we are sophisticated enough that we can use our experiences and common sense to figure out how things work if we had a similar device in the past, therefore reading the manual is deemed a waste of time by most people as soon as it mentions one thing the reader disagrees with.

i mainly refer to cellphones, TV's DVD players and the remote controls that accompany these devices.

so its the consumers habit to call customer service to explain why he thinks the designer of said device is an idiot and to then explain how it should have been done then wait for someone to wave their magic wand and "get er done!!"

 

Rookie mistake. Get over it and move on.

I get over 50 lifetime avg, over 53,000 miles. I always fill up just less than 400 miles. Why press your luck? It only took me one time to run out of gas and learn, and that was in my 1966 Mustang, in the last century.

 

I had a similar experience the one time I ran out of gas as well. I was on the highway going ~70 and it went from 2 bars to Add fuel within 20 miles. What sucked was that I passed a gas station with 2 pips and thought it would be fine. Now, when I am on the highway, I am a lot more watchful of the pips. In general, I go with the 9 gallons in the winter and 10 gallons in the summer to estimate my miles per tank that someone on PC recommended a long time ago. In my 65K miles, that is a pretty good estimate of the capacity.

As far as the OP, no sympathy here. Your first post was accusatory of the car for something that other people in the thread you previously posted had said. It's not the car's fault you had faulty assumptions, that is why many people responded to you in a way you felt was unfair. BTW, the 2004 Manual does state the tank does decrease in capacity in colder temps. I can't say if they took that out in the 08 manual.

 

I haven't read through all of the responses here, but I did read the Prius Owner's Manaul where it says that in cold weather the fuel bladder holds up to 2 gallons less than the maximum capacity of 11.9 gallons. Toyota should probably put this little factoid on the front cover of the manual and have owners sign a statement that they have read and understand this portion of the manual.

Of course as a fall back position, you could always go by the gas gauge which is always correct.:kev:

 

Well... I'm a "new" Prius owner... purchased on March 20th, and only started to drive it this past weekend...
I have a long commute from VA to MD each day, and was happy to average 47.4MPG on the display. I was above 460 miles when the one PIP started to flash, and a quick message indicating I needed gas came up on the display... of course, I expected that there would be a "reserve"... enough to get me home to my normal gas station... but the car started to act up (lose power), and I immediately took the next exit. The engine shut down, and I was cruising at 37MPH for the next mile before dying. Shut the car down... called the wife (hoping she could bring a gas container from the garage)... but then tried starting up again... and the engine engaged.
I saw a gas station within 1/2 mile... and decided to make a go for it...

MADE IT!

Tanked up, reset all the guages... it took 10.9xx gallons! So I was pretty dry.

One observation... the gas guage didn't show full until several minutes later...

Moral of the story... I will listen to my car next time! (My first hybrid...)

 

Glad everything turned out ok.
My first question is, last time you filled up, how many gallons did you pump? Multiply that by your current average and that will tell you your anticipated range.
I know the tank is listed as around 11.9 gallons, but until YOU put that much in it, don't count on it. The good thing is, you can see it does hold that much, and it's in there now, and you can safety anticipate the use of 10 gallons of gas. so when your mileage since this fill-up divided by your average MPG since fill up = 10, it's time to get gas, and you have a 1 gallon reserve.
I always know how much will fill the tank, by dividing my miles driven since fill-up, by the average since fill-up. And if I can get a little more in, good.
It always works. And I get a range of at least 600 miles out of every tank.

 

Not to be mean, but I still laugh when I read this thread. I mean, is it there ever a good reason to let any car get below one fourth of a tank?

 

.......

For Reference, 2nd tank... I had one pip, blinking on my way into work... I made about 20-25 miles before the ICE stopped running, and I cruised off the highway at 50 mph to the next exit (which was 1/2 mile) and filled up.

I live, I learn, I get gas when as soon as it hits one pip.

 

The best way to consider the flashing pimp is to being the equivalent of this:
pip starts flashing =

Your running off of fumes at this point.

 

I think the best way to improve the gauge is to make the last bar of the fuel gauge red and it needs to get bright when it is the only bar lit then flash when it is ignored.

 

Pat, I'm of a like mind. Given the possible dire consequences of running
out of gas/petrol, and the fuzziness of the combined tank bladder/guess
gauge, I wouldn't mind getting a somewhat insistant warning/notice at 2
pips. I think it would be a good idea to have to acknowledge/cancel the
warning too. I'd happily trade the back-up alarm for this.

I'd also like to see the gas guage change color like the HV battery
display. The changing color would catch my attention during the
innumerable near instantaneous speed checks that are a routine part
of driving.

 

I see the blinking last pip as equivalent to the "low gas light" on a conventional fuel gauge. Did you folks routinely try to drive really far with that light on in your old cars?

 

I agree with fortheglory, I have always driven my cars till the low gas light comes on. Then I know that the next stop is the gas station. I have never run out of gas and have had no problem with clogged fuel filters or pumps with the supposed gunk hanging out at the bottom of the tank. I drive the Prius the same way, as soon as the pip starts to blink I head to the gas station. So far two months of driving and 11 fills later I have not run out of gas.

 

Too bad you didn't read any of the DOZENS of threads prior to taking delivery. If that would have been the case, you'd of multiplied by 10 (gallons) ... and having driven 460 miles (say, for example your mfd said you were getting 46mpg), you'd of known you were on fumes.

Well, now you'll know for next time, right?

.

 

At first I thought it was funny to read about everyone running out of gas in a Prius, but then I thought back to all of my previous cars. For every car, I woulld watch the gauge get near empty, then check how many gallons would fit. If it was a couple gallons less than capacity I would drive it a bit farther. I have never run out of gas but I have often put 22.1 gallons in my old SUV's 22 gallon tank. Since I did this, on many cars without running out of gas, I am sure that many other people do it to.

Oh well...:violin:

I am also surprised at the many people running out of gas just after the last blinking PIP. Previously I thought you could count on about 20 miles after the last blinking pip.

 

Is that really true? In this case the OP states the pip had been blinking for quite some time. If there have been cases <20 miles I missed them.

Rob

 

Personally I like to plan my fuel stops so I run the car, the car doesn't run me. This means I plan to stop for fuel when I see the tank is near or at 1/4 full. This gives me about 200 kilometres of flexibility.

 

Is that figure in the handbook somewhere?

 

PEEEEEPLE.............for goodness sake, please, fill up as the THIRD TO THE LAST PIP GOES..........

there are too many people running out of gas in priuschat.........that's what we're all here for.....to help each other.......

the manual clearly states......DO NOT run out of fuel......

let's keep our prius' running good!

:flame: