Refueling at 10 gallon mark

THAT is amazing mileage!!!!!!

 

Good Job!
btw, the break in (and better mpg's) will continue, all the way out to about 10K miles.

 

I have never been able to get more than 9.8 gallons of gas in that tank, even with the last dot blinking at me. "Filling the filler tube"..... can you say, "check engine light".

 

1)The fuel pump inside the tank uses fuel as its lubricant....running the pump dry means faster wear on the pump linning hence overworking the pump or killing it Heaven forbid...
2) running on low fuel u risk experiencing "air lock" in the fuel line which is not a good experience if u ask me...

as 4 me 2pips or 1/4 way is the secret

 

i reset MPG on MFD and Trip A on every fillup. i have also gone as much as 60 miles on the last blinking bar in summer, close to 50 miles in the winter.

CANVIEW states (i consider this an estimate only) that tank is about 1/8 or 12.5% full when last pip starts to blink. that was on my 04... rumors has it, that the gas gauge was adjusted so the last bar started blinking at a somewhat lower level. unknown if that has been verified or not

 

I would choose this feature better than the bladder. One of the real drawbacks of the Prius is the bladder. We drive so much every month, that we end up at the station every 3 days or so; that sucks. Waiting in line for gas at Costco really sucks. I usually fill with two or three pips visible, never have run out.

As for the charcoal canister being damaged by overfilling the tube, I heard a Toyota service manager explain to a new car owners group that it would cause an expensive error code diagnosis in due time. He also said that some dealers would not even be able to correctly diagnose the problem, causing costly headaches for them and you.

 

IF and that is a big if the fuel gauge was linear, which it isn't, each little rectangle on the gauge would represent 10% or the tank, as there are 10 of them.
When you have all 10 rectangles you have between 90 and 100% of a tank of fuel
When you have 9 rectangles you have between 80 and 90% of a tank of fuel
When you have 8 rectangles you have between 70 and 80% of a tank of fuel
When you have 7 rectangles you have between 60 and 70% of a tank of fuel
Can you see what is coming?
When you have 6 rectangles you have between 50 and 60% of a tank of fuel
When you have 5 rectangles you have between 40 and 50% of a tank of fuel
Here it comes.
When you have 4 rectangles you have between 30 and 40% of a tank of fuel
When you have 3 rectangles you have between 20 and 30% of a tank of fuel
Have you worked out the problem here?
When you have 2 rectangles you have between 10 and 20% of a tank of fuel
so here is the problem with going to 1 little rectangle,
when you have only 1 rectangles you have at most 10% of a tank of fuel but at worst you have 0%. 0% is a bad thing, it means either wrecking your hybrid battery at a cost of a couple of grand, stopping and walking home or pushing a 1300kg car up the road. I guess you could get a tow or someone to bring you some fuel but it isn't very convenient.

To cut a long story short, because I can go on for hours, refill when you have 2 or more of those little green rectangles on your fuel gauge and you should never have to ring a friend to bring his lawn mower fuel around for you.

And as someone else said, don't over fill the fuel tank as that will damage the carbon canister requiring a whole new fuel tank!! Yep, the carbon canister is sealed in the fuel tank.

 

Pat I strongly disagree on multiple counts. The assumption about what a typical gas gauge indicates does not mesh with my real world experiences. In all the fuel tanks I've had on new Japanese vehicles there was considerable capacity above the top and below the bottom indication. The bottom side is obvious in some as the increment is shorter as well--my Tundra displays about 1/8th tank span for the last "quarter tank" (I've gone well below that with the idiot light on for another several gallons, never run out.) The top 1/4 tank is similarly clipped and all fills go well over the full indication. For my Tundra a fill would work out to about 120% indicated while empty is somewhere below -25% (how far I don't know as I've never run out, though I have gotten very near the stated tank capacity this way.)

Refilling at 2 pips is a waste of time and will only put about 6 to 7 gallons in my Prius tank depending on weather and the phases of the Moon. 1 pip is probably a waste of time as well, but less of a hassle than at 2. I'll try to push this tank or the next until I get an actual blinking pip. Past that I have no indication to work from so I'm not inclined to go farther as it becomes a blind estimate. At any rate, I need to get an idea of what the real range of the tank is so that I can plan gas and rest stops accordingly.

A person isn't going to wreck their battery by running out of gas unless they are a moron and try to run highway speeds with the hammer down once the ICE shuts down. And even then they will probably have to restart it a time or two in order to fully draw the traction battery down. Compared to other cars the Prius should actually be more forgiving: if you run out of gas you actually have some EV range if you manage it right. This is enough to get you off of the road at minimum and in many cases should get a person to a station.

 

If you are having problems with the tank not filling, then I suggest doing exactly that. It's one way to try to straighten out the problems with a defective tank.

A friend of mine many years ago had a lemon of a General Motors SUV. There were multiple problems but the most serious was the brakes. They would grab, pull to one side, or not work much at all, and seemingly at random. He knew cars but could not get this resolved after many trips back and forth to the dealer. One day after a scare with the brakes he had enough. He drove ~30 miles to the dealership intentionally dragging the brakes. He cooked the whole system so they had to replace everything. No more trouble with the brakes after that. :rockon: Of course the vehicle had so many other failures that he eventually got his money back under the lemon laws.

 

Regarding the charcoal canister, please note that it is located on top of the fuel tank and can be separately replaced. Relatively short rubber hoses connect the canister to the fuel tank, hence it is easy for gasoline to enter the canister if the fuel tank is overfilled.

Although the canister can be replaced, the job requires first removing the fuel tank for access, so this is not a particularly fun thing to do.