How far do you go when the fuel gauge blinks?

I usually can go 40 miles after the guage says 0 miles till empty.

 

Can someone please tell me WHERE on the display I can find "miles to empty". I know I saw it while I was driving but after I had stopped could not get back to it.

 

Except in the rarest of cases, I fill up when I get to one blip or just into the blinking blip. My fillups are generally right around 9 gallons and I don't think I've every put 10 gallons in so there is certainly plenty of reserve in there.

 

Is there really any need to find out? If I am on the road by 300 miles I'm stopping to take on coffee and get rid of the last cup, silly to not fill up at that point. Around town when it is below 1/2 and its convenient I fill up. It has always been bad to leave a fuel tank low on fuel, because of moisture accumulation. It is more of a factor now due to ethanol.

RAL

 

Not in a blue fit ...

 

Why not? You will be buying the fuel anyway.

 

as you will buy the fuel anyway wheather now or tomorrow, what car is it worth running out of fuel in?

 

I live rurally yet I still am within 10 miles of a gas station no matter where I am in my daily life and commute. There's no excuse to run out of gas, especially give the Prius' generous "reserve."

So I go tank by tank since it's easier to track MPG that way (fuelly wants regular, full tank, fillups).

 

Hi Cruisermom,

On my steering wheel, I have a "Trip" button and a "Display" button. If you cycle through the "Trip" button displays you should find the DTE (Distance to Empty) icon and data there.

Good Luck!

 

I will usually fill it up when the fuel bar starts blinking. However, in the 3 years that I've had my Prius (and the 120 fill-ups in those 3 years), I've found a better gauge is to take your displayed tank average MPG and multiply by 10. Assuming you got a complete fill-up (e.g. the pump didn't prematurely shut off on the previous fill-up), you should require 10.5 gallons (+/- 0.2 gallons) when you hit 10x Displayed MPG.

Thus, if you are averaging 46.5 mpg on your displayed value, you can drive 465 miles, fill it up, and likely put in 10.5 (10.3 - 10.7) gallons.

11x Displayed value is very close to empty (and in my spreadsheet, 11x may be too optimistic a value).

If your pip is flashing and you are at or below 10x the displayed value, you won't need to panic. Beyond that, I'd get over to a gas station.

 

Just got to my last PIP. I'm at 416 miles. I'll wait to look for a gas station until it starts blinking. This will be my most miles per tank yet.

 

I've gotten the gauge down to 3 miles on the DTE, but that was an unusual case when I was pressed for time and in an unfamiliar city.
And I was sweating bullets until I rolled into a gas station.
I feel comfortable driving ten or so miles after the beep and the blinking light start, but I prefer to refill at around 2 bars on a conveniently warm, pleasant day.
The 500-ish mile range of the Prius means that you can typically pick an appropriately nice place and time to gas up.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that many cars that have an internal fuel pump utilize the gasoline surrounding the pump as a coolant, so it is not wise to run fuel levels close to empty.

I had a new GMC truck a few years back that I used to run close to empty quite frequently and ended up replacing the fuel pump at about 70k miles. I was told that this was common to vehicles whose drivers run their vehicles close to empty because the fuel pump runs at an increased temperature, thus shortening its lifespan.

I plan to continue filling my Prius up at 2 pips.

 

I've replace many in-tank fuel pumps throughout the years. In just about every case where I have torn them apart for inspection, I have found the failure to be caused by the commutator being groved and worn out and the brushes in the motor to be worn down. In otherwords, the brushes lose contact with the commutator. There is pretty much nothing you can do to prevent this from happening besides keeping the fuel filter replaced. A clogged filter overworks the motor. The motor itself runs fuel through all of it's wmats4less.comorkings for cooling until it draws air, at which time the engine quits.

 

Thank you for posting that, most people aren't aware that in tank fuel pumps are cooled by the fuel flowing through the pump, including the motor.

 

I might add, a clogged up fuel filter caused the motor to overwork. The fuel filter is important.

 

It's unfortunate that fuel filters aren't intended to be replaced on many cars.

 

It makes complete sense that restricted flow could overheat the pump motor, but should I infer from this that the fuel surrounding the pump has nothing to do with the cooling of the pump itself and the fuel level in the tank has no bearing on fuel pump longevity? Was I misled by the mechanic that replaced the pump in the truck I mentioned above?

What are your thoughts on impurities that settle to the bottom of the tank being more concentrated by the decreased amount of fuel and drawn into the filter and pump?

 

I went as close as 9 miles to empty is what the car was telling me i could go. Didnt want to push my luck

 

Let's put it this way, anything to keep a motor cool is a good thing. Granted, when the tank gets low on fuel the fuel in the tank gets warm (not hot) from fuel return. Less volume, the easier it is to warm up the fuel temperature. However, fuel will not get hot enough to cause electrical failure to the fuel pump. The problem is the fuel pump motor working against restricted fuel flow. Restricted fuel flow is caused by a clogged filter. The filter is clogged with abrasive material the has passed thoroughly the pump causing wear to the brushes and commutator. Sort of a vicious circle, eh?