Toyota Prius: Prius Gas Gauge

<a> wrote in message news:4702dc21$0$1559$newsreader.com... 




It's normal for my 2005.

In article <4702dc21$0$1559$newsreader.com>, "a" <a>
wrote:
 

The gauge is not linear, and the bladder inside the tank varies in size.
Together these mean that you cannot reliably estimate how far you
"ought" to be able to go after a fillup. The one thing you should rely
on is that when the last pip on the gauge starts to flash, you are about
to run out. And when you do run out, remember that you must put in at
least three gallons, otherwise the gas tank computer will not let the
car start.

An amazing number of people have run out of gas in a Prius because they
*just knew* they could go 500 miles on one tank, or that there just
*had* to be another two gallons in there. Uh-uh. No.

In article <isp.giganews.com>,
richard schumacher <net> wrote:
 

Or they just *had* to see the biggest number they possibly could on the
silly screen in the middle of the dash.

People do stupid things.

Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote: 


I have an Oct '04 delivered in Oct '03 - among the first of the
new body style. The gas gauge has always been unreliable. I've
seen the blinking bar with 200 miles left in the tank... and
some reverse situations. It's probably the biggest fault of the
car, but as soon as that became apparent I started driving by
the odometer. I just take the dash average mileage times ten as
my "time to get gas" point. So far, so good.

Toyota has offered a "fix", but friends who did it aren't
particularly pleased with the result.

richard schumacher <net> wrote:
 

I think you meant to say, "the gauge won't reset but will continue to
flash." In my gasoline studies, I've run out over two dozen times and
used a 1 gallon spare can to put enough fuel in to reach a gas station.

I've also found the variable bladder problem seems to have disappeared
after running the tank down:
http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/1506.html

I have no explanation, just how my vehicle has behaved.

Bob Wilson

"Bob & Holly Wilson" I've run out over two dozen times
 

How does one do that over and over again?

I've run out of fuel one time in my life and I'm 50.

G-Man

richard schumacher wrote: 

Bladder, this, bladder, that, bah humbug. I have only seen one model of
car in my life that had anything close to an accurate fuel gauge: mid
70's Oldsmobile Cutlass.
 

*I* ran out of gas in my 2007 because several times previously I had
driven 30 to 70 miles on the flashing last bar. Then in spite of my best
effort was only able to put less than 10 gallons in an 11.9 gallon tank.
Convinced me the indicator was a guess gauge, not a gas gauge.

So I was out driving in the middle of nowhere (Arkansas) thinking the
idiot light should be flashing the past 50 miles. Then it finally did.
And just over a mile later the engine was dead. Batteries got me another
mile or two down the road where fortunately I found the first open gas
station in the past 20 miles. Car restarted as if nothing had happened.

This is when I realized it wasn't a guess gauge but a fool gauge as it
made a fool of me.

As for "the bladder issue", I don't have any problem. When I fill my
tank the calculated MPG is 0 to 4 MPG less than the indicated cumulative
MPG since I reset it at the previous fill. I'm filling pretty darn
consistently.

Oh, and when it ran out? 11.3 gallons after the nozzle kicked off and
was repositioned several times.

Suggest that you start paying close attention to how many miles after
topping off the tank before the first bar dims. This seems to provide an
accurate indication as to exactly how full the tank was filled. Mine is
pretty consistent at 120 to 140 miles. Except the time it ran out, the
first bar didn't fall until 230 miles. Which demonstrates what happened
to me when I got fooled. Apparently the gauge falls very slowly, slower
even than the Prius drinks fuel. When it takes several days to burn 2.5
gallons it behaves one way. When driven continuously it falls slow
enough that 4.5 gallons are gone before the first bar dims.

I drove over 400 miles the day I ran out of gas. Couple hundred before,
couple hundred after. Appears when driven continuously the gauge can get
a couple of gallons behind.

In article <8f63a$47045097$d8ba94f9$NET>,
David Kelly <com> wrote:
 

The whole point is that in every other car everyone else has driven, the
gas gauge may have been off--but it was *reliably* off.

The bladder in the Prius tank means that you can't predict what the
gauge actually means, and that's way different than people are used to.