My hybrid newbieness is showing. I had 450 mi on the odometer, my fuel indicator was down to the last line and I was driving around wondering if my warning light wasn't working. I didn't want to run out of gas while waiting for the warning so I filled up and it took 9 gal, meaning I still had another three in there. Strange yet exciting! I came from a car that had to be filled after 280 miles. So approximately when does the light go on? When you're down to 2 gallons?
At least in the Gen II Priuses, there is no light. Once the last pip is there, it starts blinking when it is low. (I have not seen a Gen III Prius yet, the other Prius in my town is a Gen I)
I don't know how many gallons but I think the only warning light you get is the last bar on the fuel gauge starts to blink.
I see. Well my last bar hadn't started blinking yet. Maybe I should've stuck it out to see how far I can go.
The last pip starts to blink when you are low. I think the MID also will display a message saying low fuel, or something to that effect. Toyota's definition of low means that even once your DTE (Distance To Empty) shows 0 miles you'll still only take 10 gallons of gas meaning there is almost 2 gallons left in the tank. There is a whole thread discussing the whole topic.
With this tank I'm hoping to be able to get to a flashing pip, then fill up with some Texaco and see how it compares mileage-wise to the Shell I've been using. Usually I fill up between 1/4 and 1/3 left, because I don't want to risk getting stuck on the Beltway in slow or no moving traffic. It's nice to know there's approximately 2 gallons left with a flashing pip (apologies to Gladys Knight).
If your radio isn't too loud there is also a longish (3 sec) audible beep when the pip starts the flashing!
The owner's manual says the warning starts when there is about 1.6 gallons (6L) of gas left in the tank.
As everyone has stated, you'll hear a short beep and the last pip will flash. When this happen to me, my trip miles to empty indicated 33 miles.
When it happened to me, it indicated 23 kilometers until empty but when I filled the tank, there was about 10 liters left in the tank, enough to go for another 200 km at least !
Do you guys up North know conversions in your head for Km and Miles? Every time someone posts Km and Liters I have to Google up a conversion calculator! Lol
Having run the car out of gas, by design, three times, I measured 2.1 gallons so 2 gallons is a good working number. Bob Wilson
Nope -- I use google to do all my conversions directly (e.g.) I enter "2.9L/100km in mpg" into the google search box and google returns "2.9 L/100km = 81.108477 miles per gallon" (my best mpg reading achieved a couple of times on my 53 km "53 kilometers = 32.9326732 miles" trips home from work with my current tank of Shell 91 Premium gas).
A quick way to convert KM or KPH is to multiply the KM's (or KPH) by .6. 100 KM's is about 60 miles, and 120 KPH is around 72 MPH. * For us old timers who are accustomed to seeing engine sizes in cu. in., a figure of 60 when multiplied times the engine size in Liters will also roughly convert engine size to cu. in. (i.e. 5.7L = (5.7 Liters X 60 = 342, that would be the old GM 350 cu. in. engine, the conversion is not precise, but works good for giving yourself a quick idea of the engine size in cu. in. Multiplying .6 is a VERY fast way of getting a fairly close estimate of either distance or speed! David (aka Blind Guy) P.S. BTW, if you ever want to convert KG's to Lbs., just multiply the Kg's by 2.2 and you'll get Lbs.!
