Fuel capacity

I've been at one blinking bar and never managed to squeeze 10 gallons into mine. His pump is off and you can prove that by going back with a gas can that holds a measured amount of gas.

Hmmm. I routinely put around 11gal in mine (and have put 12 in) with up to 2 bars left. I've had 2 Prii now (02 & 06) and love both of them, but I have to say the gas guage is not one of their high points. It tends to be erratic and just plain useless. Also, the gas tank bladder is affected by temperature and will accept different amounts of gas depending on how hot it is. When its cold out, its less flexible and accepts less fuel. Sometimes I can go 200+ miles before the first bar shuts off on the guage. Sometimes it will show 4 bars when I start it up and I can go 20 miles and get a ding with the flashing bar. Go figure. It is possible that your gas station has a problem, but don't discount the Prius completely.

Bill wrote:

I suspect much of the quirky behavior is in the programming of the display. It seems to go to great lengths to smooth out its response, even to the extent that you can add a couple gallons of gas and the display won't show it. When the level gets lower it seems to get more "real." If that means changing its mind from saying you had 1/3 tank to only one bar, so be it.

Mike

He put in 12.395 gallons, which exceeds the prius capacity.

Bill wrote:

Well, that's certainly true vs. the published fuel capacity of 11.9gal I'm not saying that there might not be an isue with the gas station. OTOH, because the Prius fuel bladder is somewhat flexible and because it is possible to overfill any car, including the Prius, it is possible that you could get more than 11.9gal into it by pressurizing the bladder a bit and filling the "neck" to the tank before the pump shuts down. It could happen. ;-)

Bill wrote:

From what I understand, the fuel bladder is inside a rigid steel container. I'm thinking the capacity is figured with the bladder stretched to conform to it's confinement. But you may be right, the filler neck might hold 3/4 gallon and he may have shut the car off just as it was running out of gas.

The nozzle was all the way inside the filler, and once it automatically shut off at 12.395 gallons that was that. I probably would have been spitting bullets if I had waited another few seconds and it took more in the filler neck. Speaking of the gas gauge bars, I figured the first bar would disappear after many more miles than I'm used to because of this fill up. Fat chance. First bar disappeared after 90 miles. I've seen it disappear after 130 miles many times. Hmmm... 90 from 130 is 40. Maybe I was still short 3/4 of a gallon from a totally full tank. I should be hearing from the W&M inspector soon.

mark_

Were you at one blinking bar when you pulled in? I've got to believe that pump was off.

Yes. I drove an additional 15 miles so I could get closer to home before filling. Yesterday morning I drove by the gas station and the two nozzles from that one pump were booted (locked out). Now its a question as to how much they were in error.

About a month ago another pump at the same station failed to stop and gasoline gushed out all over the ground and subsequently on the bottom of my shoes. I told the manager and his response was simply to ask for the full amount. No compensation. Yet it didn't dawn on me afterwards there was a reason speedy-dri was all over the area when I pulled up to the pump and got out. So my advice to anyone else reading this is avoid a pump that has some sort of absorbent on the ground, the station managers and attendants are too inconsiderate to shut it down. In the old days it was OK to let the pump be used because it was usually the customer's fault for gas on the ground. But not nowadays, unless someone filled a gas can or something else other than a vehicle. mark_

There was a thread last year (?) about potential errors in gas pumps. The short of it was that the standards were pretty tight, although they varied by state. Anyway, one of the newspaper articles a link pointed to indicated the procedure in the case of a question about accuracy was to take the pump out of service within 24 hours until it could be scheduled for retest. Dunno what state that was.

Typical out-of-tolerance results reported were around 1%, although one was around 5%

Mike