Well it happened, Yes my friends i ran the Prius II out of gas. Partially on purpose, but i wont do it again. Comming home on 294 (chicago guys will know) about 12 miles out of the Ohare oasis (northbound) it kicked and started slowing down, (let me preface this by saying the last gas bar was flashing) all the lights on the dash lit up like Christmas. It slowed to about 40mph and ran well at that for about 4 miles or so then it slowed to a crawl and then stopped. I sat with the flashers on for about 5 min then started it up again, and away i went up to about 25mph or so into the tollboth and asked how far to the next gas station,? she said can you make it 10 miles to the oasis,? i said i dunno! lol but off i went. about 8 miles later it died again this time the batteries were pretty much spent. I waited 5 min again started it up and proceeded about 10 feet. My prius was dead! so after walking about 1 1/4 miles each way to gas i finally put in the gallon i had gotten. 1 problem, the batteries were so dead the fuel pump wouldnt kick on, Rhut Rho..so i dug out the book and started to readit said turn the car to the off position and start......HUH? thats what i said. well anyway after about 5 min of messing around the engine started but was so weak it wouldnt go into drive. So i sat there watching the battery bars like a school kid waiting for the clock to tick once more to go home. finally i saw the battery bar click up another bar, and i yelled out YEE HA !!! and popped her into drive and slowly pulled away wondering what would happen. All the lights were off so i drove to the gas station filled up and drove home after that like nothing happened. Lesson learned? after the last bar beeps and starts flashing on the gas guage you have about 35 or 40 miles left (at 60 miles per hour) then onece it shuts down you can drive slowly 25 miles per hour or so for about 12 miles on the batteries. I hope this helps people in the future. good luck (by the way the whole ordeal took about 2 hours)...... Dean
PS. I ordered my GreenHybrid license plate frame so if you see a white P II driving around the noth subs of Chicago honk and wave.

Thanks for the tip and the story! If I were you I would take the Prius into the dealership to have the battery checked for possible damage.

12 miles in pure EV- wow!

I'll definatly wave if I see you. I mostly drive on either oakton/demptster/golf to work. However, this week I'm in training in downers grove so if you see someone driving 45 to 50 on 294 slow down and wave. That would be me.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

Hi Clubford00:

___****, that toll booth op should have had you pulling off on Dempster - East right after the Irving Park Toll Northbound and hit a station down near Rt. 43. Did you drive all the way to the Lake Forest Oasis’ Mobil? EV’ing that far is a huge distance from the Irving Park Toll Plaza! I have never heard of a Prius II running that far in EV but I would have loved to have been in the car just to see the light show That was an excellent description of your experience and thank you for sharing with the rest of us.

___I travel I-94/I-294 almost daily although through rotating hours and weekends … I will keep an eye out for your Super White - Prius II w/ the GH plate frame.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

Wayne, just for info when i first started having trouble i was heading north on 294 about 5 or 6 miles north of the hindsdale oasis and i made it to within 1 1/4 miles of the ohare oasis (just south of it). And Jason? i drove the car with no ill effects today and the charging system seemed fine, should i still take it to the dealer to have it checked out?? thanks for any advice. Dean

It's probably ok, mostly what happened is the 12v battery got too weak at some point to run the fuel pump, and the HV battery was very low, but considering that if the battery drops to 40% SOC (empty on the screen) the computer won't let you use up any more precisely to preserve the battery life for as long as possible, that's also why it insisted on charging before being "ready" so I think all systems worked perfectly from the description and nothing was damaged. If you want to check for codes yourself you can run the diagnostic menu, there might be some errors recorded.

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