Has anyone here actually run out of gas in their Camry Hybrid ?

What happens next ?

Given sufficient SOC, can you actually drive a mile or two to reach fuel ?

Are there then any ill after effects ?

Any error codes set ?

I'm looking for actual experience here, not just speculation.

 

All I know is that if you do run the main traction battery down to the point that it shuts down, you will need a toyota service vehicle to come visit your car to recharge the main pack. I would not recommend trying to push it very far once you get to 0 miles on the crusing range indicator.

 

Yeah, as a side note, I consider the "cruising range" indication to be worthless, to wit:

1. While I'm on a tank driving under favorable conditions and getting much better than my typical, the sum of my tank miles driven and remaining cruising range indicated actually goes DOWN rather than up.

2. When I start out, gassed up, on a long trip, the thing will tell me to the nearest mile how far it thinks I can go, and by the time I finish the tank, it will have been wrong by typically at least dozens of miles.

3. It tells me the range with the greatest % precision with the tank full, when I could care less.

4. When the tank is near empty and I want to know whether I can go 15 miles to the next gas station or I should turn around and go 5 miles back to the last one, it would already have quit telling me anything at all 10 or 20 miles earlier, while the truth is i probably have enough gas left to pass the next 2 or 3 gas stations.

Of what earthly use is all of that ?

I can get more useful and less misleading information from a glance at the fuel gauge.

End of RANT.

 

My question would be why would you want to run the tank totally dry before refueling ??
Yes, I agree that the cruising range indicator is very inaccurate when it gets below about 25 miles, but why wouldn't you want to refuel when the gauge gets to Empty.

Another interesting point - the manual says the tank capacity is a little over 17 gallons, I have never put in more then 14 gallons even when i ran the gauge all the way to E.
Does this mean we really have 3 more gallons ( and 90+ miles more ) once it hits Empty ???

 

Yes, MANY have posted so in this forum.

And therein lies the answer to you first two questions:

One can, indeed, run a long distance beyond the 0 cruising mile indication, and even beyond the low fuel light without being in any danger at all of being anywhere near out of fuel.

In my case, when I'm in town on my usual routine, I'm never usually more then a mile or so from a gas station, so I don't sweat it.

And the longest highway trip I usually make is about 350 miles, so it frequently takes less than half a tank. However, even though some have reported squeezing 700 miles out of a tank, I always refuel for the return trip.

 

I usually put 15.7 to 16.4 gallons in the tank when I refill. During the past summer, I think I had 9 or 10 tanks in a row that went over 700 miles with the longest being almost 800 miles. I can easily go another 100 miles or so when the light comes on before refueling.

 

...but you'd advise anyone reading this to fill up as soon as possible once the light goes on, right?
Not sure, but once the tank is low, nothing good (but possibly something bad) could happen.

 

That is good to know, as long as you can get to a gas station within 1 mile or less if you do really totally run out of gas. This does of course assume you always have 7 bars showing on he SOC, which will depend on your driving style.
This would be extremely dangerous for me, as I live 5 miles from the nearest gas station, whith 2 rather steep hills between here and the gas station, so running 100% on battery is not possible.

 

Rather than speculate on what "could" happen I would prefer to collect and share some actual experience on what actually does happen.

That was the point of starting this thread to raise the question.

So, does anyone here have first hand experience to share with what actually happens when a TCH runs out of gas............ or even in the event of a fuel pump failure or fuel filter clog ?

I'm not sure I'm in a position to give advice regarding when to fill up or why, at least until we get some first hand info.

But I will share the following thoughts at this point:

1. The low fuel indicator light is an extremely conservative warning, so extremely conservative that it is pretty useless except as an attention getter. As David and others have posted, one can often drive another 100 miles or so after the light comes on.

2. The "cruising range" display is pretty worthless as an indication of how much further you can drive. As i've noted previously, it is also misleading. It displays a precision of +/- 1 mile, but it's accuracy is normally worse than +/- tens of miles - sometimes a whole lot worse.

3. The fuel gauge itself is probably the best indication of how much fuel remains, especially if you have first hand experience with how much "reserve" may remain at the "E" mark. The gauge is not linear, but you won't be far off if you read each mark on the gauge to represent about 1.5 gal.

4. The most reliable way I have found to estimate the remaining range is to glance at the fuel gauge and then recall how far I have previously been able to drive with the gauge in that position.


One more thought I have regarding,

"...(... possibly something bad) could happen..."

The worst that could happen may depend upon who is riding with you - particularly if there are bonds of matrimony involved (if you know what I mean).

 

John, If my memory serves me correctly, which is questionable...there was thread very early on in this forum, around summer/fall 2006 perhaps, where this subject was discussed, and someone actually did run out of gas and reported their experience. I spent a few minutes searching but couldn't dig it up. (back to that questionable memory thing!)

Perhaps someone else would be more successful on that search?