Gas unexpectedly ran out!

[AppleJacks716]

Sounds like they could be having a bad fuel sensor/relay. Good information, I'll think twice about letting the tank get down that low.

[zbouncer]

What is the point of driving an economical grocery-getter if you cant rely on the gas gauge...it is obviously a manufacture defect, take it to the "stealership" and get it replaced if under warranty other wise check the DIY section for guidance.
Live a little and drive til you have a blinking bar...the rush of adrenaline you get from living on the edge will make you feel on top of the world!
Life is to short to keep you eye on the "gauge", drive it with fun and safety in mind and you will enjoy your travels much more

[Tom48]

Life may be too short to keep an eye on the fuel gauge. Not all gas stations are open 24/7. If you have to do an emergency run in the middle of the nigh and you run out of gas you might find out that life just ended. But screw it, the gas gauge should have been working. Hummm. good epitaph for the Tombstone. You may not be the one with the emergency.

[Forrest]

Car has a trip setting. HOw about click it to 0 on a fill up. This way when it reads about half the normal mileage, just fill up. I always used the trip metter for oil change mileage. I think there is an A and B. I used A for gas fill up and B for oil changes.
Easy.

[bronsin]

Thats what I do also. At 200 miles I fill up. No running out of gas that way...

[carnageehw]

Filling up on gas when you're just below half full isn't exactly a desirable or convenient option a lot of the time.

It's a terrible thing, and a sure fire way to continue to get lousy results from the company to simply ignore a function that isn't working properly.

[bronsin]

Huh. Im satisfyed with Toyotas attention to quality and the way they take care of business. Im terribly disappointed that the Yaris is heavier than my ECHO but hey, its driven by the public. The great unwashed masses. What can T do if they wnt to sell cars? We're lucky we got the ECHO and the Yaris as it is Im thinking.

I dont trust things and prepare for the worst. Im always one step ahead of the game. Dont take anybodys elses plans for me. I make my own plans for Numero Uno.

I guess I am different.

[ECBurton]

It happened to me tonight on the freeway. Driving home from Chicago. Fortunately a good samaritan pulled over and ran to the gas station for me. A gallon of gas fixed the problem. I went from two bars to a loss of power and stranded. I will check with the dealership next time I'm in for maintenance.

And I have to agree with Carnageehw. The fuel gauge should work, it's there for a reason, and to bypass reliance upon the fuel gauge and watching mileage on your odometer/tripmeter is simply ludicrous.

[why?]

Originally Posted by ECBurton

It happened to me tonight on the freeway. Driving home from Chicago. Fortunately a good samaritan pulled over and ran to the gas station for me. A gallon of gas fixed the problem. I went from two bars to a loss of power and stranded. I will check with the dealership next time I'm in for maintenance.

And I have to agree with Carnageehw. The fuel gauge should work, it's there for a reason, and to bypass reliance upon the fuel gauge and watching mileage on your odometer/tripmeter is simply ludicrous.

Look, it is a known problem. We know the gauge is iffy. You act like the Yaris is the only car on the planet with gauges that can't be trusted. But it isn't. There are many models out there with gauges that are far less than optimal.

What compounds that fact is the gas tank in the Yaris has a rubber inner liner. This means the tank will flex and bend depending on how much gas is in it. This also means depending on the temperature the tank will be full with differing amounts of gas.

So instead of being prepared, which you should be, you are saying everything should always work properly, which is of course bullshit. How did that work out for people in Hurricane Katrina? Or Hurricane Sandy? Or this massive northeaster a few weeks ago the knocked out the power for most of Mass?

Let me tell you. It didn't. Allowing yourself to be at the mercy of luck is stupid.

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by ECBurton

It happened to me tonight on the freeway. Driving home from Chicago. Fortunately a good samaritan pulled over and ran to the gas station for me. A gallon of gas fixed the problem. I went from two bars to a loss of power and stranded. I will check with the dealership next time I'm in for maintenance.

And I have to agree with Carnageehw. The fuel gauge should work, it's there for a reason, and to bypass reliance upon the fuel gauge and watching mileage on your odometer/tripmeter is simply ludicrous.

What is ludicrous is not knowing how many miles you average out of a tank of gas. It is equally ludicrous to depend on one instrument and not using a little common sense!

Sorry, but I know my Yaris is good for between 350-400 miles after I fill it up. If I find myself at two bars with 395 miles out of the tank then I'm not going to believe it suddenly became a much more efficient car!

One day while driving my old VW Passat I noticed the tachometer read about 4 thousand RPM higher than it should. I immediately engaged the clutch and realized that the sound of the engine did not indicate it was revving any higher than it should, despite what the instrument was reporting. Turned out the tach went bad, it happens; but I applied a little logic to the situation instead of blindly relying on the one device for information.

No matter how smart the car is, it's only as smart as the person driving it.

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by MadMax

What is ludicrous is not knowing how many miles you average out of a tank of gas. It is equally ludicrous to depend on one instrument and not using a little common sense!

Sorry, but I know my Yaris is good for between 350-400 miles after I fill it up. If I find myself at two bars with 395 miles out of the tank then I'm not going to believe it suddenly became a much more efficient car!

One day while driving my old VW Passat I noticed the tachometer read about 4 thousand RPM higher than it should. I immediately engaged the clutch and realized that the sound of the engine did not indicate it was revving any higher than it should, despite what the instrument was reporting. Turned out the tach went bad, it happens; but I applied a little logic to the situation instead of blindly relying on the one device for information.

No matter how smart the car is, it's only as smart as the person driving it.

^^^^^ This (re perspective)....I just do my fill ups after more miles (I'm hardly ever on pace for fewer than 500 miles per tank).

[bronsin]

Hmmm I look at it differently.

Fill up after driving 200 miles and then you will never run out of gas!

I GAR UN TEEE!!!

[NEexpat]

I don't know, the gauge on the Yaris takes some time to get used to but I have found it to be remarkably consistant.

Also, I know there will be a great many here who won't believe me, but there are people out there who drive about not ever looking at their gauges, not ever. I know Crazeeeee, right, two happen to be a couple of my sisters.

"Them -OH! I think I need to get gas. Me - Huh, what?, You think, YOU THINK!"

I know I'll start to sound like the Director of Marketing for Ultra-Gauge , but it has alarm functionality, and I have mine set to 60 miles to go, distance to empty, plus it is calibrated to an 11.1 gallon tank, even though there is probably up to 11.6 or 11.7 on a fill up, which serves as my "double secret" margin of error.

I usually don't let it go below half especially in winter, not because of condensation blah, blah, blah, because a few years ago in a snow storm it took me three hours to go 7 miles to get home. If I am on a long trip then I'll push it, 375+ miles.

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by NEexpat

even though there is probably up to 11.6 or 11.7 on a fill up

I ran out of gas once in my Yaris as I was pulling into a gas station. I filled up to where I could just start to see the gas in the neck. I put in 12.777 gallons. More recently, CTScott performed a test and, IIRC, the point of the test was to determine the maximum capacity of the tank (he gave the test it's own thread). IIRC, the total he came up with was 12.8 gallons. I figure the extra 0.023 of a gallon = the part of the neck I didn't fill on my fill up.

[Amdkt7]

It's been 20 years since I ran out of gas, and it was on a sharp curve. Coasted around and it started back up. I nearly always run until almost on E, sometimes a bit longer. I don't know about the Yaris yet, but most cars seem to have around one gallon or more left when on E. That being said, if the weather is going to be bad I'm going to fill up so I don't get stuck somewhere out of gas.
It wastes gas to be carrying around a full tank all the time, and there is some concern about the fuel pump burning out when empty (I suspect that only happens when it cannot pick up any fuel, not because the tank is low). The pump is located at the top of the tank, if it had to be submersed it should be at the bottom of the tank.
Condensation will not cause the tank to rust. It has a rubber liner. Condensation can be a problem if you do not fill up all the way, or perhaps if you have a low tank for a very long time. So, always fill the tank all the way up, the air is pushed back out into the charcoal canister and then mixed with the air pulled into the engine (burns off gas vapors).
Best practice is to run to nearly empty (except when there is a chance of running out of gas, due to weather, or unknown distance to station), then fill it all the way up. As mention before, know how far you usually travel on a tank of gas, and use that information as well as the gas gauge.

I once had a battered old Dart ('63 I think). It had a leak in the tank, filling too full would result in it leaking. The gauge was screwed up too. As the tank emptied the needle slowly go down, but then would suddenly RISE! When that happened you had to get gas Now!

[CTScott]

Originally Posted by Amdkt7

It's been 20 years since I ran out of gas, and it was on a sharp curve. Coasted around and it started back up. I nearly always run until almost on E, sometimes a bit longer. I don't know about the Yaris yet, but most cars seem to have around one gallon or more left when on E. That being said, if the weather is going to be bad I'm going to fill up so I don't get stuck somewhere out of gas.
It wastes gas to be carrying around a full tank all the time, and there is some concern about the fuel pump burning out when empty (I suspect that only happens when it cannot pick up any fuel, not because the tank is low). The pump is located at the top of the tank, if it had to be submersed it should be at the bottom of the tank.
Condensation will not cause the tank to rust. It has a rubber liner. Condensation can be a problem if you do not fill up all the way, or perhaps if you have a low tank for a very long time. So, always fill the tank all the way up, the air is pushed back out into the charcoal canister and then mixed with the air pulled into the engine (burns off gas vapors).
Best practice is to run to nearly empty (except when there is a chance of running out of gas, due to weather, or unknown distance to station), then fill it all the way up. As mention before, know how far you usually travel on a tank of gas, and use that information as well as the gas gauge.

I once had a battered old Dart ('63 I think). It had a leak in the tank, filling too full would result in it leaking. The gauge was screwed up too. As the tank emptied the needle slowly go down, but then would suddenly RISE! When that happened you had to get gas Now!

The fuel pump is mounted at the bottom, not top, of the tank, in a vertical orientation, with a filter screen at the bottom of it. When it stops sucking gas (on a level surface) there is a little less than 0.5 gallons left in the tank.

The tank is completely made of molded plastic and there is no rubber liner.

[Amdkt7]

CTScott, you probably have better information than I do. I thought it has a rubber liner because several people said it did. If the tank is plastic it would not need a rubber liner either. Often people do not state what year the car is, and from year to year things change.

Also, a photo I believe from a 2012 showed what I believed to be the fuel pump, on the top of the tank. My Rio was like that. I sure would like to look at some actual repair manuals.

[Amdkt7]

It can be harmful to the evaporation control system to overfill the tank.