car has driven for 20+ miles on empty tank of gas

[lenwardus]

Saw this ad on Craigslist:
--maybe they meant the gas gauge showed empty?


The car has driven for 20+ miles on empty tank of gas (or on the electric battery only)
Original owner, car has been garaged and 100% dealership maintained by Honda Certified mechanics


http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/948141224.html

[IamIan]

or down a long hill... I've never got anywhere near 20 miles when I've done EV test runs in my Insight.

[lenwardus]

When at a Honda dealership buying a Civic Hybrid the salesman said don't ever run it out of gas as
that could cause permanent damage to the batteries and void the warranty. Would the Honda hybrids
keep going on just electric power if the gas tank ran dry?

[Insightful Trekker]

There is not enough power in the IMA pack for more than 2-3 miles. And its made "worse" in that the ICE must be turned too.

Yup If you were hypermiling it you'd use less than 1qt for the distance. But with that little amount of fuel in the tank beware of hills.

[ikhoudvanu199]

i can usually go a 20 or so miles with 0 bars on my gas guage...but running the insight w/o gas is not a good idea, since the gas engine must be turning, even if the electric motor is providing the power...it will most likely cause issues w/ the gas delivery systems...clogging, etc if the gas tank is run to empty and the engine is continued to run...if the insight runs out of gas...turn it off immediately and get more gas...and i can only imagine it would void any warranties

[lenwardus]

Thanks all for the info.

At <1.80 per gallon now, I don't think I will be running out and possibly
ruining 6K worth of new batteries.

[Insightful Trekker]

This topic was split as the discussion morphed into driving with IMA batteries alone.
Please continue that part of the discussion here:


Modification and Technical Issues

Driving on IMA batteries alone
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8331

HTH!