"Tank on empty" website
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Originally Posted By: Lolvoguy
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
+1
+2 That's what we do on our Mazda 3.
However, on the Grand Caravan I found out on the very first tank that the low fuel light leaves extremely little fuel in the tank. I drove about 50km, or 35 miles since the light came on and filled up 75.XX litres, where the manual says it's a 75 litre tank
I guess the filler neck is quite long. In any case, on this one we will have to fill up when the needle approaches E.
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
+1
+2 That's what we do on our Mazda 3.
However, on the Grand Caravan I found out on the very first tank that the low fuel light leaves extremely little fuel in the tank. I drove about 50km, or 35 miles since the light came on and filled up 75.XX litres, where the manual says it's a 75 litre tank
I guess the filler neck is quite long. In any case, on this one we will have to fill up when the needle approaches E.
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Generally speaking, we wait until the light comes on, then think about filling up.
Horrible, I know. Egads! Yet we've never run out. On my last car, it was known to have a weak fuel pump, yet it still went >250k on the original before it quit. Paid a mechanic to replace, and I think it was under $300--flip rear seat up, remove some screws, easy job (assuming the tank wasn't full). I don't buy that running low is hard on a fuel pump--maybe some vehicles, but hardly all.
We generally rack up 500 or so miles per week, on each vehicle. We'd have to fill up every 2-3 days if we did the fill-up at half tank! No thanks. When we get a new car, we'll fill up around quarter tank or so, take note of how much went in, and what the tank rating was. Then run a few tanks filling up when the light comes on. Once we have a feel for how much goes in vs rated capacity, we then determine just how much we want to push our luck.
And like I've said, we've yet to run out.
With gas stations all over the place, we simply pay attention to what the gauge says, and can easily figure out when we need to fill up. We generally drive fixed routes, and know where and when we want to fill up. Yes, we do fill up when it makes sense--we don't "always" run it low.
Horrible, I know. Egads! Yet we've never run out. On my last car, it was known to have a weak fuel pump, yet it still went >250k on the original before it quit. Paid a mechanic to replace, and I think it was under $300--flip rear seat up, remove some screws, easy job (assuming the tank wasn't full). I don't buy that running low is hard on a fuel pump--maybe some vehicles, but hardly all.
We generally rack up 500 or so miles per week, on each vehicle. We'd have to fill up every 2-3 days if we did the fill-up at half tank! No thanks. When we get a new car, we'll fill up around quarter tank or so, take note of how much went in, and what the tank rating was. Then run a few tanks filling up when the light comes on. Once we have a feel for how much goes in vs rated capacity, we then determine just how much we want to push our luck.
And like I've said, we've yet to run out.
With gas stations all over the place, we simply pay attention to what the gauge says, and can easily figure out when we need to fill up. We generally drive fixed routes, and know where and when we want to fill up. Yes, we do fill up when it makes sense--we don't "always" run it low.
Two extremes here.
Example one: The car in my sig has the most accurate fuel gauge I have ever owned in my life. When it's low it has almost no reserve! If the light comes on you'd better be close to fuel now.
Example two: Any of our fleet trucks (all GM). When they are on empty they can have 7 or 8 gallons left! Even when the light comes on you have a comfortable reserve...
Example one: The car in my sig has the most accurate fuel gauge I have ever owned in my life. When it's low it has almost no reserve! If the light comes on you'd better be close to fuel now.
Example two: Any of our fleet trucks (all GM). When they are on empty they can have 7 or 8 gallons left! Even when the light comes on you have a comfortable reserve...
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Exactly. It's not like it's 50 miles to a gas station.
Now if it was, we'd do... differently.
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Exactly. It's not like it's 50 miles to a gas station.
Now if it was, we'd do... differently.
On my departed Jetta, it was a 14 gallon tank, which I routinely filled with 15 gallons. But it wasn't fooling around: E meant empty, not enough, and the warning light did come on at 2 gallons left. More times than I can count I filled up with 16 gallons. I knew what I was getting for mpg, and I knew the consensus was that it held 17.5 gallons. The one time I put in 16.5 gallons though... I decided that was my limit.
Anyhow, I pulled out the stops one winter, cruised at 60mph, coasted to stops, etc. 853 miles on one tank. That kind of range would have gotten to filling up every other week. Almost! Sad thing was it was only like 15.5gallons, I still had more left in the tank...
Anyhow, I pulled out the stops one winter, cruised at 60mph, coasted to stops, etc. 853 miles on one tank. That kind of range would have gotten to filling up every other week. Almost! Sad thing was it was only like 15.5gallons, I still had more left in the tank...
The fuel gauge in my Dodge ram stopped working years ago. It never gets below 1/2 tank. I make sure that I reset the trip odometer at every fillup, and refill every 600 miles of normal driving, and 480 miles of towing. Haven't run it out of fuel yet.
The Camaro I run it down until the needle is 1/8" below E. From this point, it takes 14.5 gallons to fill up, and there are 2.3 gallons left in the tank. This has not hurt anything in 244k miles of driving; the car still has the original fuel pump.
The Corvette I fill up when the gauge gets below 1/2, because the car starts suffering fuel starvation in the turns when on a racetrack. So I top it off every session.
The Camaro I run it down until the needle is 1/8" below E. From this point, it takes 14.5 gallons to fill up, and there are 2.3 gallons left in the tank. This has not hurt anything in 244k miles of driving; the car still has the original fuel pump.
The Corvette I fill up when the gauge gets below 1/2, because the car starts suffering fuel starvation in the turns when on a racetrack. So I top it off every session.
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Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying, snow storm coming, hurricane, etc. The last thing I want to be worrying about is do I have enough gas. Even day to day I wouldn't care about having to find a station when the light came on. I like gas in the tank. On long trips I like to keep it topped off too.
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
Edit: more stories. I ran my Superduty down low one time. "5 miles to empty" she started sputtering. Barely made it to the station. I learned to not trust those computers for anything other than entertainment.
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying, snow storm coming, hurricane, etc. The last thing I want to be worrying about is do I have enough gas. Even day to day I wouldn't care about having to find a station when the light came on. I like gas in the tank. On long trips I like to keep it topped off too.
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
Edit: more stories. I ran my Superduty down low one time. "5 miles to empty" she started sputtering. Barely made it to the station. I learned to not trust those computers for anything other than entertainment.
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My wife does this every time she needs gas! It drives me nuts!
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying, snow storm coming, hurricane, etc. The last thing I want to be worrying about is do I have enough gas. Even day to day I wouldn't care about having to find a station when the light came on. I like gas in the tank. On long trips I like to keep it topped off too.
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
You'd have a nervous breakdown if you owned an electric car.
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: hatt
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I always wait for the low fuel light to come on before refuelling. Refuelling sooner than that is a waste of time.
What about if you have an emergency of some sort?
What kind of an emergency?
When the light comes on, I can still do about 60 miles or so on the remaining fuel. Where I live, everything is so close, I can easily get anywhere I need on this amount.
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying, snow storm coming, hurricane, etc. The last thing I want to be worrying about is do I have enough gas. Even day to day I wouldn't care about having to find a station when the light came on. I like gas in the tank. On long trips I like to keep it topped off too.
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
You'd have a nervous breakdown if you owned an electric car.
Originally Posted By: hatt
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying,
Nearest hospital is 10 miles away.
All our family lives on other continents, so driving isn't an option.
Airport is 10 miles away.
Quote:
snow storm coming, hurricane, etc.
It's not like these events catch you by surprise. You get plenty of advance notice so you can go and gas up before they hit. BTW, no hurricanes here, where we live.
Quote:
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
Driving in an unknown to you area is a different story. You obviously want to have more buffer then.
Quote:
Edit: more stories. I ran my Superduty down low one time. "5 miles to empty" she started sputtering. Barely made it to the station. I learned to not trust those computers for anything other than entertainment.
I did not say I wait until it's almost zero. All I said was that I fill up after the low fuel light comes on. We have many gas stations here within a few miles from my house.
Any emergency. Family member sick or dying,
Nearest hospital is 10 miles away.
All our family lives on other continents, so driving isn't an option.
Quote:
snow storm coming, hurricane, etc.
It's not like these events catch you by surprise. You get plenty of advance notice so you can go and gas up before they hit. BTW, no hurricanes here, where we live.
Quote:
On a TX trip 4-5 years ago I ran the Camry down to the gas light. Wouldn't you know it was in a desolate area with only a few stations, that happened to be closed since it was late. Trying to get the most out of a tank of gas is too much worry for me.
Driving in an unknown to you area is a different story. You obviously want to have more buffer then.
Quote:
Edit: more stories. I ran my Superduty down low one time. "5 miles to empty" she started sputtering. Barely made it to the station. I learned to not trust those computers for anything other than entertainment.
I did not say I wait until it's almost zero. All I said was that I fill up after the low fuel light comes on. We have many gas stations here within a few miles from my house.
Originally Posted By: jhellwig
I used to cry when I ran my old suburban way down on gas. It held over 40 gallons and that was back in 2004 when prices were jumping but the pumps would stop at 50 or 75 dollars. Now I have had a suburban again for about two months and have only filled it up from empty once and it wasn't that bad.
I have had vehicles that had such poor range that I often let it get down to the fuel low light and found out how far it could go after that. I drove over 30 miles to work and only had a 22 gallon tank and used e85 in a truck. I had to fill up around every three days.
I had an s10 once that if you got down to 1/4 tank you had better be close to a gas station because it dropped fast after that. You could only go like 5 miles after a 1/4 tank. And this only had a 15 gallon tank. I learned that if you had less than a half tank you threw in a gas can and hoped you could make it the 15 miles to the next gas station from home.
In my Taurus, anything under half was a guess.
The gauge read full, 3/4, 1/2 and empty. I learned that when I had 1/2 tank of gas and, 5 miles later, it was on E and the light was on. To test it out I ran it down to 1/4 tank (going based on miles) and it wouldn't read below half.
I used to cry when I ran my old suburban way down on gas. It held over 40 gallons and that was back in 2004 when prices were jumping but the pumps would stop at 50 or 75 dollars. Now I have had a suburban again for about two months and have only filled it up from empty once and it wasn't that bad.
I have had vehicles that had such poor range that I often let it get down to the fuel low light and found out how far it could go after that. I drove over 30 miles to work and only had a 22 gallon tank and used e85 in a truck. I had to fill up around every three days.
I had an s10 once that if you got down to 1/4 tank you had better be close to a gas station because it dropped fast after that. You could only go like 5 miles after a 1/4 tank. And this only had a 15 gallon tank. I learned that if you had less than a half tank you threw in a gas can and hoped you could make it the 15 miles to the next gas station from home.
In my Taurus, anything under half was a guess.
The gauge read full, 3/4, 1/2 and empty. I learned that when I had 1/2 tank of gas and, 5 miles later, it was on E and the light was on. To test it out I ran it down to 1/4 tank (going based on miles) and it wouldn't read below half.
Originally Posted By: TFB1
You guys would go nuts in my F-150, front tank gauge doesn't work, when it runs out I switch to rear...
As a FYI it's never suddenly stopped, will get lazy and power drops to maybe half but it's NEVER stalled... Once I flip to rear tank it picks back up as if nothing happened(and gage reads full as that sender works)... When rear tank gets down to 1/4 or a little less, I refill both... No nanny lights, better keep your eyes open...
My Neon had the gauge stick once at 1/4 and I ran out, and it did run for quite a while at reduced power but eventually it did quit before I got to a station... Since then I always set the trip meter just to make sure, and to calculate mileage.
Typically I run down to below 1/4, which is still enough to get to work and back. The odd time I'll fill at half if the prices have dropped but I find filling up once a week is better than filling up twice a week.
You guys would go nuts in my F-150, front tank gauge doesn't work, when it runs out I switch to rear...
As a FYI it's never suddenly stopped, will get lazy and power drops to maybe half but it's NEVER stalled... Once I flip to rear tank it picks back up as if nothing happened(and gage reads full as that sender works)... When rear tank gets down to 1/4 or a little less, I refill both... No nanny lights, better keep your eyes open...
My Neon had the gauge stick once at 1/4 and I ran out, and it did run for quite a while at reduced power but eventually it did quit before I got to a station... Since then I always set the trip meter just to make sure, and to calculate mileage.
Typically I run down to below 1/4, which is still enough to get to work and back. The odd time I'll fill at half if the prices have dropped but I find filling up once a week is better than filling up twice a week.
Originally Posted By: K20FA5
My wife does this every time she needs gas! It drives me nuts!
Mine to.. and then forgets to tell me. Our Escape lists 15 gallons but she knows it has a reserve. Unfortunately she miss calculated and had to walk the other day!
My wife does this every time she needs gas! It drives me nuts!
Mine to.. and then forgets to tell me. Our Escape lists 15 gallons but she knows it has a reserve. Unfortunately she miss calculated and had to walk the other day!
Originally Posted By: supton
When we get a new car, we'll fill up around quarter tank or so, take note of how much went in, and what the tank rating was. Then run a few tanks filling up when the light comes on. Once we have a feel for how much goes in vs rated capacity, we then determine just how much we want to push our luck.
That's key, IMO. Each car is different, so you need to get a feel for how much further you can go when you have
1/4 tank left, when the low fuel light comes on, and when you're at 'E', so that you're not gambling. Naturally, where you live and how far you are from gas stations will influence your comfortable minimum fuel level.
I did go about 10 miles past the point when the on-board computer miles-to-empty hit '0' once. That was uncomfortable and I'm not really planning on doing it again, but at least I know there is buffer there.
When we get a new car, we'll fill up around quarter tank or so, take note of how much went in, and what the tank rating was. Then run a few tanks filling up when the light comes on. Once we have a feel for how much goes in vs rated capacity, we then determine just how much we want to push our luck.
That's key, IMO. Each car is different, so you need to get a feel for how much further you can go when you have
1/4 tank left, when the low fuel light comes on, and when you're at 'E', so that you're not gambling. Naturally, where you live and how far you are from gas stations will influence your comfortable minimum fuel level.
I did go about 10 miles past the point when the on-board computer miles-to-empty hit '0' once. That was uncomfortable and I'm not really planning on doing it again, but at least I know there is buffer there.
The light comes on with about 4 gallons left in the Camry. Which is way too early IMO since it effectively makes your tank smaller. Good for people that like to wait for the light. My wife often waits till the light comes on. Her car her rules. I can't live like that lol.
Yep, my Jetta wasn't fooling around about E. Our Camry, it shocked me how far my wife was willing to drive around on E--but she pointed out that when it hit E it still had gallons of gas left.
My trucks fuel light comes on at 6 gallons left. In summer that can be 120 miles of range left! Of course, if it was being worked like a truck, it might be less than 60. Point being, 120 miles is more than my daily commute; so when the light comes on, I have ample time to pick what gas station I want to use.
On long trips we usually need a break long before danger of hitting E--and even if we don't "need" a break it's probably still prudent to get up every few hours and stretch.
My trucks fuel light comes on at 6 gallons left. In summer that can be 120 miles of range left! Of course, if it was being worked like a truck, it might be less than 60. Point being, 120 miles is more than my daily commute; so when the light comes on, I have ample time to pick what gas station I want to use.
On long trips we usually need a break long before danger of hitting E--and even if we don't "need" a break it's probably still prudent to get up every few hours and stretch.
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