I was recently watching an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer test drives a Saab 900 convertible and tries to see how far he can go once the fuel needle reaches “empty”. While watching, I tried to recall how low I’ve ever let the needle go.
I’m certain I’ve never gone into the red, nor have I activated the low fuel warning light. As a rule of thumb, I never let it drop below a quarter of a tank. Running on empty is bad for the fuel injection system, among other things, but it’s more for peace of mind. I generally fill up when my car drops to under half a tank. This is mainly because I’d rather pay $30-$40 dollars than $60-$70 all at once. Despite my TSX’s required premium fuel, the mpg savings over the Highlander are enough that I’m making fewer trips to the pump.
One time while riding with a friend, we did go into the empty enough for the low fuel warning light to come on. Of course, this was the one time there was no gas station in sight. Quickly reading through the owner’s manual, I found that the warning light comes on with approximately 15 miles of driving range left. After about ten miles we did finally reach a gas station. That’s the lowest I’ve personally come, though it wasn’t in my own car.
So how about you? When do you normally fill up, and what’s the lowest you’ve let your tank go?
I actually ran out of gas once in my ’84 Jeep CJ7, out in the country. The gas gauge read right at a quarter tank.
On my ’99 Acura TL, I’ve had the low fuel light come on several times, and once the light comes on I’ve managed to go about another 20-30 miles in mostly city driving. However, I don’t think that’s cutting it quite as close as you might think. The car has a 17 gallon tank, and I don’t recall ever filling it up with more than 15 gallons. So, I probably had up to about another 40 miles left to empty.
Its always fun with a new-old car. When I bought my 68 Chrysler, I learned the hard way that somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 equalled zero in that car. Oops. Fortunately, it was near home.
Funny – that happened to me, with a ten-year-old 1992 Jeep Wrangler. First tank (of three; I dumped that POS quick!) I was amazed how far I was going on a tank of gas…until I wasn’t going anymore; and the needle still read an eighth of a tank. Having worked as a cabdriver, I know what a car out of gas sounds like (that’s another story) so, I cursed that Jeep, the seller, his mother, his offspring, the goddamn city of Buffalo, which didn’t have a breakdown lane on this four-lane boulevard. Walked two miles to a gas station – and back with a borrowed can of juice. But, ever since then…I no trust the gas gauge in a strange car.
FWIW, depending on the car…you can buy yourself some serious fuel-pump problems and replacement costs (dropping the tank to pull it out) by consistently running the tank lower than a third. Gas in the tank cools the internal pump; when it comes out of the liquid, it gets hotter. Eventually that can lead to failure…depending on the brand and model, of course, as well as whether it has the older external pump.
How low? Low enough to run out of gas a mile from a station. My 3 on the tree ’68 Dart with the leaning tower-of-power did not have a low fuel warning light and never met a fuel injected car, but it did have a clear in-line fuel filter that allowed you to see all the tank sediment picked up when you ran it dry.
I could fill the 13 gallon tank for about $7. That was a few years back, needless to say.
Ahhh, Brendan – wait until you have teenagers. “Dad, the car needs gas.” The low fuel light is their signal that they need to warn me to fill up (at least when it is my turn) within the next day or two. By the time I get in the car, “Geeeez!”
My Honda Fit has a 10.9 gallon tank. I am pretty sure that I had a fill-up of over 10.5 gallons once, maybe 10.6. As a rule, I try to fill at 1/4 tank as well, but that doesn’t always work out. I have been into the red zone many times. Because I check gas mileage and always log my fill-ups, I get a pretty good sense of how many gallons I have in reserve once the light comes on.
Precisely, this evening. I am temporally in France and I was looking for a gas station that accepts cash, as the supermarkets that sell gas block a certain amount of money from your debit card before you fill up and then return you the remaining money a few days after. It’s 128 euros and I can’t hardly fill more than 45 litres (60 euros more or less) in my Seat Ibiza.
I was driving around the area where I live and stopped for groceries. The needle didn’t move. I remembered it didn’t move this morning either. According to the manual, it’s 2 liters, which can be good for up to 40 km (being optimistic).
By the way, I tanked at 1,359 euros per litre, somewhat cheaper than in Spain last weekend (I’m just 200 km away anyway).
I once ran out of gas twice in the same day. In high school I had a 1961 Ford that, at the time, had an inoperable gas gauge. I ran out of gas on the way to school but was only about a block from a gas station so I was able to walk there, obtain a can of gas and get back on the road. That night I went to a basketball game at school and afterwards, ran out of gas again while out just driving around. I had to call my dad that time and he was less than pleased about bringing me some gas, and no, I had not put any more gas in the thing after adding the can in the morning. I have triggered the low fuel light a few times on newer cars but never actually ran all the way out. Now I’m like Brendan, I fill up our cars every weekend, I don’t spend any less on gas that way but it just seems better to spend 20-25 dollars every week than 75-80 when the tank gets really low.
I ran out of gas in a non-air-conditioned Saab 900 4-door sedan that I was driving from MN to northern NJ for Auto Driveaway in summer 1986. The warning light came on, but too late. This occurred at the very bottom of the NJ Turnpike, and I walked to the nearest turnpike service plaza (about a mile) but of course, they had no gas cans to lend me – for the same reason that self-service is prohibited in NJ, I guess. I snuck a large paper soft-drink cup from the food area and surreptitiously filled it from a gas pump, then walked back to the car, but it wasn’t enough to get it started. Finally, a large pickup truck with a flat panel mounted to the front bumper took pity and pushed me to the gas pump.
Ran out of gas with a Ford Explorer with the 4.0 V6 pulling into a gas station and was lucky enough to have enough momentum to roll up to an open pump.
ran out of gas twice in one car, an Opel Manta Luxus, in the same month just out of college. Never ran out of gas again.
How far have I let the needle go? Shoot, I’ve let it go all the way to the emergency lane once. Opps. Usually, I try to refill after it drops below the 1/4 tank mark. My wife on the other hand drives me CRAZY with this. Every time I get into her car, the thing starts beeping and lighting up like a Christmas tree. I feel like a broken record on the issue.
I ran out in my old LeBaron once and by pure luck manage to coast into a gas station when it happened. The digital gauge was rather inaccurate and was dead empty while still reading a quarter left. After that I filled it when it got to the half way point. Problem solved.
When I lived in Maryland we had gas stations everywhere. Never ran out-I was just too neurotic. But when I moved out to Utah 18 years ago, things changed. I frequently traverse Wyoming on I-80. I’ve done it enough times that I know just how far I can go if I leave SLC in the morning with a full tank. First stop-Rollins. No point trying to push onto Laramie since there are no stations between Rollins and Laramie. If you run out of gas here you face the prospect of hitching to the nearest gas at an altitude of 7000 ft, windier than you normally would like, cold, and many months out of the year, snowy. What’s the point?
RANGE APPROX
0 MI
My 2007 Cobalt ran out of gas on the test drive, fortunately it did the low fuel pressure hiccuping and bucking until I coasted to the gas station that was 1/2 mile away. Ms. Salesgirl was probably sure she’d blown the deal, but she filled it up for me after I reassured her and said I still wanted the car.
I once put 28.9 (yes, twenty-eight point nine) gallons in my 1978 Mercury Cougar XR-7, I have no idea how big the tank was supposed to be but a normal fill at E was 25-26 gallons. That 29 gallon fill was accomplished with much gas bubble gurgling, slow pumping, and rocking of the car to get all the air bubbles out of the tank and filler cap workings.
Same thing happened to me in 1980, test driving a Ford Fiesta. The cigar-chomping sales manager was mad as hell at the guy. I didnt buy the car from them, but not because of that.
I had a BMW 328is with a gas gauge that one day decided to go berserk. When you filled it up, it didn’t register, so the car quickly looked like it was empty when it wasn’t. It soon fell below “E” and flashed red constantly alerting me that it was out of gas. Such a pleasure to drive like that. Naturally the replacement part had to be sourced somewhere from the darkest reaches of Bavaria, so this situation went on for a number of weeks. It was basically fine, as I was the primary driver, and had a pretty good feel for how much gas was in it (I usually don’t let my cars go below 1/4 tank). The only problem was my wife took the car one day when I was out of town, used it quite a lot, and threw off my tank “math.” I was thinking I had a quarter tank. The gauge had been telling me for weeks I had none. Needless to say, reality caught up with the gauge. On the New Jersey Turnpike. Not one of my best days.
The tank in my Cougar is rated at 18 gallons, and it took 18.7 gallons when I filled it up a few years ago. Surprisingly I’ve never ran that thing completely dry yet.
Distance to empty and range readouts are meaningless in newer cars. I’ve eeked out 40+ extra miles from my Mom’s Focus before I filled it up and it still didn’t fill the tank’s capacity.
@62 Skylark – I did the same thing with a 4.0 liter Explorer, coasting into a gas station. I actually ran that car out of gas several times. Except for that one time, it was always from parking on a downhill slope, as Explorers seem to be incredibly sensitive to the angle they’re on. One time I just let it roll to a level spot, and it started right up and went another several miles easily. They are so sensitive to angle that you could see the gas gauge change depending on the grade — even when it had a half a tank. I don’t have it anymore, but I still instinctively look for uphill-facing parking spots.
Probably wasn’t the best vehicle for me – I always let it run down until the light is on. I know it’s bad, but it’s kind of a challenge… and it drives my wife really crazy.
In my Dodge Chinook, I’m always running on Empty, since the gas gauge has never worked since I bought it. So I keep a little piece of paper on the visor, and write down the mileage whenever I fill up. I allow myself 300 miles, as it has a 36 gallon tank, and it always gets about 11 mpg. Of course, two years ago on our return from Glacier, I miscalculated by 100 miles, and the 360 started sputtering on a hill. It had just enough momentum to crest the hill, and amazingly, there was a gas station down at the bottom of the valley.
My Xb’s light comes on with well over two gallons to spare, so I can go 60-75 miles safely. But that drives Stephanie nuts…of course, her Forester will start sputtering on steep hills shortly after her light comes on. There’s a lot of variation among cars.
The ’95 F-150 front tank gauge is inop, and the rear tank started leaking back in the spring (rust), so we’ve been setting the trip odo and start looking for a station at around 200 miles, which is about all the front tank will do.
The tank sender is integral to the pump, which costs ~$150 to replace. As I have the bed off the truck to replace the rear tank right now, I decided to pull the front tank pump, and found I was able to disassemble the sending unit to scrape the contacts. Put it back in, and it works!
My PT has 50-60 miles left in it when the light comes on. I run it until the light comes on all the time unless I’m in unfamiliar territory. And I always reset the trip odometer when I fill up, just as a backup.
With my Fathers Toyota Soarer the fuel warning light comes on about 2km before the tank runs dry. He was not happy when he discoverd that.
My Subaru used to stop shortly after the light came on turning the damn light off cost $20 in fuel
I had a 69 beetle with a very accurate gas gauge, a predictable 27 miles per gallon and, if I recall correctly, a 10 gallon tank. Back in the 70s I was attending college in the northern NY and would drive to Long Island to see a girlfriend. About a nine hour drive each way. Gas stations were open limited hours so I when I would leave her house to return to school, I would time my departure so that I could drive through the night and make it to a gas station I knew would open at 6:30 AM. I remember one time having to wait about 10 minutes for them to open for the day and then pumping 9.9 gallons of gas.
Another time, same girlfriend, same car, ran out of gas on the Long Island Expressway just short of Riverhead, my planned gas stop. Traffic on the LIE would mess with my calculations.
Yeah, I’ve run out of fuel before – many years ago.. Once or twice I was able to coast into a gas station. But the closest I’ve come to running out was a year and a half ago, in the middle of winter. Everybody I’ve told about it says I was crazy or stupid, but I made it the 25 miles home from work to fill up at a gas station near me, and put 15.62 gallon in a 16 gallon tank. And, no, I do not intend to do anything like that again. However my low fuel light comes on at 2.5 gallon remaining, so with a car that gets mid to high 30s in good weather, and low to mid 30s in the winter, I am able to get to work and back even when the low fuel light has come on. Also, I have at times filled up when the low fuel light comes on and have been able to put only 13 gallons in, meaning I had 3 gallons remaining. And, driving the same car for over 13 years, I can say that I know my car well.
I’ve put 5.7 gallons in my ’11 H-D Road Glide… its got a 6 gallon tank. A 900+ pound bike can’t be much fun to push…
A couple of times I ran out of gas while driving home late (2AM) from my first job in my ’78 Nova (this being 1985), and Mom was NOT too please to have to come rescue me.
The last time I ran out was in the truck, shortly after I got it. I was trying to find an address in the western edge of downtown Seattle when the needle was dead in the red, and it sputtered to a stop, though I managed to get it to a parking space, hit the flashers and called my insurance’s roadside assist, and get someone to bring me gas.
I’ve gotten the level low enough that I was driving into work with the low gas light on in the Mazda I drive now, only because I inadvertently drove past the gas station below work and drove home, or didn’t realize how low I was until I was nearly home and then noticed the low gas warning light, but not run out yet so far, (knock on wood).
My car (VT) chimes when it gets low ~10 lts (nearly 40 kms range) and chimes again when there’s only 5 lts left.
The lowest so far I’ve gone is (methinks) 2-3 lt left.
With one of the Isuzu cars (the turbo one) I actually got it to cough a couple of times before my wife told me “fill the bloody thing”
And BTW, that up there is a fuel gauge from a Saab.
Regularly below the E on my ’65 F-85. According to the manual there are two gallons left at that point, smart design IMO! It gets your attention enough seeing the pointer below E because you never know just when it’ll run out. On my ’83 Ninety Eight it runs out just before it reaches the orange, must be a sender issue. I’ve run out of gas about three times in my 15 years of driving. I would fill it up all the way and then top up, but the temptation to just cruise and burn the whole tank is too much for me.
My father was a great one for running out of gas. Of course he almost always had gas cans in the back of the crummy for chain saws, starter motors and such so it didn’t bother him too much until it happened one day that there was no gas in the gas cans either, and he had to run a few miles on diesel fuel to the next gas station. The gas gauge was inoperative on his 1950 Packard, but he found that the filler pipe was straight enough so that the tank level could be determined with a stick. I was lucky enough never to run out of gas with that thing.
I’ve had better luck along those lines, although I’ve coasted into gas stations two different times – the last one 20 years ago. We’re more careful about running out of gas nowadays with these modern cars, but at the same time we tend to let the tank get pretty close to empty before we fill up – after all our time is worth something and we will be using the gas anyway.
I ran the ’64 Beetle out a couple times, and IIRC, was able to coast into a station both times, too. I carried a 1 gallon can (empty) in the boot just in case.
More recently, we were on a family trip in the ’05 T&C, and went through a long stretch with no stations and the “miles remaining” indicator dropping lower and lower. My father-in-law had a similar T&C and said he could go 25-30 miles past when the trip computer said it was empty, and our experience verified that. We made it with nary a cough from the engine…
When flight training back in the 1990s in a Cessna 172, my flight instructor pointed out that “the only time you can have too much gas is when you’re on fire.”
I prefer to keep out of the “red” zone – for both safety’s AND thrift’s sake. Ever seen the gas prices on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut?
I have this habitual need to run my vehicles into the red … trying to maximize the distance between fill-ups I guess. So therefore I’ve done it a few times …
1) In my old Subaru Impreza. A few miles away from the nearest gas station. With my wife. In the pitch dark night. After that I swore I’d never do it again.
2) in my old Cadillac CTS. 6 months later. Rolled it up to the gas station, a few helpful gentlemen assisted me in pushing it to the pump. “Never again!”
(Of course two weeks ago I rolled my sputtering Malibu into a gas station, but since I made it that doesn’t count, right? Nor the coast in neutral on the hills of the NY Thruway job I did last Oct?)
Used to work at a gas station as a college job, only once can I recall a roll-up like #2 above, but it was one of those huge 80’s Jeep Wagoneers that barely made it to our curb. My buddy and I broke our backs pushing that beast to the pump!
Our station was the only beacon of light on a long stretch of scenic NJ highway, so I gave a fair amount of rides to people who ran out along the way.
I was going to say and then had to get back to work but I did find out that when the low gas light comes on in the Mazda, true to the manual, it’s 3 gallons left as found out one day.
Waiting in line at Costco, the low gas light barely began to glow in the Mazda. I had planned on getting gas anyway once through in the store itself so this was no accident either. That said, when I filled up to shut off, I put in something like 11.5 Gallons, the tank holds 14.5 Gallons. However, I’ve never gotten more than 295 or so miles, and once barely missed hitting 300 miles on a single tank.
I touched 700 miles once or twice with my TDI New Beetle… That’s way more than my “bladder range,” though.
I’ve never run out of gas; every car I’ve owned has had a low-fuel light that I don’t ignore. I just tripped it for the first time the other day on my current car, which left me with about 1.5 gallons. Modern cars do NOT like running out of fuel, so I don’t like to cut it that close.
Early September, 1997. I had the ’88 Chevy Celebrity Wagon. I was living in Cleveland at the time and didn’t gas up before, on a whim, I decided to drive to Sharon, PA. home of a killer used record store. Fam was not in town and I had some time to kill. I rolled into a Shell station in town – literally. The 2.8L V-6 sputtered a block from the station and I just “glided” up to the pump.
You would think that modern technology could come up with a much more accurate indicator of how much gas is left, I’d pay more for that, but as Paul said, there’s a lot of variability.
First time I ran out of gas was as a teenager with four of my friends in my friend’s dad’s ’74 LTD. Car stopped running, we pulled over, none of us could figure out what was wrong with the car, wouldn’t start, no clue at all. Made it to a phone (not in our pocket at that time) friend’s brother came out to rescue us, said “Do you have any gas in the tank?” Sure, well, I think so, ah, umm.. anybody know…??? So that’s always my first response when somebody’s car breaks down or wont start
While I ran out of gas more than once when I was a poor college student many years ago the closest I’ve ran it since w/o actually running out was in our 2003 Mountaineer in central CA on I-5. It beeps and says low fuel starting at 50 miles to empty, then again at 40 and more frequently after that. This was when it was pretty new and there were not nearly as many stations along that route. When it got to 10 or so IIRC, I pulled off the freeway because it said there was a town at that exit. It was late at night and upon consulting the map after driving tword the town for a bit and seeing that it was very small and I feared that it may not have a station open at that time of night I turned around and decided to take my chances on the freeway. Despite traveling another 15 or so miles the indicator never showed less than 5 miles to empty and I made it to a station w/o a problem.
Then there was the time while driving through Montana in our minivan. I had intended to fill up earlier but forgot to do so. I was starting to get scared as it was a ways to the next town and there was a pass between us and the town. It died just about the time I made it to the off ramp. I coasted on the shoulder to near the end. Thankfully there was a gas station not to far on the other side of the freeway but being a C-store they didn’t have a can. Again thankfully there was a hardware store across the street so I walked over there and purchased a can. Once done I strapped the can on the roof rack and still use it to this day for my pre-mix. Of course it was 90 something so the wife and kids had to sit in the dark cherry van that quickly got pretty hot since only the front windows rolled down and it had the flipper windows in the far back.
Years ago I had an 85 300ZX Turbo with the digital dash and voice warning system. When the tank reached five gallons a large 5 would appear in the gauge cluster. As I recall, when the system reached 3 the disembodied female voice would warn: “Fuel is Low!” A great system that always worked flawlessly. Quite in contrast to my first car, a 1960 VW beetle with no gas gauge but instead a wooden rod I dipped in the tank to test the level in case I forgot to write down the mileage on a fill-up as in Paul’s process.
It took me 2 or 3 times of running out of gas until I understood the fuel gauge of a VW bus I had: 1=full, 1/2=half 1/4=one quarter (stayed there for some days) and then: 1/4=empty.
But the most notorious one was as a passenger, in an overnight bus I took in southern Argentina, crossing 1500km Patagonia over night. When I woke up, we were standing in the middle of nowhere, without gas. The strong south winds gave our poor bus a lot of work all the way down! After one hour, a big truck stopped and gave us some litres diesel oil to reach our destiny. The last meters, arriving into the bus station, were coasting. Coasting on a 42-seat bus in a small bus station between many buses and some pedestrians was for sure not easy for the driver!
Closer than really sensible my own fault but I fixed it I made me some diesel while driving by letting the vehicle coast in top down hills the trip computer finally said I had enogh fuel to make a town and fuel up, the vehicle was a 50 tonne Scania linehaul unit and trailer
I was in a world of trouble when the truck GPS s were downloaded that month “you were going HOW fast there?” I explained at least they didnt have to send a resue party and the kid at the gas staion I fuelled up at couldnt believe I brought that much truck onto his forecourt and under the canopy. I put in $500 and drove away just glad I made it.
Geez…they’ve got event recorders on tractor-trailers there in Kiwiland?
We’ve had them thirty years in railway equipment…but sattelite tracking is just starting for over-the-road truckers; and recording speeds…it’s coming; it’s wrong; but you’ve got it there first.
There are even automated freight trains in some areas of Oz.
Bro I am monitored every inch of the way in trucks here, the well beaten 14 yr old Concrete mixer I drive will send an SOS if you really screw it up but excessive braking overspeed and tilt are all alarmed.
The line haul trucks are speed limited and tracked by GPS on board cameras are common monitoring inside and outside the keep footage after a shock event for insurance purposes, When i drove for Roadstar last year I carried post and cigarettes very valueable the owners like to keep an eye on it
480 hp 13 ltr. inline 6, just a wild guess…..
Rodger only a lopo R480hp, 780hp are the big boys pulling logs
I just clicked on your Scania picture and it said G480 on the grille…and the rest is history….
My dad drove several Scanias in the seventies, eighties and nineties.
8, 9 and 11 liter (6 cylinders) and a 14 liter V8 (143 model)
A second cousin of mine has a (small) trucking company with 2 Scania tractors, pulling a concrete mixer or dump semi trailers. Oh that lovely V8 sound when pulling 15 m3 concrete mix !!
The gas gauge on my 2000 TL is quite accurate. The tank holds 60 litres and if one fills it up just when the warning light comes on, it takes exactly 50 litres. Ten litres is a good 130 km on the highway or 100 in the city. The most I have ever put in it was 58 litres.
One time, coming back from Seatac in my 2008 Fit, I was determined to get as close to the border to fill the tank as I could as it is quite a bit cheaper in the USA than in Canada. I had filled it upon entering the USA and I got back to the same station, like 300 metres from the border with the light having been on for well over 100 km. When I got to the station, I converted it to litres and found it took 41.5 litres. The tank was rated at 42.
I have never done such a thing again. When it hits a quarter, I fill my car with the best gas available.
I ran my Vanagon within 1/2 gallon of empty idling on the Peace Bridge crossing into Buffalo, NY from Canada. I had been holding out for cheaper U.S. gas but hadn’t factored in a 3 hour wait at customs. I shudder to think of what kind of international incident I may have set off if it died on the bridge in No Man’s Land. Stern, Germanic VDO fuel gauges don’t mess around. ‘Empty’ really means empty, and there is no warning light.
The gauge in my Subaru is very pessimistic. ‘E’ is actually 1/4 tank and the light illuminates with 3 whole gallons left in the tank. That’s nearly 100 miles of gentle highway driving, but I usually tank up as soon as the light comes on; I have too much respect for my fuel pump to do otherwise.
I always get laugh when people tell me how much they save filling up their tanks and shopping in the USA. Of course, there is the fact you have to DRIVE there, wait in line for who knows how long have a meal in a restaurant.
I have a client who loves to brag he fills up this tank in Blaine, WA. He lives in North Vancouver and drives 60 km each way to “save money.” He is driving a 2004 Grand Cherokee, which probably used $25 in gas to make the trip to save money. He also doesn’t seem to think the four hours he wasted were worth something.
There’s a hole the size of Texas in your story: HE FILLS UP BECAUSE HE’S IN THE AREA!
I don’t live in Canada. I was driving back to Ohio from a fishing trip North of Toronto at the time. I had done the math, and should have made it with a couple of gallons to spare without the delay. It was a $10 or $15 savings at the cost of nearly needing a tow off the Peace Bridge. Now I tank up before I cross.
While living in Montana, I have been know to make a trip across the border just to buy booze at the duty free. Even with the duty at the border, I was coming out ahead. The customs line in Montana goes a little faster than the one in Buffalo or Detroit.
I’ve let me truck go down to the point where the “low fuel” light came on.
It’s a gas hog that I hope to be rid of soon.
Normally I refill at 1/4 tank and buy gas immediately if the light comes on. However, I ran the VW Thing completely dry a couple of weeks ago. The speedometer cable needs replacing, so I cant go by odometer reading and found out the hard way that the gauge reads well above the “reserve” line when the tank is completely empty. I long for the old reserve tap that VW had decades ago and all my motorcycles had.
I’ve been “running on fumes” more times than I care to remember, but can only think of four occasions of running out altogether. Over three-plus decades of driving I don’t think that’s too terrible. I plead Guilty (of Stupidity) to three of these charges; and Not Guilty to the fourth:
1. As a teenager, when I’d only had my license a few months, I once ran dry the ’67 Dart I learned to drive on. I plead GUILTY, but ask for the court’s mercy due to my inexperience. I think just about every teenaged new driver does this at least once.
2. In the late ’90s in LA, a generous friend loaned me his (somewhat battered) 450 SLC for a week. Although I plead GUILTY for not having filled up earlier when I could’ve, but with mitigating circumstances (not being my car, I wasn’t familiar with the fuel gauge — or with how much of a gas hog that Mercedes V8 was). I was on my way to the airport, and missed my flight as a result.
3. Driving cross-country in a moving truck, I was overnighting it solo through rural Texas early one morning. I plead GUILTY for getting a little too engrossed in listening to the end-times ravings of a fundagelical preacher on the radio (he was really entertaining) and neglecting my tank level.
4. In the early ’90s, in the wee hours of the morning during a February snowstorm, I was making good time through upstate NY in my ’81 Corolla “SR5” (which was really an “SR4” since mine had a non-original tranny with no 5th gear). One of the reasons I got that car cheap was that the fuel gauge didn’t work. But I had figured out how many miles I was good for from a full tank, and planned my fill-ups accordingly. Trouble was, unbeknownst to me, that area of NYS was at that time doing a pilot program for some new type of gasoline that promised lower emissions. Unfortunately, those improved emissions came at the expense of mileage — which threw off all my careful calculations of how far I could get before having to stop again. So I was left stranded somewhere around Utica, in total darkness, below freezing, with big snowflakes whipping around in the wind. Amazingly, a middle-aged woman driving alone was kind (and brave) enough to stop for me. On this one I plead NOT GUILTY, as the government was experimenting on me (or at least on my car’s engine) without my knowledge or consent. Dammit, that time wasn’t my fault!
Now let us all take a solemn vow that in future we will take necessary precautions and NEVER run out of gas again!
My uncle had a new town car, approximately 1983, with the digital dash. It was flashing zero, he was on the freeway, and a hurricane was hitting Houston.
That could be the first sentence of a novel.
I haven’t let a car run completely out of gas since high school (once three blocks from home; my dad wasn’t too pleased to see me trudging up the driveway with no car and a sheepish look on my face), but I have set off the warning light in my Subaru a number of times–typically when I’ve set off for my 30-mile commute to work, running late, with a 1/4 tank and plans to run to Costco over lunch and fill up on cheaper gas (Pasadena is notoriously more expensive than the South Bay–which has a couple of refineries right in the neighborhood). I won’t start a trip with it lit, but I will keep driving if I have under 15 or so miles to go.
My wife has run her MINI into warning territory a couple of times–she puts so few miles on the car that I think we fill up once a month, so she seldom looks at the gauge.
Thanks!
I have run out of gas in my ’78 GMC more times than I can count. The fuel gauge doesn’t work. Actually, that would be incorrect, because the needle does move in accordance to the level of fuel in the tank. It kinda works more like a low fuel light, really.
The needle is stuck pegged past the full mark when you have lots of gas. When you’re at about 1/3 of a tank, the needle bobs back and forth between full and empty. When it’s stuck pegged at empty, it means that I have about two gallons worth of gas and I should find a station soon.
I think I’ve tried to see how far I can go after the needle has stopped moving too many times. I’m familiar with priming an empty carburetor, pulling off the road under no power, and hugging the curb lane in case I run out. Last time though, I had to walk a mile and a half to a gas station with a Jerry can and then a mile and a half back.
I do the same thing with my Buick. If the needle is moving I have fuel. If it stops, uh oh. Ran out of gas twice in my driveway.
Oh that stinks: the gas tanks on the ’73-’87 trucks are a PAIN to remove too. Some guys will say, “oh, just jack the bed up & pull the sender up that way. That isn’t much easier and GM in their infinite wisdom decided to mount the fuel sender entry hole right under the gap between the cab and bed. This ingenious location is where water collects when it rains.
I learned the hard way that the LH tank fuel sending unit is different than the RH fuel sending unit. At least the RH & LH gas tanks are the same.
“Genious” here decided to put the factory T/A tach cluster in his first car, a ’78 Firebird Esprit and blew out the fuel sending unit in the process. The car had about a gallon of gas in it when I goofed and from that point on, the gas gauge remained pegged out until I was almost empty.. At that point the needle would swing to ‘E’ to let me know I had about 20 miles worth of fuel left…much like your truck does now.
I used to drive a 240D Mercedes Benz. I was warned that running it out of fuel would be catastrophic. I sold it to a very interesting guy that paid me 300 bucks more than the biggest number I could think of when he offered to buy it and then bought a VW Jetta GL. One night I pushed the low fuel light to the point that the car stalled. I then discovered that hills I never took seriously on my bicycles were quite challenging when pushing a 2,252 lb car. Fortunately, my Dad was in position to save me from my own silliness. A gallon of gasoline got me to a gas station, although there were some ugly stalls involved.
I’ve been so low in my 1987 BMW 325i that the miles to empty screen stopped showing numbers and just gave me (- – – -).
One of my friends (a petite woman) ran out of gas in her 1990 Buick LeSabre within 6 inches of the nozzle reaching her gas tank. She had to push the car the rest of the way.
New to me Saab 9000, pushing 400 miles on that tank of mixed highway driving. I’d had a non-turbo version of the same car immediately beforehand and it could do about that per tank, so no worries. Different gearing, still reads 1/4 tank. Traffic gets bad, I pull off for fuel “just in case”. Took 18.2 gallons on my 17.9 gallon tank. Whew!
My first car would send the needle way past the empty mark to the ‘E’ (1/4″ further?) before the low fuel light would come on – I figure there was a bad connection somewhere because it would only show 2/3 full when the tank was full. The temp gauge read low as well.
I’ve come really close to being out of gas only twice. The first time, I was on my way back from LA to Vegas in my ’74 Roadrunner. It was October of 1976, I think. I stopped to get gas somewhere along I-15, not paying attention to the price, until I saw that the pump was charging .99/a half gallon! I dove for the nozzle to stop it before it went past $7.00, all I had. I gave the guy my $7.00 and drove away, hoping I would make it. I shut the engine off when i was going downhill, and I watched for any station that would take a Chevron credit card, but I never saw one. As my gas gauge dropped, I got more concerned that I wouldn’t make it. Finally, I saw a Chevron sign, at Jean Nevada, I think, and I pulled in and shut it off. I must have been really close, as I could clearly hear the gas hit the bottom of the tank when I started pumping it.
The second time, I was in my 2008 Charget R/T and had left my wallet at home. The EVIC said I had a couple of gallons in the tank, like 1.2 on the left side, and .8 on the right. I decided to roll the dice and see if I could get my errands done with what I had and not go back home first. I kept watching the EVIC as the numbers got lower and lower, and the fuel pump got very loud as the numbers approached zero. I was about to head home to get my wallet and throw the gallon of gas I had at home for my chainsaw in, but I ran into a friend of mine and he filled me up on his card and I gave him the cash the next day. Supposedly, the tank holds 19 gallons, but I put in almost 20 before the pump clicked off.
On my last day of ownership, I was trading a 2006 Prius and didn’t want to leave anymore gas in it than was necessary. I had calculated that I had just enough fuel to make it to the dealership (which was over 100 miles away). With less than a mile to go and nearing the dealership’s exit on the interstate, it finally and completely ran out of fuel.
In such a situation, those early Prius would allow you to drive on the battery, alone, for a mile or two. However, it was strictly for emergency use only and vehemently discouraged in all literature. The reason for this was that driving on the battery would dip into the battery’s reserve and held the possibility of severely depleting/draining the battery past what Toyota considered critical for longevity.
As you might imagine, all sorts of warning lights started going off, including the ‘red triangle of death’, the meaning of which is ‘pull over and stop NOW‘. I was able to get off the interstate and continue, slowly, to a nearby gas station and put an extra gallon in. The engine fired up and, while the warning triangle went away, the check engine light did not.
Jackson Browne has nothing on me.
Is that a Mark III Lincoln? 😀 🙂 😛
72 Marquis, but you were close!
I ran out of gas in a 1968 Mustang just as I was near the middle of a bridge near my house. I was nearly at the peak but not far enough where I could coast down the other side to get to safety. It was dusk as well and the battery wasn’t fairing well when operating the “hazard” lights so I had to stand on the trunk and flail my arms wildly in attempts to get people to go around. At that moment I kept thinking of all the reports of fiery explosions from rear-end collisions in these old mustangs. Traded for a Ford Ranger a few days later.
How close? Minus 350 feet.
I was 18 and in the 1960 New Yorker I had inherited and ignored the gas gauge (and the dipstick and other things I should have known to keep an eye on). Ran out close enough to smell the gas at the Shell station — alas, the 350 feet was somewhat uphill, and the three of us guys got a workout pushing the car to the pumps. Paid attention after that, as you might expect.
I’ve run out of gas several times but the closest I ever came without being stranded was in a ’77 El Camino (350-4) I used to own. The gauge showed ’empty’ as I was driving through the old part of Jasper, AL but I pulled a “Kramer” and kept driving anyway.
Due to the strategic timing of the traffic lights, top speed was in the 20mph range as there was a signal at every block. I was approaching an intersection and had just gotten the green light when the carb bowl finally emptied. I coasted diagonally through the intersection, up the gas station parking lot incline and into the pump area.
To give you an idea how perfect it was, I never applied the brake pedal after the car died and when I placed the car in Park, it was sitting directly beside the gas pump. It literally stopped rolling AT the pump and the fuel filler door was right beside the nozzle.
Well done, impressive piece of fuel optimization. I once did a similar thing, coasting my sputtering, empty MGB into a filling station. Later in life, I coasted our empty Camry Wagon downhill into a Border Patrol checkpoint while driving on a remote segment of I-8 towards San Diego. My family still chuckles over Dad playing chicken with the gas tank, & losing.
It’s a Guy Thing women don’t understand. We have to take *some* kind of risks in life, even if they’re pointless.
Twice in college (once deliberately). I was coming up on a tuneup on my MGB and it wouldn’t start one night (doing a lab report at my friend’s place). He had to drive me home (his wife forgave me….), and I got it running (gas and plugs) the next day.
When I was moving out to California from Illinois, the moving company would take the bike, but it had to be empty. Drove around the block a lot, then went 1/2 mile away, where I ran out. Only a 350, but the push home was annoying.
Most recently, I finally took the Silverado into town to get non-oxy gas for the small engines. The tank was low (gas is available locally, but really expensive, maybe 30 to 50 cents a gallon more than in the city), so I put two gallons of left-over non-oxy in the tank. I got my fuel, then finally filled the Chev. I had 24 gallons to fill, with a 26 gallon capacity, so those two gallons at home made the difference. I did have 50 gallons of fuel in the bed, so if I ran out, it would be more an annoyance than a disaster.
We normally refill at 1/2 tank. If we go over the Cascades to Medford, we’ll fill at Klamath Falls, then refill at Costco. It’s only 105 miles to home, but with National Forest most of the way, not too many gas stations on the way, none close enough to the route to be any fun to carry a gas can.
In the 90s, I had a BMW 750, which I ran out of gas while drifting into a station. No problem until next service (which seemed to occur weekly). Both fuel pumps gave an “intermittent error” message and were replaced under warranty. The erratic fuel feed triggered the message. Apparently, the Germans couldn’t imagine anyone being so irresponsible as to run low on benzine!
I did run out recently in my Hillman, no fuel warning lights in 59 people, when it says empty it stops. You walk.
Oh, I forgot the ’74 Econoline. I ran out twice. It went dry when the gauge still was just touching the “E” line.
I’ve never run out of gas, either (luck/careful), but my ’65 Barracuda had a gas gauge that was pure evil: it would go from “F” to almost “E” & then back up to 1/4 full (“the imaginary quarter tank”). Learned to always check the odometer & ignore the gas gauge!
My wife got used to me always filling up our cars. She ran a rental car dry because she actually forgot she needed to add fuel.
Ran out of gas once in my ’83 Ford Ranger. Truck has dual tanks, and Ford wired the selector switch wrong so when you are on the front tank, gauge was reading front tank but it was drawing off the rear tank and vice-versa!
Last month I was lucky enough to see a CL ad for a Buick Mark VIII. Yes, that was the heading. A Toreador red one owner car that had only gone 4000 miles in the last 10 years. I found out later that the 80 year old owner had his 20-something neighbor post the ad for him. Well, anyone who has driven a Ford product with the info center that reads out the miles to empty is familiar with my circumstance. I literally gave the man every dollar I could extract from the bank machine as well as my and my wife’s last cash – including 87 cents – to close the deal before every Mark nut recognized the misprint and actually came to see the car. Of course I sent Shannon home without thinking of where my wallet was – in her glovebox – or if the car had any gas at all (it didn’t). That great old rumbling true-dual exhausted mod motor went 28 miles while reading “empty fuel tank”. I was also ten days past AAA renewal, so I’m assuming the car knew that and graciously brought me home with fumes. This bodes well for my newest project. It already has its own character. This is a great hobby, yes?
My brother in law ran out of gas on the Bay Bridge between SF and Oakland, one of the top ten places you do not want to break down. His 1st-gen Prius kept going slowly on electric power. He just made it to a gas station. I can’t tell if he really didn’t notice it was on E, or was secretly pulling a Kramer to see what would happen. Anyway it’s over ten years old now with about 170K miles, and the battery’s fine.
Yep pulling up 1 in 8 graqdes fully laden it sounds great but these are being replaced on this fleet with tractor trailer rigs with more capacity.
Ran out of gas in my old ’05 Mazda 6. I was halfway between my grandparents’ farm and my parents home in a nearby town. No cell phone signal, but it was a beautiful day so I just waited, figuring someone in my family would drive by at some stage in the next hour or two and give me a lift. Sure enough, my parents wandered by about 30 minutes later and gave me a lift to their place for a gas container. Unfortunately the Mazda ran out on the downside of a steeply cambered bit of road, so it took 10 litres in the tank before it reached the pick up. Never let that happen again! Although one time I got 64 litres in its 65 litre tank…