Where on the gas gauge is bone dry?

[sambot]

I know there are other topics (zerothread?id=263955) on the gas gauge, but at what point on the gas gauge is there no gas in the tank, in other words bone dry, s#*t out of luck? My light goes on anywhere from 1/4 tank to the word empty.

[Martin Roy]

I tried to find the real empty line, and from what I discovered, it's actually pretty low under the E. Imagine the same line spacing as the other marks, you can easily get the equivalent of two or three lines under the Empty mark. But, hey, why would you want to find out ?

[Woogie]

My advice: Don't run your car out of gas. Fuel injected engines can have problems getting started again if there's air in the fuel lines. There's also the (slight) possibility of damage to the fuel pump.

[BBISHOPPCM]

Fuel pump damage is likely, since the fuel not only lubricates the pump, but it also cools it, and provides mechanical resistance for the pump motor.

[srellim234]

I'm definitely not interested in finding out the "bone dry" point on the gauge. I can't think of an instance where I would allow it to get that low. On our cars we always treat the"1/4 tank remaining" mark as our fill-up point.

We just make sure there's always 1/4 left in case of emergency. My parents are in their '80s and live about 25 miles from here.

[sambot]

But, hey, why would you want to find out ?

I'm curious and a worry wart.

I grew up on the prairies. Sometimes you just run out of gas 'cause the next filling station is god only knows where, and you have to decide whether or not waiting to fill up is worth the gamble. I've only run out of gas twice, both times with my ancient, pre-fuel injection volvo.

Couple of winters ago, driving in the city on a -27C day, my fuel light went on. I got stuck in traffic and watched the needle nose dive through the red. That car was a diesel and of course I couldn't find a diesel pump for love nor money. You don't want to know what you have to do if a turbodiesel runs out of fuel.

I just like to know when I need to truly start obsessing. Right now, when the fuel light comes on, Sambot heads for the pump.

[faction]

We were making a trip to the middle of nowhere Wisconsin and were really starting to sweat about the amount of fuel we had. We finally find a town and the only gas station in it was out of business. We squeaked it into the next town 10 miles down the road and finally found a station that was open. I calculated that we had about 1/2 gallon of gas left.

Not fun.