Range to Empty

Grayfox · Nov 21, 2012

How many of you have hit "0" and kept pushing it that much more?

I pushed it 12km before I got home, still need to get petrol though.

daan · Nov 21, 2012

I haven't managed to reach 0 in my current car.

One of my previous cars (406 Coupe) went down to 30, then it just went to -- as if to say, "Not my problem if you run out."

The RX8 didn't have one as it would probably move quicker than the rev counter...

Liquid · Nov 21, 2012

My car doesn't have a range dial, but as soon as the fuel light comes on, I know I'm in trouble because I don't know how much left there is and I am not brave enough to find out. I usually fill my car up to half full at a cost of about £20, and get 120-130 miles/260-280 kilometres between fills, which is not a lot.

Grayfox · Nov 21, 2012

When my the range says 50 which is around about when the light comes on(depends on driving style) i have about 4 or 5 liters left.

So I may have about 1 or 2 liters left or am driving on fumes.

Pagey279 · Nov 21, 2012

My car doesn't have a counter either, but I've found when the needle points to empty and the red light comes on I can still squeeze out quite a few miles, I think the most I have done is 6m after the dash tells me I'm empty. But normally I fill up when I'm at 1/4 of a tank.

homeforsummer · Nov 21, 2012

daan
One of my previous cars (406 Coupe) went down to 30, then it just went to -- as if to say, "Not my problem if you run out."

The majority of cars I've driven do this. By which I also mean to imply, I've taken a lot of cars down to their last 30-odd miles, at which point they refuse to commit.

Most are still pessimistic at that stage. A smart fortwo, after driving on its last flashing LCD bar of fuel for 25 minutes, still had around 4 litres left in the tank, which is the best part of 40 miles at the 50mpg I was getting.

I got it pretty well estimated in my old Fiesta. It had a 40-litre tank and I once squeezed in 40.5 litres, which presumably means I'd used up the entire tank plus a bit in the lines and filler neck from the previous fill. Only pressed it that far once, though...

Grayfox · Nov 21, 2012

That or the pump over read by a small margin.

Liquid · Nov 21, 2012

homeforsummer
I got it pretty well estimated in my old Fiesta. It had a 40-litre tank and I once squeezed in 40.5 litres, which presumably means I'd used up the entire tank plus a bit in the lines and filler neck from the previous fill. Only pressed it that far once, though...

I want to do this with my car. I want to fill my car to the brim, note how many litres it is, then see how many miles I get before the light comes on. I would be much more accurate in judging how far I can push it then.

Problem is, it'll cost about £50 to fill it to the brim, which is a lot of money I don't have.

Slash · Nov 21, 2012

My gauge in my truck is off, when it says EMPTY I still have a 1/4 tank. Gets me about 3 gallons with a 19 gallon tank. Which is about 18 miles with good driving 6mpg. Only goes 114 miles on a full tank. Really wish I would have finished installing a second 19 gallon tank making 36. Could go 228 miles then.

ShobThaBob · Nov 21, 2012

My 5.0 shows empty with slightly more than 1 gallon left in the tank. Honestly, I like this. I need it because I'm a procrastination champion.

motortrend · Nov 21, 2012

When my dad got the IS he got it to 0 pretty much right at the gas station. Ive never gotten it to less than 10

edawg456 · Nov 21, 2012

In my car when the fuel light comes on, I got roughly 25 miles before the gas runs completely out.

poolhaas · Nov 21, 2012

edawg456
In my car when the fuel light comes on, I got roughly 25 miles before the gas runs completely out.

Mine about 100 km, so I can go get some gas in another country I reckon.

homeforsummer · Nov 21, 2012

Grayfox
That or the pump over read by a small margin.

There could be an element of that, but either way it must have been a close call. Fiestas like mine had an "empty" mark and then a red mark below that. The needle was the same distance again below the red mark!

Parker · Nov 21, 2012

When the low fuel light in my truck comes on, I have right at 6 gallons of fuel left. I average about 20mpg (mixed city/highway) so that is over 100 miles left until empty.

ZohsixGT5 · Nov 21, 2012

C5 Z06, tells me to RESERVE fuel at 40 miles, which means two gallons left. Lowest I've ever ran it down to is 30 miles remaining. If I floor it, even for 2 seconds, the miles to go drops instantly by 2-3. :lol:

Crash · Nov 21, 2012

My car goes into reserve gas when there's about 1.8 gallons left. That leaves me just with just under 40 miles of mileage average. The car does have a computer with a mileage remaining read out, but I've never gotten it to read 0 miles. I have only gotten it to read single digits once.

Greycap · Nov 21, 2012

Liquid
Problem is, it'll cost about £50 to fill it to the brim, which is a lot of money I don't have.

I see that and raise you 120 for a full tank. I've never had the guts to do it - money isn't the issue as such but putting such an amount of it to fuel... just no.

The longest distance I've done with the fuel light on is 30 km or so, according to the manual the car (Volvo 940 Turbo) has five to six litres left when the light comes on so it should be able to do 60 to 80 km with a very light right foot before running completely empty.

Liquid · Nov 21, 2012

Well, I have a very small fuel tank in my Honda Civic and because it's surprisingly thirsty considering it has a 1.6 VTECe, which is supposed to be a fuel saver, my car burns through petrol. Fast.

And it's not just my driving style, because I do all I can to keep the car in 'economy mode'; a green light flashing on the dashboard tells me that the engine is running economically (on 3 cylinders instead of 4), but it still gets through half a tank in 130 miles/230 kilometres.

CodeRedR51 · Nov 21, 2012

I went 60 miles in my B15 Sentra before after it hit "E" and didn't run out.

Also used to live about 45 minutes from where I worked. Fuel light came on in my Chevy Cobalt right when I left work and made it all the way home and then to the gas station the next morning.

YSSMAN · Nov 22, 2012

My first car, the '93 VW Fox, didn't have a functional fuel gauge most of the time, so you kinda had to wing it. I ended up figuring out how far I could go (reasonably) without having to refuel, so it was never a problem.

The second car, a '96 VW Jetta, was pretty keen on letting me know pretty well ahead of time when it was time to fill her up. After dipping below 1/4 tank, the light would blink occasionally, and then stay full-on when I hit that last 1/8th of a tank. I tempted fate a couple of times, and it eventually went around to bite me. Turns out driving on hills upset her, and she ran out.

The two Toyotas that we've had have been pretty straightforward with their fuel economy. Both the Camry and the Celica had the same engines, give or take the same gas tanks, and as such have treated me the same when it comes to fueling it. Get to 1/4 tank, and just like the Jetta, it'll warn you that you should probably fill up. Hit 1/8th of a tank, and the light will stay on, begging you to stop.

...Now, in the Toyotas, you can get that indicator right down to the E line. Once it dips below E, you knew you had about 20 miles left. Only once did that system ever fail me, it was in the Camry, and I missed the closest fuel station by about a mile and a half.

Thing is, I prefer this method to when I have to use the other family vehicles. The Avalanche and Impala both have the digital readout that yell at you when you're getting too low, and when you do listen to them, rarely are you anywhere near needing to actually fill up. "Safety first," I suppose. But at least be a little more accurate, guys.

masterrawad · Nov 22, 2012

what kind of a car is that...?

the speedometer looks so futuristic...

back on topic, I managed to get at least 80 or so miles in my crown vic.

Kylehnat · Nov 22, 2012

YSSMAN
...when you do listen to them, rarely are you anywhere near needing to actually fill up. "Safety first," I suppose. But at least be a little more accurate, guys.

This annoys me greatly. If I drive to "zero" in my CX-5, it only takes 12 gallons to refuel, and the tank holds 15. So, the range readout is really telling you that in XX miles, you'll only have 3 gallons of fuel left...and how on earth are you going to find a gas station with only 90 miles of fuel to work with? Better fill up now! In the Z, the range goes to "zero" with 2.5 gallons remaining. I'm sure automakers do it so they can't get sued by someone dumb enough to trust it to the inch.

Barra333 · Nov 22, 2012

I dont particularly trust the distance to empty readings after working at a petrol station while I was at uni.
One guy in a suit came in one afternoon with steam coming out of his ears. The reason - The 🤬 fuel gauge on his brand new 🤬 Commodore still showed 70km to empty when it stopped.

Venom800tt · Nov 22, 2012

I know with my car (2005 Mazda 3), the gas light comes on at 3 gallons remaining (14.5 gallon tank). I can get to work and back one time without worrying about running out of gas when the light comes on lol.
My car isn't fancy enough to have one of those digital fuel readouts that show mileage and max distance possible.

Grayfox · Nov 22, 2012

masterrawad
what kind of a car is that...?

the speedometer looks so futuristic...

back on topic, I managed to get at least 80 or so miles in my crown vic.

Honda Civic Hatch FK2(UKDM), also called a rocket or spaceship by James May.

Outside looks like this

Gauge clusters

Digital Speedo

Barra333
I dont particularly trust the distance to empty readings after working at a petrol station while I was at uni.
One guy in a suit came in one afternoon with steam coming out of his ears. The reason - The 🤬 fuel gauge on his brand new 🤬 Commodore still showed 70km to empty when it stopped.

Plus he could have been on an angle so the pump pick up could not bring in any more fuel even if he did have some left, then again Holden is a GM car and GM cars suck in general.

homeforsummer · Nov 22, 2012

Liquid
Well, I have a very small fuel tank in my Honda Civic and because it's surprisingly thirsty considering it has a 1.6 VTECe, which is supposed to be a fuel saver, my car burns through petrol. Fast.

And it's not just my driving style, because I do all I can to keep the car in 'economy mode'; a green light flashing on the dashboard tells me that the engine is running economically (on 3 cylinders instead of 4), but it still gets through half a tank in 130 miles/230 kilometres.

The pedant in me needs to correct a few things here

First, I think the VTEC-e is technically a 1.5, rather than a 1.6. The 1.6 they dropped in that era of Civic was just a plain-old single-cam VTEC.

The "e" bit also means it drops a valve in each cylinder, rather than a whole cylinder too. I.e. it uses 12 valves, rather than all 16. Below 2k rpm or so in 3/4/5th under light load, I seem to recall from driving that engine in the 3-door hatch.

All of that aside, that sounds awfully low mileage (sorry, MPG - I speak 'Merican these days) for that car. You should have a 55-litre (12.1 UK gallon) fuel tank (not really that small for a car of that size).

Let's say that including some pessimism in the gauge meaning you're using around 5 gallons in that half tank instead of 6, you're only doing 26 mpg (UK). Hell, even if the gauge is really pessimistic* and that 1/2 tank corresponds to 4 gallons, you're still only doing 32.5 (UK), from a car that has an official combined figure of 41 (UK).

Even the actual 1.6 (which again, I'm fairly sure yours isn't if it has the green "eco" light) is supposed to get 36mpg (UK).

Either way, low thirties and below from your car sounds awry unless you literally spend all your time on gridlocked short journeys. If it's not that, then either your driving style isn't really working, or it needs a jolly good tinker with to make it healthy again.

* Let's hope it is. If you're using a genuine 6 gallons from that 12-gallon tank, you're getting 21mpg, in which case I suggest giving up your Civic and buying a Corvette instead, as it'll be more economical

Murcie_LP640 · Nov 22, 2012

I haven't driven that far in the WRX when the light's come on - probably only about 15-20km before I filled up.

My Honda didn't have a truly functional fuel gauge - fuel sender unit had carked it, popular failure item for the '94 CD5s. However the fuel light still worked and I went 35km in that once before filling up.

The Skyline was the opposite: the fuel gauge worked (sort of, had to tap the cluster a few times to get the needle to move off the stop) but the fuel light didn't. The "E" didn't actually mean "Empty" in that, it was more like "Even more warning that you should get some fuel." The needle actually moved a good few millimetres past the Empty marker before I filled up again.

The Suzuki, I don't even remember the foibles of the fuel gauge. All I know is that it took a measly $30 to fill the tank completely, but it burnt through that little amount of fuel quite quickly for a 1L 4-cylinder.

The Accord Euro is the one we've travelled the most in when DTE = 0kms. We were about 50kms out of the next town and we made it. Just.

Brando-K · Nov 22, 2012

In my Hyundai I've only seen the fuel light on once and it was when I was waiting on an uphill driveway for one of my mates to leave his house. I think when I filled it up the next day it had 5-7L still left in the tank.
I usually fill up on about the 500km mark and that ranges from 8-10L/100km. The tank is 55L.
Yesterday I filled it up between 500-520km and it took 38.3L meaning I averaged either 7.4L/100km or 7.7L/100km which is pretty sweet.

The motorbike gets really good economy in the mountains because I'm not in stop/start traffic. I got consistent 4L/100 last weekend as opposed to 5L/100 here in town, and I wasn't being kind to it over the weekend, it was always near redline so I had power coming out of corners. From my guesstimates the bike should have a range (including reserve) of 220km if it's using 5L/100 or 275km for 4L/100 however the furthest I've taken it is about 180 and it's never hit reserve though it's been close.

Grayfox · Nov 24, 2012

Well filled up the next day.

Had 1 liter left and the tank holds 50liters.

Range to Empty

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