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Gas refill

N

npoe1

Senior member
What is an acceptable amount of remaining gas before refilling the tank?
for example 1/8, 1/4 of the tank.
 
I have a 70 liter tank and usually refill it when it's 5-10 liters full. I think my low fuel light goes on at 15 liters.
 
An old mechanic once told me : 'A quarter tank is empty', and I've lived by that rule without regret for over a decade.
 
My car doesn't have a low fuel light so I never like to go that far under a quarter tank. There is no sense to run out of gas if you get lost or stuck in traffic for some reason. It also isn't good on your fuel pump/filter because it can suck up the junk from the bottom of the tank (I know thats debatable but whatever). Also, the unburnt gas that comes back from the engine is warm and if the tank is that low it will heat of the gas in the tank which makes the fuel pump run warmer which in theory will make the fuel pump die sooner (again debatable).
 
Originally posted by: Jensenfc
My car doesn't have a low fuel light so I never like to go that far under a quarter tank. There is no sense to run out of gas if you get lost or stuck in traffic for some reason. It also isn't good on your fuel pump/filter because it can suck up the junk from the bottom of the tank (I know thats debatable but whatever). Also, the unburnt gas that comes back from the engine is warm and if the tank is that low it will heat of the gas in the tank which makes the fuel pump run warmer which in theory will make the fuel pump die sooner (again debatable).
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nah, it definitely happens. the fuel pump is cooled by the fuel, so if you run it low frequently, you do risk burning out the pump (which my sister did).

i tend to fill at 1/4 tank, just to make sure the pump never burns out again 😛
 
Originally posted by: Jensenfc
My car doesn't have a low fuel light so I never like to go that far under a quarter tank. There is no sense to run out of gas if you get lost or stuck in traffic for some reason. It also isn't good on your fuel pump/filter because it can suck up the junk from the bottom of the tank (I know thats debatable but whatever). Also, the unburnt gas that comes back from the engine is warm and if the tank is that low it will heat of the gas in the tank which makes the fuel pump run warmer which in theory will make the fuel pump die sooner (again debatable).
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It's not debatable to me. I recently saw the gas tank from a 2004 camry opened up, and with only 90k miles on the think before it was totaled, the inside of the gas tank was nasty as hell.
 
It is always sucking fuel from the bottom of the tank, so it is always sucking fuel from where all the junk is. Where else would it suck fuel from?

I suppose a really low fuel level might cause a lot of sloshing, which might stir some dormant crap up.

I have always heard the bit about cooling the pump and thus not running the tank low too often.





 
Personally, I go with the fill at about 1/4 full mark. Sometimes, but not often I wait till the low fuel light comes on. On my car, when that comes on there is about 2 gallons left in the tank and I can go about 30 miles on that. But I fill it as soon as I can after it comes on.
 
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
It is always sucking fuel from the bottom of the tank, so it is always sucking fuel from where all the junk is. Where else would it suck fuel from?

I suppose a really low fuel level might cause a lot of sloshing, which might stir some dormant crap up.

I have always heard the bit about cooling the pump and thus not running the tank low too often.
Click to expand...

I've heard that a lot of the crud floats on top. I'm no expert though.

I usually fill up around an 1/8th.
 
I fill up when I've got 400 miles clocked. That's usually around the time the fuel light comes on and I usually put in ~13 gallons on a 14.5 gallon tank.
 
I've always filled up immediately after the fuel light comes on and never had a problem over the 5 cars I've had. Like someone else said your pump most likely is sucking from the low point in your tank and besides that it should have a filtering "sock" on it. What is extremely bad is to run the pump with no fuel in the tank, there are aftermarket pumps (walbro 255lph) that die quickly from doing so.
 
I've let mine ride E routinely. On my old car, that was 1/4 tank in reality 😛

On my current car, I usually don't let it get that low but sometimes it hits E before I fill up. Not often but occasionally (like when I was waiting for gas prices to fall some)
 
I have a bad, lazy, habit of letting it run till empty. My range has actually said 0mi. at one point and I still drove another mile. I will make an effort to do it when it's under 1/4 tank though because I never really put any thought behind it till now.

I will say though that on my 14-year old Rodeo I've let it hit E quite a few times and I've never had an issue with the fuel delivery system. Luckily never been stranded because of no gas either.
 
Depends on the car (MPG), tank capacity, nearby gas stations, etc.

Right now, I parked my car at 3/16ths. I usually fill up around 1/4, mainly because $20 gives me about 3/4ths of a tank when gas is going for ~$2.

My 2003 Malibu gets roughly 28 MPG highway, and I believe it has a 14 gallon tank.
 
1/8th.
If thats a problem for my car then I will get a new car. I dont want to own something so delicate that it freaks out if my gas tank gets to 1/8th full.
 
I usually refill at 1/2 tank. Why? We're quite rural and nothing within over a half hour drive is open. If something happens, like an emergency that requires driving a distance, just rather not have to seek a station that's open in the middle of the night, but instead just take off. That, and it's hell on electric fuel pumps, as noted above, to allow your tank to constantly get below 1/4 tank.
 
Originally posted by: Beanie46
I usually refill at 1/2 tank. Why? We're quite rural and nothing within over a half hour drive is open. If something happens, like an emergency that requires driving a distance, just rather not have to seek a station that's open in the middle of the night, but instead just take off. That, and it's hell on electric fuel pumps, as noted above, to allow your tank to constantly get below 1/4 tank.
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My uncle was a farmer and he simplified things by getting a desiel truck. Then all he had to do was fill up from his 1000 gallon tanks for tractors.

Years later I found out this is totally freaking illegal.
 
When I'm just sitting here at the college doing the 1.5mile commute to work everyday for weeks on end, I typically let it ride E. I'll put in 20$ worth (which is a decent amount for a 28 gallon tank with the good prices of 1.72$ a gallon), and I'll ride that for 2-3 weeks. The gas light comes on at 50 miles of driving left, and I'll let it run down to 20 or so before I put in another 20$ of gas. Right now thought I've been doing several 150mile+ round trips so she's staying pretty full. Right now it's got a 3/4 tank, but I'm going home this weekend so by the time I get there it will be shy of 1/2, and be just above an 1/8 when I get back to the college on Sunday.
 
I put at least 16 gallons in every time, the low fuel light comes on at 16, I am usually in the 17 range, have gone as high as 18.5.
 
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