pezking4

Being the poor man that I am, I often find myself with little gas in the car and sometimes the gas light comes on. How far can you drive with it on before you run out? My dad used to have an old Nissan station wagon that you could go about 30 miles with the light on.. it was funny messing with people who thought you had to get gas right away.

atulb84

iTrader: (1)

i thought it was like 15, but i'm sure i'm wrong...

pezking4

oh come on now, don't be so confident

mtcookson

iTrader: (2)

don't try testing it. i did and ran out. i thought i still had a long way to go before empty. i'm know i did more than 20 miles on it.

pezking4

I didn't want to go out and test it really. But mine came on a long time ago and I managed to get home, but now I have to drive to a gas station next time I get in my car.

surfermax92

When my fuel light usually comes on, I fill up about 14-15 gallons. I know that we have over 18 gallon fuel tanks, so there must be ~4 gallons or 80 miles in the tank.

metaverse3

A free piece of advise..I would avoid driving like that since it puts a strain on the fuel pump and it has to work harder, thus lowering the life expectancy of the part..

ISUConE

You have about 1.5 gallons of gas left in your tank. So if you are on the highway when this happens you should have plenty of opportunity to find a gas station (unless you are in Kansas or Nebraska ). The problem with this, according to Click & Clack, the Car Talk guys, is you are putting a strain on your fuel pump and you may cause it the wear out prematurely. Rule of thumb is to never go below a half tank of gas (IMHO).

male

I don't think so. How does this strain the pump? I realize that it no longer has the pressure of the fuel above the pick up adding to the static pressure at the pump inlet, but I doubt that would reduce the life of your pump. Pumps are selected for an application by looking at a pump curve, the characteristics of flow..volume (gpm usually) versus head loss (pressure imposed on the pump due to elevation, and friction losses in the pipes down stream. The aid provided by the static pressure as it varies with fuel levels is generally negelected as pump design is based on the duty point at the pump discharge (point on this curve where the pressure and flow fit the requirements of the system at maximum efficiency or close to it) When fuel levels change, the static pressure in the lines would theoretically change, but it doesn't in reality because there is the regulator on the other end "restricting" the line thereby maintaining necessary pressure in the line. If the static pressure drops in the line, the regualtor restricts the line, bumping the pressure. This does increse the load, but the pump is designed to operate there efficiently and safely. Don't sweat it. Now, if you go empty, the pump isn't made to move air and could burn out. But your car would quit before that happens. No more gas! I work with pumps so I know the design/selection procedure well.

ISUConE

I will give you this one. You obviously know alot more about it than I do. I just remember listening to Click & Clack tell a caller that starting your car when you are very low on fuel has detrimental effects.

male

No worries. We talked about this before in a past thread, but it was more along the lines of running your tank low and sucking in sediment and crap that is at the bottom. But I was quickly convinced that this was BS because the pickup is always at the bottom of the tank anyway!

chchmax

i usually just put a spare can of petrol in the boot, and drive till it runs out, thats the best way to know, cause everyones fuel gauge could possibly activate the light at slightly different places.

i get about 45km from when the fuel light comes on, but thats at open road speeds.

medic

I'd heard somewhere that the pump uses the ful to keep itself cool, when you run too low, there is not enough fuel to keep the pump cool so it could fail early. Don't know enough about this to tell if it's BS, but I know I blew out a swimming pool pump becasue I left it running when the intake wasn't submerged, so the same principle could apply. Or would this go back to the item you mentioned about pumping in air?

male

That is definately a pumping air issue..will burn out any liquid pump in short order. But the fuel as coolant is interesting, never really looked at it that way. Not likely though in my opinion. And what about inline fuel pumps? They are never submerged. Who knows what Nissan was thinking, like when they designed our crap *** engine mounts!

ISUConE

Yeah, or like when they designed rear spoilers using spongy foam that retains moisture so that the mounting points rust and break. And to make matters worse, the spongy foam starts to disitegrate after 6 years

And to top it all off, the charge way too much for parts. Every time a mechanic gives me an off the cuff price for work, I know to add several hundred dollars to the repair for the parts. They always call back and say, "I am really sorry about this, but I had no idea that the part would cost this much, and I HAVE TO get it from the dealer."

Nissan windshield $1,300. Even the glass guys are suprised when they see this one. I am on my third windshield.

I still love my Maxima.

grody

This is correct. The fuel pump (typically, I'm not 100% sure about the max) is in the tank, submerged in fuel. If the fuel level gets extremely low, the pump loses its coolant.

wyskibumm

I was able to go an extra 50 miles after the gas light came on. I was driving down I-79 in western pennzy to see my girlfriend and didnt care so much about gas, i wanted to get some ___.