I have had my 2005 Maxima for a little over a month. When I bought it there were only 107 miles on it. Just this weekend I broke the 2,000 mile mark (man they go by so fast!).

Anyway, I know I have a 20 gallon fuel tank in it, the sticker and the manual say so. However, every time I fill the tank, the maximum I amount of gas I can put in there has been around 15-16 gallons. This is when the tank is on “E” and the gas light has been on. The tank has to be near empty because my DTE indicator also displays “***” meaning the tank should be pretty close to empty.

Does anyone know why I am not filling closer to 20 gallons? Surely there isn’t a 4-5 gallon reserve. That would be a lot.

 

i go thru the same thing...not sure though

 

iirc from the manual, there's about 4 to 5 gallons reserve when the gas light comes on. the reserve is there so that hopefully you'll make it to a gas station. somone correct me if i'm wrong though.

 

Ditto......I have been thinking about running it out to see what the story is

 

20 gallon tank. guage shows 16. you have a 4 gallon reserve at E.

 

first we need to find out if the fuel pump is in the gas tank it self, because if it is, you always have to have enough fuel in the tank to keep it cool, maybe thats the story in our cars, but still 4 gallons of reserve seems like a lot to me, thats 1/5 of our thank

 

Wow, that is a pretty big reserve. I think that is interesting. You have a pretty detailed fuel economy screen but with such a large reserve, it seems like it'd never be fully accurate. The DTE indicator will tell me I have nothing left when really I have 4 gallons left. They kind of cancel each other out in that respect.

 

I heard the smaething about the reserve tank. It does seem like alot of extra fuel for a car that gets decent gas mileage. 5 gallons at even 20mpg is still close to 100 miles. That's alot for a car. It's not like we drive dump trucks or super large suv's that average 9-12 mpg. I guess nissan might know the answer. I would think if it has a reserve it should be two gallons or so. That should be enough to make it for a fill up.

 

This has been discussed many times, and the Maxima isn't that different from other cars. The mfr's don't want you to run out of gas - for several reasons - and they build in a healthy reserve. Just don't sweat it. After all, you can get around 28mpg (or more) on the hwy., so you can still go 475 miles on that 17 gallons before the gauge says empty.

 

I WISH

 

475 miles to a tank? The best I have done was this last weekend when I went 372 miles on a roadtrip...mostly highway miles.

 

Thats because your engine is not fully broken in yet.

 

This topic has been discussed to death in many threads here and in Fluids and Lubes.

Check out the information from this thread in the Fluids & Lubes section of this site.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=445175

You certainly don't want the gas tank to get near empty. I could "toast" your fuel pump.