Light should come up around 100km (62 imperials) before fuel goes out, however often it is not too reliable and some cars run out very soon even 50km (31 imperials) after light has lit.
My car might actually have the worst fuel gauge ever. I thought I was getting low on fuel, and my onboard trip computer said I had 0 miles until I ran out of fuel, so I drove to the nearest gas station. My car has a 17 gallon tank, and it only took 13.5 gallons to fill it...
Assuming a very conservative 20 miles per gallon, that's over 60 miles left...
My car fuel gauge never got even near empty, fuel was out before it was at reserve line where light should lit, got annoyed enough of that last summer and did fix that and now works perfectly way I liked it to work.
Just little bending of floater arm and sensor cleanup was needed
Yes and the car manufacturers also use the fuel to cool the pump off so if you are running it low the pump is not submirged and you could cause fuel pump issues. Older cars this is a non-issue because the pump is either on top the tank or along the rail being able to cool better, but with the new cars it's near the bottom of the tank and they can get quite warm when they are trying to pump 200plus LPH (well in my case I think it's 175 or 200)
With my car I believe the gas light comes on with 1/8 tank left, and at 1/16 tank the light starts blinking. I've only seen it blink in one instance, but was still able to drive about 10 more miles to a gas station. I think Danowat will make it just fine.
Made it, phew, was a bit of a bottom clencher though, filled up, and my car has a 60 litre tank, it took 58 litres, so it was quite close to being empty, but the OBC still read around 60 miles left, go figure..........
Wow, you rich folks with your richman's cars and little OBC telling you things like fuel milage and stuff, LOL.
I'm in a similar boat as Danowat. Hmm, started up the car this morning and the fuel gauge is sitting well below "E". I have no idiot light, nor a computer telling me when to fuel up.
Payday today, but unfortunately, it doesn't get deposited until 8 am and I leave for work at 6 am. So there I am, riding on fumes hoping to make it to work as I pass station after station. Well, I made it just fine, but I wonder how far it will go to make it to the gas station (there I said it, gas. I really do try to make it easier for you guys by saying fuel and stuff instead of gas, LOL)
On another note fuel (gas ) related. I once ran my motorcycle down to reserve. Then drove about 35 miles on my 0.4 gallon reserve to the closest station. After filling up, I had only used 0.2 gallon for that 35 miles, LOL. Yeah, I was out in the middle of nowhere not knowing where the next town was, let alone the next place I could fill up. I rode veeeery easy on the throttle (yes, I do use "throttle" to describe it on a motorcycle. The gas would be the pedal in the car, throttle the right handgrip on a motorcycle )
I find it annoying that modern petrol is not very long best before date, 3 months or so and it can be bad already so can't keep some reserve in can in case of missing station
My bicycle is Renault, great economy and light to ride, but rather bad climate control and quite bad performance, steep hills need to shift to 3rd and speed goes very slow, but at downhill that is just great, often overtaking some cars
In Poland 'pedal' is used also as ugly nick for gay 'Pedal Power' lol, don't put it on t-shirt
Anyway, I saw a test of some cars OBC about avarage fuel consumption.
They got what OBC says and compared to real numbers from their own math.
Nearly all cars said that av. fuel cons. was higher then IR by some 0,x litres.
Only VW lied for over 1litre/100km down in OBC (!) It was Golf IV if I remember. If other data about them is also true as this, it's clear why many people still think it's best compact car
would like to point something out that may not be true to everywhere in the uk.
where i live near aberdeen, my dad is in middle managment at the harbour. I have been at the harbour before. there are maybe 20 or so of these huge silos that contain the same oil, the same petrol, the same diesel. At 9pm a shell truck will come and fill itsself with "shell petrol / desiel" then maybe 20 mins later a BP will come, fill itself from the same tank. Tesco truck- same fuel same for asda, and all those other places. so for people in the aberdeen area, you are being conned if you go to a BP store for 95p / gallon (litres maybe, dont pay attention lol) where you can go to tesco and get it for 87p / litre
The raw fuel is the same but I believe each of the companies use their own additives for the fuel, so although the petrol/diesel comes from the same source when it gets to the pumps it's different.
Filled my car up with Tesco Super 99 today after it's been chugging along on overpriced Esso 95 for the last month and the difference is obvious. It cost the same as the Esso crap as well.
When I put my foot down the car responds better, it feels less sluggish, it sounds better, the fuel economy is better. Go Tesco!
Don't trust it too much, because it'll change depending on how you're driving.
As an example, I was in the car with a friend driving to Dover to catch a boat and the light came on. I told him we should stop for fuel. "No, we've got loads left, look, the light goes off when we turn right". I 'trusted' him. Then the light was on constantly. "Are you sure you don't want fuel?" "No, it's not too far now". A few miles later "I've got my foot on the floor, but we're slowing down. What's going on?" "You #$%^$ we've run out of diesel". We just about managed to make it to a petrol station to get some more.
Driving on the motorway was using a lot more fuel than just normal driving.
The computer in the Vectra my dad owns will warn when it says its <31.
However when he fills it up, it will say you got about 280miles from a full tank, but after several miles or "fairly" gentle driving, you then get to the normal figure of about 400miles, got it to 530 on motorway trip, with the needle Not on full (got to love slipstraming lorrys), not too bad for a 2.2 petrol .
But its a shame danowat made it home. Go try that on a bike
Hmm, that's explains a lot (the "very limited experience" part)...
The type of pump you're talking about is known as a rotary fuel pump, whereby the medium pumped is also the lubricant. Wouldn't necessarily kill it on the spot if your fuel's gone, though it isn't exactly a great idea.
And honestly, if you DO somehow manage to run our diesel absolutely dry (not so likely unless you practically ask for it aka ignore the low fuel warning), you could always revive it with a fresh new tank of fuel and some elbow grease. This is rather engine and car specific, but you could just open the hood, find the fuel filter, loosien the nut that 's underneath it that connedct to a fuel hose and manually pump the air out with a hand pump on top of the filter. Continue until the stuff you pump out is just diesel (i.e. NO air bubbles). Lock it all back up properly and try to start your engine. If the whole procedure was done correctly and the pump's still good (most likely), you should be able to drive on as if nothing happened.
I assume you know this better than me but then again, I could be wrong.
Anyway, fuel warning lights are very car specific. For instance, in a 1992-1999 Pajero, the low fuel warning shows up if the fuel level drops to about 15 liters. That's enough warning to drive you more than 100 kilometers of warning. Fact is, the OBC doesn't HAVE to be too terribly accurate because honestly it is impossible, given such huge variations in driving style, terrain and traffic. And manufacturers are usually wise enough to err on the safe (aka conservative) side. Better safe then stuck in in the middle of the nowhere.
As I've mentioned, the "low fuel" levels are VERY car specific. In this case , the car has a max level of 92 liters and a kerb weight of around 2 metric tons. BTW, 30mpg is pretty common among small and effiecient city cars. Fuel consumption is anywhere from 20mpg in heavy urban traffic to 26mpg on highway in the 2.5L diesel/turbodiesel Pajero's case. Note these are real life figures based on real life driving.
In this case, Mitsubishi erred on the safe side for obvius reasons. Getting stuck in a 2 tonne 4WD in the middle of an off-road adventure isn't fun.
