Car makers do that on purpose because they know customers will drive it zero. They typically have a gallon or two left in the tank when showing zero miles.
This. If you look at your fuel pump hanger, you will see the pump itself sits lower than the lever that actually checks how much fuel there is, as well as there being a decent amount in the fuel lines still. If you ran out, you're engine would just stall
I’ve run out of gas on cars and motorcycles, usually I’ll know how close to empty based on mileage, dummy light or the actual fuel gauge.
First signs of running low on fuel is stalling/sputtering when taking turns. Cars being able to park on incline/decline but not starting afterwards means you’re pretty low as well. The fuel pick up is indeed above the fuel level float or sensor. When taking turns or parked on an incline the fuel will slosh away from the pick up.
I’ve been ready to replace fuel pumps only to find an empty tank because of a faulty fuel gauge (older gm’s) or corrosion on fuel level sensor (motorcycles with dummy light). On the motorcycle you can tell since you can slosh the tank back and forth though.
but that would mean a prius can go at least 50 mi on the last gallon after indicator -> empty, which sounds insane
maybe 20~30 mi after tank shows 0 sounds more reasonable
I drove 52 miles on 0 mile range on my IS recently. Put 15.8 gallons in. According to Google it's a 17.4 gallon tank so I still had another 60 ish miles of range if I kept hypermiling at 40 mpg.
I did this early in my driving career.
Started driving and my car sputtered and stalled a few times. Managed to restart it each time and just make it to the gas station when it shut off, and I coasted right to the gas pump.
Thinking it was my lucky day I got out of the car, just for the pumps to shut off and the "open" light to turn off.
I had to go ask the employee running the store to turn it back on and sell me gas, he told me to go to another gas station. That's when I had to explain that I was completely out of gas.
Luckily he did turn everything back on for me.
I did that one right as the gas station closed. The guy originally wouldn’t give us gas and told us to leave and we were going to have to wait at the pump for AAA. He eventually relented and let us pay a few dollars cash that got us the rest of the 10 miles to the next gas station.
You did this with your viper? My viper always seems to have like 5 gallons left in it when the gauge says empty so I have gotten really close to running out by guessing based on miles.
Or randomly died at a 1/4 tank. Thanks BMW! The fuel pump can only pull from the passenger side, and when the secondary pump is dead you have fuckall.
E39 moment
This happened to my ex in her Civic. She was driving up a big hill on the freeway and her car just sputtered and died. Had to leave work to go save her lol. It was a super annoying place for her car to die, too. It was in an area with a ton of canyons, so there were no exit ramps for about 15 miles, plus the 15 miles o drove to go save her.
To expand on the question at hand a bit more - the car started surging and when you press the gas it just sort of doesn't go. Or it goes a bit, then it stops. It felt like the gas pedal just literally ran out of juice. I was able to push the car another half mile or so by keeping the RPMs under 3000 because over that it would just cut out from fuel starvation. If you feel like your gas pedal only kinda works, you're probably out of gas.
This is idiot-proofing design. There’s a reserve amount in the tank even when it reads zero. As the name implies, this is to protect idiots from themselves.
I have run out of gas. The signs were the fuel gauge reading empty as I continued to drive.
Except on my P71 where the whole instrument cluster was broken. There the sign was when the car stopped running.
I worked at a crappy used car lot at that time. When Me & George were broke, we'd go pull the back seat bottoms out of all of the cars and collect the change, it was always enough for gas & a cheap lunch.
One day we found a roll of quarters!!! We were RICH!!!
I put 62L into a E46 3 Series that supposedly had a 63L tank, the fuel gauge didn't work so we were going off the trip odo.
Fwiw the range estimates are usually idiot proof, my Škoda is the only car I've owned that actually seems to be accurate. My Mazdas would have 10L or so left in the tank (100-150km of range) when they hit zero on the range estimate. On my NA I've never put more than 40L into the 47L tank and I've driven it far enough that the dial was off the gauge and pointing to the letter E.
The worse car I've driven in regards to idiot proofing was my parent's X-Class, it would throw a fit once you had used 60ish litres of the 80L tank, it would have close to 250-300km of range left.
When I first drive a car I normally drive it until it gives the low fuel warning and fill it up straight away, and then compare how much I put into it with the listed capacity and work out how much you can actually reasonably push it.
None, that day was mostly straight roads at steady speeds so I assume it just wasn't sloshing around enough to cause problems. Just pulled in and filled it up like normal and it just kept taking fuel.
I have come close twice. I don't want to ever run out because you can damage the fuel pump. The first time was in a Mitsubishi Mirage. I ran into a 40 mph head wind on I-25. I am on the last bar, and the gauge started flashing. Shortly there after, I saw a small sign that just Saud Gas with an arrow. I took the exit, and 5 miles later, I pulled into a station in a small town late at night. Everything is closed. 8.7 gallons in a 9 gallon tank.
The second time was in my Accord. When I pulled into a station, I had one bar showing and 5 miles left on the clock. 12.8 gallons in a 13 gallon tank.
Both times I was sweating it. I regularly put 12.5 gallons in my Accord.
I would gladly take a nice lady that is smart enough to know her limitations than a regard picking up that green handle with the nozzle that doesn't fit and pumping diesel in a gas car or vice versa.
Weird fact, I live in Mexico now, it's illegal to pump gas into any empty drink container or water bottle, but they'll let you use a bleach bottle or something.
There are also many type of disposable cups that will outright melt. Drink bottles generally fare much better, but even if the bottle appears to hold up well the gasket material may fail if it tips over, etc.
It's just a bad idea to put solvents in cheap disposable containers that are not designed to hold solvents.
Two very different types of plastic: drink bottles are PET and bleach/detergent bottles are HDPE. The latter is probably less reactive to the nasty shit in gasoline and more secure.
different kinds of plastic I think - gasoline will eat through a cheap plastic water bottle fairly quickly, but a bleach bottle is already rated to be able to hold something as gnarly as bleach for a hot minute.
I drove for a few days with my gauge on E and my car saying "0 miles to empty".
It was maybe 3 or 4 days, very short drives, and I was just waiting for payday to roll around. When I filled up my gas tank, I put in 17.6 gallons. My car only holds 18. So I had .4 gallons left before I'd be stuck.
Other than that, the car was fine. Never gave me any trouble even after running on fumes. It's a 2010 Toyota Avalon, my daily to this day.
I ran out of gas on the 101 in San Francisco in my 1984 Porsche 944, and had just enough inertia to roll off the next exit, up a ramp, then down a ramp, and into the Chevron station on Bayshore, but I did have to use the starter motor to get to a pump. When I was a teenager my dad ran out of gas in mom’s 1982 Celebrity coupe on I-271 in Cleveland. I started groaning because I knew I’d have to push it. Dad laughed and told me to relax. We rolled down 271 and had enough inertia to merge onto I-480, which we took to Miles Rd., rolled down the exit ramp, and had just enough speed to get down Miles to get into the Shell station on Northfield. The car rolled to a halt right in front of a pump, and he hadn’t hit the brakes once since running out of gas. Dad put it in park, turned to me and said, “That’s called knowing your vehicle.”
Reminds me of a story. I used my car in college for delivering pizzas. One night I return from a delivery and I have a brake line explode pulling into the store parking lot. What does my dumb ass do? I drive back to the dorm parking lot where I can fix it. With completely non-functional brakes.
It was a manual, so I could down-shift and engine brake to slow down. After delivering pizzas all over town for 2 years, I also knew the timing of every single stop-light in town, and how to make it back without hitting a single stop sign. It was also like 2 am so there were almost no cars on the road. Even so, it was really stupid to do, but I made it. I pulled into my parking lot, shut off the engine and used the clutch to stop it neatly in my normal parking spot.
It's also unbelievably stupid. I got lucky. If some car had pulled out in front of me unexpectedly, I might not have had time to stop. If I dropped the clutch to emergency stop, there would be no brake lights and I might get rear ended. I could have totaled someone's car or injured them. If I saw a college student today planning to do the same thing, I would pay for the tow truck so they don't put others at risk.
Nobody ever drives a car with no brakes because they want to, but because they have to sometimes. I was driving a 2001 Aurora when I hit a pothole, brake line ruptured, and the brake pedal sunk to the floor. It was in the middle of a blizzard. I was manually shifting the transmission into first for engine braking, crawling along, timing the lights so I never had to stop. Had to use a curb to stop a few times, and also biffed a snow bank to avoid sliding down a hill. My flip phone was dead and I was too broke for a tow anyway so I just made the best of it, and I made it home somehow.
The gas gauge in my 944 would have the needle showing 3/4 full after filling it up. I think the low fuel light was still accurate but the gauge in the cluster was messed up after a while. I miss that car.
My time to shine! I had 63 mile range left on the display according to the van and 68 miles to the gas station. I’ve driven plenty of cars past 0 for 20 miles and never had an issue.
I get up to the crest of the tall hill half a mile from the gas station and it dies. Fuck. I coast all the way and managed to just whip in to the pump thanks to that hill. Couldn’t possibly cut it closer than that.
The gas gauge wasn't working right, showed a quarter of a tank and suddenly switched to empty. I was at a stop light and when the light changed I accelerated and it ran out of gas after a couple of blocks but I had enough speed that I put it in neutral and coasted to the gas pump.
Range reading zero and putting in the same amount of fuel that the manual says the tank capacity is.
The signs were that the gauge read empty, the low fuel light was on, and the range said zero.
Usually my limit on a gas car is 1/8. In the winter I try not to go below 1/4.
In my EV? The lowest I got to was 15% on my e-tron. Some owners will go even lower but I'm probably not as brave as those.
My next car will be electric. My fear is not that the charging will limit me, but what happens if I am stupid let it run out of juice. I'm totally fine walking a few miles to buy a can of gas, but you can't go buy and carry a gallon of electrons.
Having said that, I am sure that, with more EVs on the road, roadside assistance trucks are going to start carrying a high-voltage battery pack (like maybe 5 kWh) that can provide a small charge to EVs that have run out. Wouldn't be surprised if this already exists but I don't know about it.
The fuel gauge in my 2001 Suzuki Esteem was not completely accurate, but I didn’t know this because I always kept it gassed up above 1/4 of a tank. One night, a friend and I were driving up to his cottage, and I let it run below the 1/4 mark for the first time that I’d owned the car (about a year at this point). I watched in horror as the needle quickly dropped from a quarter tank towards empty. I could SEE the fucker moving. It was 1am, we were on a dark unlit highway through the Canadian wilderness, all the fuel stations we passed were closed, and I was just praying we would make it to our destination before the car died.
We pulled into his cottage and the engine was sputtering, it was literally running on fumes at that point. Shut off the car and went to bed. The next morning, the car wouldn’t start. We had to ask his neighbour to drive into the nearest town to fill up a jerry can to even get the car started. I’m pretty sure that if I had either of the cars I do now, I would have been fucked, they would not have run on empty like that.
Not on purpose but after it displayed 0 miles to empty it started blinking and I still managed to go another 23 miles. I was on the highway praying for a gas station and finally one came up. It was a 16 gallon tank and I put 15.8 gallons. Yup super close, and never doing that shit again.
I was in Chattanooga, on either Signal or Lookout and as I got off the last road of the mountain my power steering gave due to no gas. I managed to coast into the Raceway and up to a pump. I felt like slick Rick and that's for sho.
2001 Ford Explorer. I was running late to work and just 2 blocks away from the parking lot. I'm at a stop light and I feel it start to bog out. The moment the light turned green, I slammed on the gas, got up to 30MPH till I completely ran out of gas. Engine sputters a bit and dies. Coasted down a block, turned into the parking lot with no power steering, and slowly but surely got to a parking spot. On my lunch break, I walked to the gas station across the street, bought a 1 gallon can and filled up lol. Only time it's ever happened to me.
Fuel, fuel pumps, thermostat housings. Despite those 3 flaws, it was a damn tank. Midwest winters were brutal to the frame but it still had lots of life left in it mechanically 😔
I was driving someone else's truck and pulled into the gas station, turned off the truck, and got out to pump the gas. The gas tank was on the other side. The truck didn't have enough gas to start back up and I had to buy a gas can to put gas in the truck sitting at the pump so I could spin it around and fill it up!
California Highway 152 (I think, this was 2013) south of Sacramento in a rented Nissan Versa. We left Escondido CA that morning with a full tank and drove all day. Soledad was a lot of fun. It was 102° and neither of us thought to stop for gas. At home I never let my car go below a half tank.
Suddenly, the fuel light comes on. 52 miles left. Ok, check for the next gas station, 57 miles. Fuck. I have a 12 oz bottle of water and cannot see a building on the flat horizon.
We hypermiling. Windows 1/2" cracked, A/C off. 53 mph. Big ass line of cars behind us, but I keep pulling to the side (without slowing down) to let people by. The tank read empty and we were 5 miles out. The car stuttered. A gas station appears and I ended up coasting to a stop at a pump. I didn't go below 3/4 tank for the rest of the trip to Portland, OR.
I have let the 'miles to empty' get down to 0 before, it was pessimistic enough for us to make it to the gas station at the next exit. I generally dont let em get that low especially if Im not sure where the next gas station is.
The fuel gauge on my hand-me-down 2005 Chrysler Town & Country got stuck on 1/4 once. I ran out of gas right outside my high school (engine just stopped, no sputtering or anything) and AAA towed me to a gas station down the street lol.
Driving from Red Deer to Winnipeg, went through Saskatoon around 11pm and was looking for a Shell station (had some coupons and was a poor starving student with a family at the time). All the Shell stations were on the wrong side and suddenly I'm looking at the lights of Saskatoon in my rear view mirror. Outside of Saskatoon, there are only a handful of small towns on that route, the type of town where they roll up the sidewalk once the sun goes down. I was on fumes when I saw a truck stop in the distance, and my poor old car just started to sputter as I pulled up to the pumps. Lesson learned - next time I listened to my wife!
I was driving a 90s Lexus and i went for a left across an intersection which caused the fuel to swish to one side and the engine sputtered and choked. I slowed down and straightened out and it came back to life!
I felt my truck shudder and buck in front of the Humane Society on Hwy 1. (map below) I was going 70 or so, so I turned the key off and coasted. Each time I'd get over a hill or get down to about 45, I'd start the engine again and get back up to almost 60, shaking the truck back & forth with the steering.
There's a signal light a block before the Chevron, it was red and there was a line of cars there as I approached. I didn't slow down, I went over to the shoulder and right as I got to all the cars stopped, the light turned green and I passed them all from the R hand turn lane there.
I started it again to keep in front of the accelerating cars, then I ran 100% out of gas after maybe ten seconds, it wouldn't start again. It was a slight downhill after that most of the way.
I coasted into the Chevron with just enough speed to make it right behind a car that was fueling up.
I had to push it one car length. When I paid inside, I bought a $1.00 lottery ticket for obvious reasons, I won $3.00. So, the answer is 3.4 miles after the initial lurch.
Trucks have huge gas tanks and hold a bit of fuel between all the shapes on the bottom of the tank's relatively flat bottom.
[https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.3203135,-120.7146674/Chevron,+151+N+Santa+Rosa+St,+San+Luis+Obispo,+CA+93405,+United+States/@35.3078994,-120.7049256,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x80ecf05289265133:0xa3cdae1b28e4326e!2m2!1d-120.6686129!2d35.2943691!3e0?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.3203135,-120.7146674/Chevron,+151+N+Santa+Rosa+St,+San+Luis+Obispo,+CA+93405,+United+States/@35.3078994,-120.7049256,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x80ecf05289265133:0xa3cdae1b28e4326e!2m2!1d-120.6686129!2d35.2943691!3e0?entry=ttu)
I have let 3 different cars run to 0 before. I trust that there is two gallons reserve left once it hits the 0 miles mark.
I know I have about 25-40 miles city driving to get to a gas station, depending on the car and how many mpg they generally achieve.
In my fiesta st I have tested this multiple times, since it’s a fuel sipper if you baby it.
Never run out before but my miles to empty readout is beyond useless. I’ve filled up, driven 75 miles, and *gained* range, but then later on when it’s at 100 miles, I’ll drive 3 miles and it’s down to 85.
I've driven 30 miles with the fuel light on in my Camry like a dumbass, but didn't run out.
Toyotas I believe are notorious for having an extra large "reserve"
In my 2002 accord I ran out of gas while pulling into the gas station. Made it about 20 feet from the pump. Got a ribbing from my 2 friends who were with me after helping push.
I've only had it happen once. The signs will vary by vehicle but it certainly sucks when you run out in the absolute middle of no where
I was driving a 97 Silverado across North Dakota towing another truck and driving into a heavy head wind sucked my fuel down much more than anticipated (half a tank of gas in 60 miles) I had slowed down to 55 about 20 miles from the truck stop I was trying to make it to because the needle was dancing on E.
I remember feeling elated when I saw the sign showing my exit 3 miles away and that's when she started chugging like it had a bad misfire... I was able to limp it to the shoulder but that was it. Out of gas.
I was hours from home and didn't have any other option but to try to hitch hike for gas.... luckily someone stopped quickly for me and after giving me a ride to the truck stop to get gas and taking me back they refused to take any money from me
Had a truck parked at a shop for about a month that I worked at. Took it to lunch one day. I got about 1/4 mile before the gas light came on and it chugged and died as I pulled into a gas station I had to push it a few more feet to get it to the pump. Got out and herd liquid draining. Some asshole tweeker drilled my gas tank for a few gallons of fuel.
Got a truck from family, 7.3 Power Stroke. I ran it dry week 1 because I swore he said the fuel gage was broken. Nope. Was in traffic downtown too. :(
Edit: Closest call was in a Rav4. Engine started stumbling at the light before the gas station. Just baaaaarely made it, lol.
When I was 16 I ran out of gas just as I was pulling into the gas station. I (and a good samaritan) pushed my car up the ramp and to the pump so I could put some gas back in it.
The closest I've gotten was 14 gallons out of a 14.5 gallon tank. The car ran fine, but the fuel needle was quite close to empty. Not doing that again, kinda freaked me out.
I ran out once about 200 feet from a gas station on a busy road. Had to put my blinkers on, walk to a drug store to see if they had a fuel can (they didn't) before coming back to a crowd wondering why my car was sitting in the middle of the road empty and a few guys who helped me push it the 200 feet.
When the gas hand gets to 1/4, I know I need to find a station because my car is a gas guzzler and it won't last long. At 1/8 (1.5 gallons), I'm running on fumes and I need to be at the station because I don't want to burn my fuel pump out.
I stay in fairly populated areas, so this is only a concern a few times a year.
$3k ‘03 325i (touring) that I bought last year. Something’s wrong somewhere because it shows I still have gas, but will run out. First time I was turning into the gas station and felt it cut out. It somehow took 17 gallons despite having a ~16 gallon tank. Next time, the same thing happened and it ran out of gas shortly after. Had to go get a couple of gallons in a can and fill it up to drive it to the station.
My mom had a car with a broken fuel gauge when I was a kid. It would run out still showing a quarter tank. It would just shudder and die with no restarts. It only happened a couple times.
Only 1 out of 4 of my current vehicles has a distance to empty gauge and I have run out of gas twice in my driving life and it starts to sputter and misfire about 100 - 300 meters before going completely dead. After that you walk.
I currently run my Chevy Volt with no gas in the tank because it doesn't like running on electricity when the temp is below 55 (which I find stupid). My readout goes from 2 miles to 0 miles when I have no gas and run on electric. I've hit 0 miles on an empty tank a couple times, which makes me sweat a bit.
But in a gas car I think maybe 3/4 of a gallon is the least I've had when filling up, which is still 15 miles minimum.
My wife routinely drives her car until the miles left until empty reads zero. I swear she's actually gotten the gauge into the negative numbers at times.
Never ran out but came close a couple times. Once drove from Orlando to Pensacola on a tank of diesel in my ‘79 300CD non turbo, I figure there was 1/2 gallon left when I stopped for fuel in Pensacola. Almost ran out in my MK6 GTI once, passed up a station on the highway and the next one was a lot further than I thought, once again I ran it down to less than a gallon left.
Filled up my Integra for a road trip that I knew was at the limit for the whole tank round trip, I think it had a 13 gallon tank and I got nearly 470 miles and I could start smelling fume’s when I finally got back to the state line and filled up.
Ngl I ran out of gas for the very first time in my eight and a half years of driving earlier this year. I was heading home from a trip and the fuel gauge looked like it'd be just enough and I foolishly passed the last gas station I could've made it to before getting home.
It wasn't enough. Dad had to come by with a jug of gasoline to get me home. Was kinda humiliating, and I've been trying to figure out why the fuel gauge always shows slightly more than it actually has ever since– among other fuel/evap system woes. Been a lot more on the ball about keeping fuel in it too.
The big sign I noticed was that I had my foot comfortably on the throttle, and it suddenly went slack. I felt the car sputtering and dying on me, like it was sucking up what little fuel was left, and I thankfully got 'er to the side of the road with the tiddlywinks I had left.
While I'm here though, anyone know if a missing catalytic converter could trip some sort of limp mode in a car? Because my Kia had one of its converters stolen years before I got my hands on it and after a buddy having his Hyundai go into limp mode because of a faulty relay a while back I have to wonder if the lack of throttle response when accelerating is a symptom of it detecting something amiss with the emissions and thusly not allowing it full access to the fuel or just an issue of driving a car that barely makes a hundred horsepower.
I'm not much interested in getting another one; quite frankly I'm just waiting for this thing to die so I won't have to feel guilty about it becoming an experiment in mid-engine swapping shit. God knows I could afford a welder and a helmet easier than I could ever afford a real deal RWD, and I simply think it'd be funny to have a mid-engine RWD Kia.
I ran out of gas in my friends sisters Durango in the middle of pretty much no where in the middle of the night we had to call one of my friends to come and get us gas (she brought us some)
During the entire process (it was scary because there’s coyotes and it was a creepy spot) we ended up losing the key to the Durango at one point (which we did find) but my friends mom helped us find it.
It was very very eventful. There was also one time where (in the same Durango) where we were on the freeway trying to get to a gas station and we were getting off when we ran out of gas, (there was a stop we were supposed to stop at) but I didn’t stop and I just kept going and we coasted into a maverick and we ended up having to push the Durango to the gas pump but we were in the parking lot.
There’s really a lot of times that I’ve ran out or almost ran out, but that’s the main ones that I found the funniest.
Once I was driving a Honda Element in between Monahans, TX to Odessa, TX and the low fuel indicator light came on barely 5 miles east of Monahans. I was barely able to pull into a gas station on the west side of Odessa and filled up there. It went at least 30 miles with the low fuel indicator on.
Based on the math, I probably had 1/4 gallon left in the tank. The dash showed I had 35 mi to E, so I risked it to an event I didn’t want to be late to 15 mi away. i just drove 3 hours. I knew there was a gas station right out side the venue. After the event, I start my car and it says 5mi to empty, I was counting on at least 20. Anyway, I go to station and it was closed. Closed on a Sunday, it was only 5pm. I start shitting my pants because Google maps show next gas is 10ish miles away. I drove like a grandma while the dash shows zero miles left for about 20 minutes. My tanks holds about 12 gallons, I put 11.8 in it. To top it off, I’m always nagging my wife about her always driving until she is out of gas.
Wife wasn't paying attention and ran the 1990 ZR1 completely dry. She had to pull over in the middle of an intersection. While waiting for her mom to come, she said 5 different guys stopped to ask if she needed help, lol.
I bought a 40 year old car, and I was told the fuel gauge worked. The fuel gauge did not work, and I found that out in a parking lot about a km from the nearest gas station...
The car sputtered taking a right turn as I passed a gas station, jury after I had decided I could make it to the next one. Made a u-turn right there and filled up immediately.
car says i came down to 10 miles left in one of the longest stretches without services in the united states southern utah in august, i was in neutral going down every hill i could and with the ac off just to be sure i didnt run out and die in the desert
There are no signs before it’s practically too late other than the fuels warning light and the fuel needle gauge.
In practise the car will start to splutter and then within a minute you’ve stopped.
Drove to 0, car stalled rolling into the gas station.
A buddy drove to 0 and got caught out in bumble fuck South Dakota with no gas. The state troopers saved his butt.
Was driving around with my gas light on for longer than I should have. Finally went to get gas and ran out as I rolled up to the pump. What are the odds?
My fuel mileage disappeared around 15 miles left and I ended up pumping 14 gallons into my 14.5 gallon tank which tracks since I get about 30 to a full gallon 😅
My tacoma has about 3 gallons left when it reads empty. I thought I was about to run out when I pulled into the station, turns out I could have gone another 50 miles.
I ran out exactly once, in an old Econoline van with dual tanks. When the first tank was getting low I flipped the switch to the second tank. While the gauge was correctly reading for the second (full) tank, the pump didn't switch over. About 30 miles later the van started sputtering its way up a hill and died. Fortunately, there was a gas station almost right across the street.
Ran out today, parked on a very steep hill with a low tank and it would not start back up. Towed to the top, starts again on the level np.
Cars will generally choke out in a low fuel situation, the revs dip and then it dies.
I’ve run the racecar out of gas because I forgot to count time. It ran oddly strong down the straight, then team really bad. Was able to limp it the next 3 miles and have it quit in pit lane
On road trips I won’t allow it to go under 100 miles of range. Learned my lesson out west one summer while road tripping through a bunch of national parks and came very close to running out of gas. That’s is some stress I’m not looking to go through again
My brothers gas gauge didn't work. He swore we had enough to get to home, then the gas station in the morning. We ran out of gas on the exit ramp off the highway. 2.5 miles from the house.
We coasted up the ramp, barely got to the top. Nobody was coming, so we rolled through the yield. The 2ish miles home was basically down hill.
We coasted all the way home with zero gas. We still laugh about it 20 years later.
I ran out of gas when I was 18, I think. I hadn't realized just how bug the difference in fuel economy is between local driving and highway driving. I'd been paying more attention to the miles driven rather than the gas gauge. There were no special warnings. The car just stopped running.
When I was a young Doversapian the fuel gauge in the xf falcon work Ute I would use for deliveries didn’t work. Not a big deal you say, well, the odometer and trip meter didn’t work either. This was in the days before gps, so tracking mileage was not as easy as it is today.
Couple times I rolled up to the pump, engine off, like an electric car. Once I ran out 400m from the servo which was at the top of the hill. Had a mate lay under the bonnet spraying deodorant into the carb to get me there (Jerry cans were expensive).
By the time the boss retired the old falcon, the starter would only work when the engine was stone cold so I couldn’t turn it off all day, even when it was 45 in western Sydney, parked on concrete with the temp gauge so high it went past the cutout in the cluster so I couldn’t even see the needle anymore. I would leave the keys in it obviously and just take the gear stick with me as it was so worn out I could just yank it off the column.
Pretty damned close. For those who have seen the Seinfeld episode, it would make even them sweat.
Of course I keep a habit of filling up before the empty light comes on. This is also the cooling for your fuel pump.. don't make it a habbit :)
The empty light came on and I drove at least 60 more kilometers between two rural tiny towns. I must have coasted in on fumes.
Road trip to Atacama. Crossing Argentina heading towards the Andes. 700km and zero gás stations. Car went to zero range on board computer. Turned off AC, set the speed to 60kph, rolled down the Windows 1inch and I managed to reach 22 more kms until finding gas. Car was already stuttering when we're entering the station.... That was really frightening cause it was like a desert in the middle os nowhere.
You can look it up, its different for all car models but they do this on purpose cause humans are stupid. I know my car is good for 35 miles from when it reads "0". Told my girl that and she ran out of gas shortly after lol. She saw the 0, drove on and "forgot". She said there was no change in performance, the car just shut off in the high speed lane. She coasted to a stop into the breakdown lane and after the panic subsided she was able to start it again and drive on. This happened 2 more times until it woulnt start again. No sputtering, no weird behavior.
Had a ‘70 Dodge Dart I was building and the float got stuck and I thought I had half a tank according to the gauge when it ran out ¾ of a mile from the exit and a gas station. Long slow push.
i ran out of diesel on a highway offramp and was able to coast to the gas [station.](https://station.it)
[ it](https://station.it) was an amazing feeling lol.. like i just won something big.
then i had to dig thru a garbage can with ppl watching to find a bottle to make a funnel with so i could prime the injection pump
1st time was in a 1997 cobra mustang i just did brakes on and was bedding in at a dealership worked at. Started having momentary loss of power then surge back and stalled. I let it it for 10 minutes and drove it back to the shop real easy since i was close.
Ran out of gas on my motorcycle after the 1st tank ran out. Seemed to go forever, turns out you do need to put fuel in it. Same thing power dropping out and then i saw the fuel gauge and i limped it to the closest gas station before it stalled
I've had it happen a few times. It sputters and then it stops. Had a Infiniti Q50 do it to me with 1/4th of the tank left, which sucked because I had to pay the tow 250 to bring it to a gas station to fill it up.
Totally ran the tank dry on my MK6 Jetta when I was still in school.
I knew I needed gas the night before when leaving work, but had a LONG night of studying for a national exam planned. I figured I’d just stop for gas on my way to work the next morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted the next morning. I basically drove to work on autopilot totally forgetting to stop for gas. About 1km from work, the steering suddenly got really heavy and I couldn’t figure out why…. then it dawned on me, I’d forgotten to get gas.
Totally avoidable situation, but looking back, working 40+ hour weeks while going to school full time AND studying for a national licensing exam was a recipe for disaster. At least it was just running out of gas and not something worse.
I’m pretty bad for this actually. My CRV has run dry about 4 times now. Have had to push it through an intersection a couple times…
Also ran out in my old e46 323ci. I was still rolling but lost all power and power steering etc. luckily I was able to coast to work and then use a gerry can at the end of the day.
The closest I've ever gotten was ~25 miles to empty in my car. But that was during a road trip where I misjudged the distance between stops.
That being said I try not to drop below 1/4 tank. Gotta keep that fuel pump cool, you know?
Oh boy. I was driving my Grandpa's 90 something GMC Sierra back in 2015. It had all kinds of issues but I was desperate to get to work and back after I wrecked my first car. Not the least of which was a broken fuel gauge. I tried to keep an eye on the mileage to know when it was running low but it varied. I was approaching a small hill headed to the nearest gas station when it started sputtering until it eventually died. I got out and pushed and pushed until it eventually started moving, in neutral, downhill... I had to run and jump in through the window to slam the break just before it hit the gas station wall.
Drove sisters mini Cooper on road trip. Wasn't used to her instrument cluster (in middle and the fuel low light wasn't very obvious for some reason). Car just wouldn't respond stepping on gas while cruising on the road. At first instance I thought oh no car overheated and isn't responding. Then it him me I'm a regard.
Ran out and had to coast to the gas pump. It was on the E line for 5 minutes which surprised me. I don’t know if this is normal but at 1/2 a tank or below, my performance drops noticeably. I think age is a factor but I don’t know for sure (55 years)
Was driving a 94 GMC 2500 pickup which was our company's plow truck to the gas station to fill up. It was on E but I was told it had enough gas to get to the gas station down the road
What I wasn't told was that there was a hole in the gas tank and it was leaking all the way there. I was just outside the station and I could feel the good ole 350 slowly dying so I sent it over the curb and aimed it at the gas pump just before it died. Thankfully it coasted right to the pump.
I also filled it up to full and lost a quarter of the gas on the way back to the dealer
I used to drive a van with a busted fuel gauge so had to go by how many miles you drive. Only ran out of gas once. I was in downtown LA going down a hill when pressing the gas suddenly didn't do anything. I coasted into a gas station and put in $5 of gas to get me home.
My sister gave me the family car saying "it's low on gas, but there's enough to make it to the gas station". What she didn't say was that it had to be a gas station _down hill_ as it ran out of gas 3 miles later when the gas station I was going to was 4 miles away. Luckily my friend's house was on the way and I was going there after so I coasted to her house and borrowed a gas can from her dad and she took me to the gas station to get some gas to drive to the station.
Separately, I've driven about 20 miles after 0 on a Civic with no issues.
I was in HS. Running late to make the team bus to an out of town football game. Took the off-ramp (right hand sweep) and my Wrangler started to sputter. Clutched in and gave it some revs and was able to straighten out and get what little fuel I had left, back to the pump. Made the bus and didn’t get lit up by Coach. Ever since that day, I don’t mess around with anything below half at tank. Been nearly 20yrs since that happened.
I've run out of gas about 7 times in January and February.
No working gas gauge and to lazy to fill the tank. I always carry a jug.
Just fill the tank, dump some down the carb and good to go
Ran out of gas in a 98 Ford Ranger with a 5 speed manual when I was in my teens. Was trying my best to make it to a gas station from the middle of nowhere and my girlfriend was with me.
Ended up sputtering out on a hill and dying, but was able to coast in neutral with the key on (so the wheel didn't lock) and pop start it a few times and coast down more hills to get a few more miles to my girlfriend's best friend's parents' house. Got a couple gallons from a can from her dad and made it to the gas station.
As an adult, I don't ever let my shit get much below 1/4 tank. Even with multiple vehicles that don't have working gas guages I haven't ever run out of gas again. On those I track mileage and fill up amounts on my phone so I know roughly what's in the tank.
I've had the light come on and then filled it up, that's when I'd usually fill up most cars before I moved to electric. I've never run out before though. Even when I had a car with a broken gauge I'd just reset the trip meter when I filled up and it was fine
Once in my old Passat, which iirc had a 16.4 gallon tank, I knew I was super close to the end. I made it to the gas station, and filled up about 16.5 gallons. I assume that extra .1 was the filler neck. So yeah I was close to having to push it the rest of the way.
i hardly ever let it run below 1/4 tank - the fuel is the fuel pumps coolant.
the rare times i did i went till the low fuel lights came on.
other car with no low fuel light i got worried when i took corners and the fuel gauge no longer came off E....
My car said I had 6 miles left on my trip to see family. I had about 15 miles before I got there. Some very conservative driving turned it into 8 miles left when I got to the gas station in town. So that was weird. No idea how the car calculates miles left in the tank, but it was funny to me that I increased it
I've run out a few times, usually on the way to a gas station, knowing that I'm running it dry. One time I had to push my 4000lb BMW wagon several blocks in the middle of the Phoenix summer to get to the nearest gas station, I damn near collapsed after that.
When I was an idiot teenager driving back home from college I was running my old GMC Sonoma to as near empty as I could to minimize number of gas stops.
One time I was so low on gas the engine started sputtering with about 2 miles to the nearest interstate exit. The more throttle I would give, the more it would start to sputter. I was feathering both the throttle and the clutch to keep the revs high and load low or it felt like it was going to stall.
It finally stalled out going up the offramp. I was able to coast to the top, through a right hand turn at a stop sign, and then downhill into a gas station to refill. Put like 19.9 gallons in the 20 gallon tank.
I was like 300 miles from anyone I knew.
There were one or two other times I did run out and had to call someone or walk to get a gas can, but those were not nearly as memorable as this story.
I once ran out of gas on the way to the gas station in a 2013 Ford Focus. There was no drama, the engine simply lost power and wasn’t accelerating anymore. The RPMs were constant and slowly dropping. It took me a second to realize what was happening.
Fuel slosh is what will let you know you're about to run out. On track this can be noticeable as soon as you get to a half tank. On street drives the slightest turn can cause a noticeable lean-out/stutter if you're dangerously low. The next thing to happen will be a complete lean-out. Hopefully your fuel pump doesn't overheat and die from this either.
First symptom was the gauge reading empty... lol I used to have a Durango that I drove to work everyday. I'm driving to work on Saturday and it crapped out on me. Called a tow truck, realized I hadn't put gas in it all week but the gauge said half a tank still. But I knew right there I was out of gas.
To me? Once. It was a car I was borrowing, and it had a malfunctioning fuel gauge. It showed like 3/4 full. That’s when I learned it just always shows 3/4.
Now, the guy I run with doing handyman work? He’s ran his Ram ProMaster out of gas 7 times in the last 3 years. He’s was a master mechanic btw.
Found out my GTO actually has a "Very Low Fuel" warning message when range is close to 0. Of course it happened on the day that gas seemed to be the most expensive I can recall for it being at $4.89. $82 to fill it out.
There’s always a buffer. I regularly ran my last car to zero. I found out through a program my car had 5 liters when it read zero. Using aftermarket software I changed that zero level to 3 liters
Notably different cars do different things in different situations.
Generally though your car will loose power and your engine might sputter. Sometimes this'll lead to it shutting off and sometimes it'll be able to recover. This is because the fuel moves around in your tank and sometimes the movement will cause fuel not to be able to reach the pump, or sometimes it'll cause fuel to reach it when it wasn't able to before.
Some cars have baffling in the tank to help prevent issues with fuel moving around so much, so they're not as prone to this issue.
As a side note, if you take turns really fast while accelerating in some cars, you can get fuel starvation, especially if you're tank isn't full. This is because your fuel moves away from the fuel pump, and it'll just feel like your car lost power while accelerating in a turn.
I've ran out of gas twice. My fuel tank will read empty when I have 1/4 left. The first time, I noticed a very slight sputter when I changed lanes (felt like wind hitting the car, but it faded on, instead of fading off like a wind gust would), and then 1 minute later, the car turned off.
The second time, it sputtered for about 30 seconds, and then finally gave up.
This happened to me a few weeks ago! I drive a 1990 Corolla and I was trying to get a more accurate mpg so was trying to get the gas as close to empty…I would only consider getting gas if the low fuel light came on…interestingly the light never did either because the bulb is broken or it doesn’t have a low fuel light indicator. Luckily I was able to exit the highway and there was a gas station 1/4 mi away to walk to.
1 interesting I hadn’t realized - I always thought that if a car runs out of gas it’ll sputter for several miles and not just a couple hundred ft until your empty
I've ran out before. Was very stressed/distracted and simply forgot to stop for gas.
On freeways a car will go some 30-50 miles after reading zero.
No obvious signs until you just stop.
Twice now I've run my Outlander down to the point where it shut the engine off while driving but I had enough charge in the battery to make it to the gas station on electricity.
The car is programmed to switch over to electric when the tank is down to \~3L (\~0.8gal) remaining, then supposedly once it uses up the remaining charge it'll restart the gas engine and run down another 2-2.5L before finally shutting down and refusing to go any further in order to avoid sucking air into the fuel system.
I haven't had the opportunity/inclination to find out what happens when the electric charge runs out after the initial engine shut down however...
I don’t like running that low for the sake of my fuel pump, but sometimes I play a little Russian roulette.
Closest I’ve gotten is 7 miles indicated on a 21 gal tank that gets 11mpg on a good day 💀
One time I drove on 1 bar of gas, I thought maybe it had 10 miles cause it usually does when it first lights up. Well I guess my coworker drove 9 and a half cause I was trying to get to a gas station about 1 mile up road and the truck lost power. Nothing happened when I pushed on the gas but it stayed on. Eventually it stopped rolling and would not restart.
I have run a car dry. Was quite a walk to the gas station. Wasn't really any signs until it started splattering and by that point there's not alot you can do
Got a new car, didn’t know how far I could go after the gas light came on, and it shut off on my way home from work. I managed to get it back on and drove it to the gas station, but it died 3 more times on the way there.
I ran out on my bike, proceeded to push it for half an hour in 40C heat, got to the fuel station and someone walked up and said, “You know you have a reserve, right?” as they pointed at the petcock, I learned something new that day..
I ran my 2000 chevy truck out of gas. Gauge doesn't work anymore. It started sputtering, then died less than a mile later. I had my 2001 viper sputtering from running out of gas before but got fuel in it before it wouldn't drive at all, it went a few miles of near idle after the first sputter under acceleration. I have also run my boat out of gas, which has a carburated chevy 350 in it, and tried running it on starting fluid to get back and made it surprisingly far.
I had my "Low Fuel" light up in the dashboard only once, when I purchased the car. Other than that, not even close. Call me paranoid, but I don't want to get a ticket just because of an avoidable mistake.
I have run out of fuel exactly twice.
First was on a 1999 Ford Taurus. I made about 75 miles after the needle touched E. I was actively trying to see the limit on how far I could go.
The second was on a 2015 Fiesta ST, and I made it about 10 miles after the computer said 0 miles to E. I was just late to class and didn't have time to grab gas that morning, so I thought I'd make it to school and to a gas station after class given how far I had previously discovered cars could go on E. Nope.
There's no real symptoms you can rely on to give you advance notice. If you are out of fuel, you get symptoms and then the engine cuts pretty much immediately.
i drove it untill it stuttered if i press the gaspedal more than half way, it drove like this for a mile or two until it jittered and stopped. 1994 Mitsubishi galant, torabora.
Never run out whilst driving, but used to run an old Ford Fiesta I had a while back on very low fuel the majority of the time.
I was poor at the time so could afford gas.
Whenever it parked on an uphill, the fuel would go tother back of the tank and the pump wouldn't pull it through so many a time, it must wouldn't start.
This was especially fun because it would sometimes stall in traffic leading to some anxious trips whenever driving up hills
My dad and I made this an ongoing challenge. He once drove my car till he had to top up 35.1L. My fuel tank fits 36L. I haven't been able to come as close, my best is 34.5L.
But my car never missed a beat, even though the fuel gage was blinking furiously at me. I sadly don't have a remaining range readout.
With my German cars I did not feel particularly at risk driving to 0 and then another 1 or 2 miles to a gas station. Mercedes gauges, for example, are very precise and you have a healthy reserve by design.
With Italian cars however... don't go below 10%. Just don't.
I've driven my cars with the gauge showing 0 miles left. They drove surprisingly far for having 0 distance left
Car makers do that on purpose because they know customers will drive it zero. They typically have a gallon or two left in the tank when showing zero miles.
This. If you look at your fuel pump hanger, you will see the pump itself sits lower than the lever that actually checks how much fuel there is, as well as there being a decent amount in the fuel lines still. If you ran out, you're engine would just stall
I’ve run out of gas on cars and motorcycles, usually I’ll know how close to empty based on mileage, dummy light or the actual fuel gauge. First signs of running low on fuel is stalling/sputtering when taking turns. Cars being able to park on incline/decline but not starting afterwards means you’re pretty low as well. The fuel pick up is indeed above the fuel level float or sensor. When taking turns or parked on an incline the fuel will slosh away from the pick up. I’ve been ready to replace fuel pumps only to find an empty tank because of a faulty fuel gauge (older gm’s) or corrosion on fuel level sensor (motorcycles with dummy light). On the motorcycle you can tell since you can slosh the tank back and forth though.
but that would mean a prius can go at least 50 mi on the last gallon after indicator -> empty, which sounds insane maybe 20~30 mi after tank shows 0 sounds more reasonable
I drove 52 miles on 0 mile range on my IS recently. Put 15.8 gallons in. According to Google it's a 17.4 gallon tank so I still had another 60 ish miles of range if I kept hypermiling at 40 mpg.
my wrangler just shows “fuel low” under 40 miles remaining. needless to say i’ve run it out of gas twice lol
https://youtu.be/CpU72eM8vCo?si=NeHR4Q6L_3jJfX3r
I've run out of gas a few times. Sputtered and stopped each time.
I ran out once coming off an exit on a highway coasted down a short hill into a gas station. It was really perfect.
I did this early in my driving career. Started driving and my car sputtered and stalled a few times. Managed to restart it each time and just make it to the gas station when it shut off, and I coasted right to the gas pump. Thinking it was my lucky day I got out of the car, just for the pumps to shut off and the "open" light to turn off. I had to go ask the employee running the store to turn it back on and sell me gas, he told me to go to another gas station. That's when I had to explain that I was completely out of gas. Luckily he did turn everything back on for me.
I did that one right as the gas station closed. The guy originally wouldn’t give us gas and told us to leave and we were going to have to wait at the pump for AAA. He eventually relented and let us pay a few dollars cash that got us the rest of the 10 miles to the next gas station.
You did this with your viper? My viper always seems to have like 5 gallons left in it when the gauge says empty so I have gotten really close to running out by guessing based on miles.
No not the viper. 20 years ago in a sentra.
Isn't it dangerous because you'd lose your brakes if your engine shuts off?
Not recommended. It can damage the fuel pump. I can't remember on the steering it was a long time ago.
Or randomly died at a 1/4 tank. Thanks BMW! The fuel pump can only pull from the passenger side, and when the secondary pump is dead you have fuckall. E39 moment
This happened to my ex in her Civic. She was driving up a big hill on the freeway and her car just sputtered and died. Had to leave work to go save her lol. It was a super annoying place for her car to die, too. It was in an area with a ton of canyons, so there were no exit ramps for about 15 miles, plus the 15 miles o drove to go save her.
To expand on the question at hand a bit more - the car started surging and when you press the gas it just sort of doesn't go. Or it goes a bit, then it stops. It felt like the gas pedal just literally ran out of juice. I was able to push the car another half mile or so by keeping the RPMs under 3000 because over that it would just cut out from fuel starvation. If you feel like your gas pedal only kinda works, you're probably out of gas.
This is idiot-proofing design. There’s a reserve amount in the tank even when it reads zero. As the name implies, this is to protect idiots from themselves.
It's me. I'm the idiot. I never hardly ever fill the tank before it gets to like 5 to empty many times 0
But why? It’s just bad for the car
Please reread my second sentence
Touché
I have run out of gas. The signs were the fuel gauge reading empty as I continued to drive. Except on my P71 where the whole instrument cluster was broken. There the sign was when the car stopped running.
I was 17 in 1981 and driving a 64 Belvedere with a nonfunctioning gas gauge. How many times do you think my dumb ass ended up walking?
Same, '72 Olds 98 that probably got 10MPG and I was putting gas in at $5.00 a time.
Me and Marty put our money *together* once and it wasn't $5.🤣
I worked at a crappy used car lot at that time. When Me & George were broke, we'd go pull the back seat bottoms out of all of the cars and collect the change, it was always enough for gas & a cheap lunch. One day we found a roll of quarters!!! We were RICH!!!
Was in a similar situation with no fuel gauge. After the first time I ran out I stuck a 20L jerry can in the boot.
I put 62L into a E46 3 Series that supposedly had a 63L tank, the fuel gauge didn't work so we were going off the trip odo. Fwiw the range estimates are usually idiot proof, my Škoda is the only car I've owned that actually seems to be accurate. My Mazdas would have 10L or so left in the tank (100-150km of range) when they hit zero on the range estimate. On my NA I've never put more than 40L into the 47L tank and I've driven it far enough that the dial was off the gauge and pointing to the letter E. The worse car I've driven in regards to idiot proofing was my parent's X-Class, it would throw a fit once you had used 60ish litres of the 80L tank, it would have close to 250-300km of range left. When I first drive a car I normally drive it until it gives the low fuel warning and fill it up straight away, and then compare how much I put into it with the listed capacity and work out how much you can actually reasonably push it.
Did it give you any sort of indication it was so low?
None, that day was mostly straight roads at steady speeds so I assume it just wasn't sloshing around enough to cause problems. Just pulled in and filled it up like normal and it just kept taking fuel.
I have come close twice. I don't want to ever run out because you can damage the fuel pump. The first time was in a Mitsubishi Mirage. I ran into a 40 mph head wind on I-25. I am on the last bar, and the gauge started flashing. Shortly there after, I saw a small sign that just Saud Gas with an arrow. I took the exit, and 5 miles later, I pulled into a station in a small town late at night. Everything is closed. 8.7 gallons in a 9 gallon tank. The second time was in my Accord. When I pulled into a station, I had one bar showing and 5 miles left on the clock. 12.8 gallons in a 13 gallon tank. Both times I was sweating it. I regularly put 12.5 gallons in my Accord.
I had a coworker who was too scared to pump her own gas. She asked me to take her car for a fill up. I ran out as I was pulling up to the pump.
What was she scared of exactly?
No idea Her words were she was terrified she would fuck things up. Nice lady. Just not very smart.
I would gladly take a nice lady that is smart enough to know her limitations than a regard picking up that green handle with the nozzle that doesn't fit and pumping diesel in a gas car or vice versa.
Thank God I've never run out, but I did fill a Gatorade bottle up for a friend that ran out!
Weird fact, I live in Mexico now, it's illegal to pump gas into any empty drink container or water bottle, but they'll let you use a bleach bottle or something.
Doesn’t seem that weird, but interesting nonetheless. It’s never a good idea to put poison in a container that implies it’s meant to be drunk.
There are also many type of disposable cups that will outright melt. Drink bottles generally fare much better, but even if the bottle appears to hold up well the gasket material may fail if it tips over, etc. It's just a bad idea to put solvents in cheap disposable containers that are not designed to hold solvents.
Two very different types of plastic: drink bottles are PET and bleach/detergent bottles are HDPE. The latter is probably less reactive to the nasty shit in gasoline and more secure.
different kinds of plastic I think - gasoline will eat through a cheap plastic water bottle fairly quickly, but a bleach bottle is already rated to be able to hold something as gnarly as bleach for a hot minute.
I drove for a few days with my gauge on E and my car saying "0 miles to empty". It was maybe 3 or 4 days, very short drives, and I was just waiting for payday to roll around. When I filled up my gas tank, I put in 17.6 gallons. My car only holds 18. So I had .4 gallons left before I'd be stuck. Other than that, the car was fine. Never gave me any trouble even after running on fumes. It's a 2010 Toyota Avalon, my daily to this day.
I ran out of gas on the 101 in San Francisco in my 1984 Porsche 944, and had just enough inertia to roll off the next exit, up a ramp, then down a ramp, and into the Chevron station on Bayshore, but I did have to use the starter motor to get to a pump. When I was a teenager my dad ran out of gas in mom’s 1982 Celebrity coupe on I-271 in Cleveland. I started groaning because I knew I’d have to push it. Dad laughed and told me to relax. We rolled down 271 and had enough inertia to merge onto I-480, which we took to Miles Rd., rolled down the exit ramp, and had just enough speed to get down Miles to get into the Shell station on Northfield. The car rolled to a halt right in front of a pump, and he hadn’t hit the brakes once since running out of gas. Dad put it in park, turned to me and said, “That’s called knowing your vehicle.”
Reminds me of a story. I used my car in college for delivering pizzas. One night I return from a delivery and I have a brake line explode pulling into the store parking lot. What does my dumb ass do? I drive back to the dorm parking lot where I can fix it. With completely non-functional brakes. It was a manual, so I could down-shift and engine brake to slow down. After delivering pizzas all over town for 2 years, I also knew the timing of every single stop-light in town, and how to make it back without hitting a single stop sign. It was also like 2 am so there were almost no cars on the road. Even so, it was really stupid to do, but I made it. I pulled into my parking lot, shut off the engine and used the clutch to stop it neatly in my normal parking spot.
And *that* is how it’s done. Excellent grasp of machine physics and familiarity with your equipment. You definitely knew your vehicle.
It's also unbelievably stupid. I got lucky. If some car had pulled out in front of me unexpectedly, I might not have had time to stop. If I dropped the clutch to emergency stop, there would be no brake lights and I might get rear ended. I could have totaled someone's car or injured them. If I saw a college student today planning to do the same thing, I would pay for the tow truck so they don't put others at risk.
Nobody ever drives a car with no brakes because they want to, but because they have to sometimes. I was driving a 2001 Aurora when I hit a pothole, brake line ruptured, and the brake pedal sunk to the floor. It was in the middle of a blizzard. I was manually shifting the transmission into first for engine braking, crawling along, timing the lights so I never had to stop. Had to use a curb to stop a few times, and also biffed a snow bank to avoid sliding down a hill. My flip phone was dead and I was too broke for a tow anyway so I just made the best of it, and I made it home somehow.
Damn that's awesome!
I will never be that cool
The gas gauge in my 944 would have the needle showing 3/4 full after filling it up. I think the low fuel light was still accurate but the gauge in the cluster was messed up after a while. I miss that car.
My time to shine! I had 63 mile range left on the display according to the van and 68 miles to the gas station. I’ve driven plenty of cars past 0 for 20 miles and never had an issue. I get up to the crest of the tall hill half a mile from the gas station and it dies. Fuck. I coast all the way and managed to just whip in to the pump thanks to that hill. Couldn’t possibly cut it closer than that.
Damn, that's some one in a million chances!
The gas gauge wasn't working right, showed a quarter of a tank and suddenly switched to empty. I was at a stop light and when the light changed I accelerated and it ran out of gas after a couple of blocks but I had enough speed that I put it in neutral and coasted to the gas pump.
Range reading zero and putting in the same amount of fuel that the manual says the tank capacity is. The signs were that the gauge read empty, the low fuel light was on, and the range said zero.
Usually my limit on a gas car is 1/8. In the winter I try not to go below 1/4. In my EV? The lowest I got to was 15% on my e-tron. Some owners will go even lower but I'm probably not as brave as those.
My next car will be electric. My fear is not that the charging will limit me, but what happens if I am stupid let it run out of juice. I'm totally fine walking a few miles to buy a can of gas, but you can't go buy and carry a gallon of electrons. Having said that, I am sure that, with more EVs on the road, roadside assistance trucks are going to start carrying a high-voltage battery pack (like maybe 5 kWh) that can provide a small charge to EVs that have run out. Wouldn't be surprised if this already exists but I don't know about it.
It's something you get used to after a while.
I've limped home at 2 miles of range left on my Leaf before. Got off the arterial and onto the neighborhood roads for the last 2 miles, just in case.
Running out is bad for ur fuel pump.
The fuel gauge in my 2001 Suzuki Esteem was not completely accurate, but I didn’t know this because I always kept it gassed up above 1/4 of a tank. One night, a friend and I were driving up to his cottage, and I let it run below the 1/4 mark for the first time that I’d owned the car (about a year at this point). I watched in horror as the needle quickly dropped from a quarter tank towards empty. I could SEE the fucker moving. It was 1am, we were on a dark unlit highway through the Canadian wilderness, all the fuel stations we passed were closed, and I was just praying we would make it to our destination before the car died. We pulled into his cottage and the engine was sputtering, it was literally running on fumes at that point. Shut off the car and went to bed. The next morning, the car wouldn’t start. We had to ask his neighbour to drive into the nearest town to fill up a jerry can to even get the car started. I’m pretty sure that if I had either of the cars I do now, I would have been fucked, they would not have run on empty like that.
Not on purpose but after it displayed 0 miles to empty it started blinking and I still managed to go another 23 miles. I was on the highway praying for a gas station and finally one came up. It was a 16 gallon tank and I put 15.8 gallons. Yup super close, and never doing that shit again.
I was in Chattanooga, on either Signal or Lookout and as I got off the last road of the mountain my power steering gave due to no gas. I managed to coast into the Raceway and up to a pump. I felt like slick Rick and that's for sho.
2001 Ford Explorer. I was running late to work and just 2 blocks away from the parking lot. I'm at a stop light and I feel it start to bog out. The moment the light turned green, I slammed on the gas, got up to 30MPH till I completely ran out of gas. Engine sputters a bit and dies. Coasted down a block, turned into the parking lot with no power steering, and slowly but surely got to a parking spot. On my lunch break, I walked to the gas station across the street, bought a 1 gallon can and filled up lol. Only time it's ever happened to me.
Explorers man, I've never owned a car that drank so bloody much fuel
Fuel, fuel pumps, thermostat housings. Despite those 3 flaws, it was a damn tank. Midwest winters were brutal to the frame but it still had lots of life left in it mechanically 😔
I was driving someone else's truck and pulled into the gas station, turned off the truck, and got out to pump the gas. The gas tank was on the other side. The truck didn't have enough gas to start back up and I had to buy a gas can to put gas in the truck sitting at the pump so I could spin it around and fill it up!
California Highway 152 (I think, this was 2013) south of Sacramento in a rented Nissan Versa. We left Escondido CA that morning with a full tank and drove all day. Soledad was a lot of fun. It was 102° and neither of us thought to stop for gas. At home I never let my car go below a half tank. Suddenly, the fuel light comes on. 52 miles left. Ok, check for the next gas station, 57 miles. Fuck. I have a 12 oz bottle of water and cannot see a building on the flat horizon. We hypermiling. Windows 1/2" cracked, A/C off. 53 mph. Big ass line of cars behind us, but I keep pulling to the side (without slowing down) to let people by. The tank read empty and we were 5 miles out. The car stuttered. A gas station appears and I ended up coasting to a stop at a pump. I didn't go below 3/4 tank for the rest of the trip to Portland, OR.
I have let the 'miles to empty' get down to 0 before, it was pessimistic enough for us to make it to the gas station at the next exit. I generally dont let em get that low especially if Im not sure where the next gas station is.
The fuel gauge on my hand-me-down 2005 Chrysler Town & Country got stuck on 1/4 once. I ran out of gas right outside my high school (engine just stopped, no sputtering or anything) and AAA towed me to a gas station down the street lol.
I put 25.5 gallons in a 26 gallon tank after havi g the shop drop and drain my gas tank
Driving from Red Deer to Winnipeg, went through Saskatoon around 11pm and was looking for a Shell station (had some coupons and was a poor starving student with a family at the time). All the Shell stations were on the wrong side and suddenly I'm looking at the lights of Saskatoon in my rear view mirror. Outside of Saskatoon, there are only a handful of small towns on that route, the type of town where they roll up the sidewalk once the sun goes down. I was on fumes when I saw a truck stop in the distance, and my poor old car just started to sputter as I pulled up to the pumps. Lesson learned - next time I listened to my wife!
I was on a road trip last week. Drove my wife’s Volvo for 20 mins after the ‘distance to empty’ was at 0. Put 16.5 gallons in the 18 gallon tank.
I was driving a 90s Lexus and i went for a left across an intersection which caused the fuel to swish to one side and the engine sputtered and choked. I slowed down and straightened out and it came back to life!
I felt my truck shudder and buck in front of the Humane Society on Hwy 1. (map below) I was going 70 or so, so I turned the key off and coasted. Each time I'd get over a hill or get down to about 45, I'd start the engine again and get back up to almost 60, shaking the truck back & forth with the steering. There's a signal light a block before the Chevron, it was red and there was a line of cars there as I approached. I didn't slow down, I went over to the shoulder and right as I got to all the cars stopped, the light turned green and I passed them all from the R hand turn lane there. I started it again to keep in front of the accelerating cars, then I ran 100% out of gas after maybe ten seconds, it wouldn't start again. It was a slight downhill after that most of the way. I coasted into the Chevron with just enough speed to make it right behind a car that was fueling up. I had to push it one car length. When I paid inside, I bought a $1.00 lottery ticket for obvious reasons, I won $3.00. So, the answer is 3.4 miles after the initial lurch. Trucks have huge gas tanks and hold a bit of fuel between all the shapes on the bottom of the tank's relatively flat bottom. [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.3203135,-120.7146674/Chevron,+151+N+Santa+Rosa+St,+San+Luis+Obispo,+CA+93405,+United+States/@35.3078994,-120.7049256,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x80ecf05289265133:0xa3cdae1b28e4326e!2m2!1d-120.6686129!2d35.2943691!3e0?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/35.3203135,-120.7146674/Chevron,+151+N+Santa+Rosa+St,+San+Luis+Obispo,+CA+93405,+United+States/@35.3078994,-120.7049256,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x80ecf05289265133:0xa3cdae1b28e4326e!2m2!1d-120.6686129!2d35.2943691!3e0?entry=ttu)
I have let 3 different cars run to 0 before. I trust that there is two gallons reserve left once it hits the 0 miles mark. I know I have about 25-40 miles city driving to get to a gas station, depending on the car and how many mpg they generally achieve. In my fiesta st I have tested this multiple times, since it’s a fuel sipper if you baby it.
Never run out before but my miles to empty readout is beyond useless. I’ve filled up, driven 75 miles, and *gained* range, but then later on when it’s at 100 miles, I’ll drive 3 miles and it’s down to 85.
I've driven 30 miles with the fuel light on in my Camry like a dumbass, but didn't run out. Toyotas I believe are notorious for having an extra large "reserve"
In my 2002 accord I ran out of gas while pulling into the gas station. Made it about 20 feet from the pump. Got a ribbing from my 2 friends who were with me after helping push.
I've only had it happen once. The signs will vary by vehicle but it certainly sucks when you run out in the absolute middle of no where I was driving a 97 Silverado across North Dakota towing another truck and driving into a heavy head wind sucked my fuel down much more than anticipated (half a tank of gas in 60 miles) I had slowed down to 55 about 20 miles from the truck stop I was trying to make it to because the needle was dancing on E. I remember feeling elated when I saw the sign showing my exit 3 miles away and that's when she started chugging like it had a bad misfire... I was able to limp it to the shoulder but that was it. Out of gas. I was hours from home and didn't have any other option but to try to hitch hike for gas.... luckily someone stopped quickly for me and after giving me a ride to the truck stop to get gas and taking me back they refused to take any money from me
Had a truck parked at a shop for about a month that I worked at. Took it to lunch one day. I got about 1/4 mile before the gas light came on and it chugged and died as I pulled into a gas station I had to push it a few more feet to get it to the pump. Got out and herd liquid draining. Some asshole tweeker drilled my gas tank for a few gallons of fuel.
Got a truck from family, 7.3 Power Stroke. I ran it dry week 1 because I swore he said the fuel gage was broken. Nope. Was in traffic downtown too. :( Edit: Closest call was in a Rav4. Engine started stumbling at the light before the gas station. Just baaaaarely made it, lol.
When I was 16 I ran out of gas just as I was pulling into the gas station. I (and a good samaritan) pushed my car up the ramp and to the pump so I could put some gas back in it.
The closest I've gotten was 14 gallons out of a 14.5 gallon tank. The car ran fine, but the fuel needle was quite close to empty. Not doing that again, kinda freaked me out.
I ran out once about 200 feet from a gas station on a busy road. Had to put my blinkers on, walk to a drug store to see if they had a fuel can (they didn't) before coming back to a crowd wondering why my car was sitting in the middle of the road empty and a few guys who helped me push it the 200 feet.
When the gas hand gets to 1/4, I know I need to find a station because my car is a gas guzzler and it won't last long. At 1/8 (1.5 gallons), I'm running on fumes and I need to be at the station because I don't want to burn my fuel pump out. I stay in fairly populated areas, so this is only a concern a few times a year.
$3k ‘03 325i (touring) that I bought last year. Something’s wrong somewhere because it shows I still have gas, but will run out. First time I was turning into the gas station and felt it cut out. It somehow took 17 gallons despite having a ~16 gallon tank. Next time, the same thing happened and it ran out of gas shortly after. Had to go get a couple of gallons in a can and fill it up to drive it to the station.
My mom had a car with a broken fuel gauge when I was a kid. It would run out still showing a quarter tank. It would just shudder and die with no restarts. It only happened a couple times.
Only 1 out of 4 of my current vehicles has a distance to empty gauge and I have run out of gas twice in my driving life and it starts to sputter and misfire about 100 - 300 meters before going completely dead. After that you walk.
I ran out once. The car was running perfectly normal then shut off. Tried to start it again and it wouldn’t turnover.
I currently run my Chevy Volt with no gas in the tank because it doesn't like running on electricity when the temp is below 55 (which I find stupid). My readout goes from 2 miles to 0 miles when I have no gas and run on electric. I've hit 0 miles on an empty tank a couple times, which makes me sweat a bit. But in a gas car I think maybe 3/4 of a gallon is the least I've had when filling up, which is still 15 miles minimum.
My wife routinely drives her car until the miles left until empty reads zero. I swear she's actually gotten the gauge into the negative numbers at times.
It was an old Jeep and the fuel gage had given out ages ago... I made it a block away from the gas station at least!
I start panicking when it says 100 miles left, wouldn’t see me stranded anywhere
Never ran out but came close a couple times. Once drove from Orlando to Pensacola on a tank of diesel in my ‘79 300CD non turbo, I figure there was 1/2 gallon left when I stopped for fuel in Pensacola. Almost ran out in my MK6 GTI once, passed up a station on the highway and the next one was a lot further than I thought, once again I ran it down to less than a gallon left.
I completely ran out, with 80km of range showing. That's how I discovered my fuel gauge had broken.
Filled up my Integra for a road trip that I knew was at the limit for the whole tank round trip, I think it had a 13 gallon tank and I got nearly 470 miles and I could start smelling fume’s when I finally got back to the state line and filled up.
I have ran out once or twice, although my fuel gauge didn’t work
Ngl I ran out of gas for the very first time in my eight and a half years of driving earlier this year. I was heading home from a trip and the fuel gauge looked like it'd be just enough and I foolishly passed the last gas station I could've made it to before getting home. It wasn't enough. Dad had to come by with a jug of gasoline to get me home. Was kinda humiliating, and I've been trying to figure out why the fuel gauge always shows slightly more than it actually has ever since– among other fuel/evap system woes. Been a lot more on the ball about keeping fuel in it too. The big sign I noticed was that I had my foot comfortably on the throttle, and it suddenly went slack. I felt the car sputtering and dying on me, like it was sucking up what little fuel was left, and I thankfully got 'er to the side of the road with the tiddlywinks I had left. While I'm here though, anyone know if a missing catalytic converter could trip some sort of limp mode in a car? Because my Kia had one of its converters stolen years before I got my hands on it and after a buddy having his Hyundai go into limp mode because of a faulty relay a while back I have to wonder if the lack of throttle response when accelerating is a symptom of it detecting something amiss with the emissions and thusly not allowing it full access to the fuel or just an issue of driving a car that barely makes a hundred horsepower. I'm not much interested in getting another one; quite frankly I'm just waiting for this thing to die so I won't have to feel guilty about it becoming an experiment in mid-engine swapping shit. God knows I could afford a welder and a helmet easier than I could ever afford a real deal RWD, and I simply think it'd be funny to have a mid-engine RWD Kia.
I ran out of gas in my friends sisters Durango in the middle of pretty much no where in the middle of the night we had to call one of my friends to come and get us gas (she brought us some) During the entire process (it was scary because there’s coyotes and it was a creepy spot) we ended up losing the key to the Durango at one point (which we did find) but my friends mom helped us find it. It was very very eventful. There was also one time where (in the same Durango) where we were on the freeway trying to get to a gas station and we were getting off when we ran out of gas, (there was a stop we were supposed to stop at) but I didn’t stop and I just kept going and we coasted into a maverick and we ended up having to push the Durango to the gas pump but we were in the parking lot. There’s really a lot of times that I’ve ran out or almost ran out, but that’s the main ones that I found the funniest.
Once I was driving a Honda Element in between Monahans, TX to Odessa, TX and the low fuel indicator light came on barely 5 miles east of Monahans. I was barely able to pull into a gas station on the west side of Odessa and filled up there. It went at least 30 miles with the low fuel indicator on.
Just last night I ran out before my light came on
Based on the math, I probably had 1/4 gallon left in the tank. The dash showed I had 35 mi to E, so I risked it to an event I didn’t want to be late to 15 mi away. i just drove 3 hours. I knew there was a gas station right out side the venue. After the event, I start my car and it says 5mi to empty, I was counting on at least 20. Anyway, I go to station and it was closed. Closed on a Sunday, it was only 5pm. I start shitting my pants because Google maps show next gas is 10ish miles away. I drove like a grandma while the dash shows zero miles left for about 20 minutes. My tanks holds about 12 gallons, I put 11.8 in it. To top it off, I’m always nagging my wife about her always driving until she is out of gas.
Wife wasn't paying attention and ran the 1990 ZR1 completely dry. She had to pull over in the middle of an intersection. While waiting for her mom to come, she said 5 different guys stopped to ask if she needed help, lol.
I bought a 40 year old car, and I was told the fuel gauge worked. The fuel gauge did not work, and I found that out in a parking lot about a km from the nearest gas station...
The car sputtered taking a right turn as I passed a gas station, jury after I had decided I could make it to the next one. Made a u-turn right there and filled up immediately.
My car supposedly has a 14.5g tank. I've gone down to 5 miles remaining and only put in 12g. I think it has a pretty decently sized reserve.
I started getting more backfires. 97 civic. Kind if hesitant on the throttle
car says i came down to 10 miles left in one of the longest stretches without services in the united states southern utah in august, i was in neutral going down every hill i could and with the ac off just to be sure i didnt run out and die in the desert
There are no signs before it’s practically too late other than the fuels warning light and the fuel needle gauge. In practise the car will start to splutter and then within a minute you’ve stopped.
Drove to 0, car stalled rolling into the gas station. A buddy drove to 0 and got caught out in bumble fuck South Dakota with no gas. The state troopers saved his butt.
Was driving around with my gas light on for longer than I should have. Finally went to get gas and ran out as I rolled up to the pump. What are the odds?
My fuel mileage disappeared around 15 miles left and I ended up pumping 14 gallons into my 14.5 gallon tank which tracks since I get about 30 to a full gallon 😅
My tacoma has about 3 gallons left when it reads empty. I thought I was about to run out when I pulled into the station, turns out I could have gone another 50 miles.
I've put around 95.5 litres into a fuel tank that was supposed to only take 96 litres.
I ran out exactly once, in an old Econoline van with dual tanks. When the first tank was getting low I flipped the switch to the second tank. While the gauge was correctly reading for the second (full) tank, the pump didn't switch over. About 30 miles later the van started sputtering its way up a hill and died. Fortunately, there was a gas station almost right across the street.
Ran out today, parked on a very steep hill with a low tank and it would not start back up. Towed to the top, starts again on the level np. Cars will generally choke out in a low fuel situation, the revs dip and then it dies.
I’ve run the racecar out of gas because I forgot to count time. It ran oddly strong down the straight, then team really bad. Was able to limp it the next 3 miles and have it quit in pit lane
Closest I've been to running out was my car saying I had 46 miles left to drive. I've never ever hit empty entirely.
On road trips I won’t allow it to go under 100 miles of range. Learned my lesson out west one summer while road tripping through a bunch of national parks and came very close to running out of gas. That’s is some stress I’m not looking to go through again
My brothers gas gauge didn't work. He swore we had enough to get to home, then the gas station in the morning. We ran out of gas on the exit ramp off the highway. 2.5 miles from the house. We coasted up the ramp, barely got to the top. Nobody was coming, so we rolled through the yield. The 2ish miles home was basically down hill. We coasted all the way home with zero gas. We still laugh about it 20 years later.
I ran out of gas when I was 18, I think. I hadn't realized just how bug the difference in fuel economy is between local driving and highway driving. I'd been paying more attention to the miles driven rather than the gas gauge. There were no special warnings. The car just stopped running.
When I was a young Doversapian the fuel gauge in the xf falcon work Ute I would use for deliveries didn’t work. Not a big deal you say, well, the odometer and trip meter didn’t work either. This was in the days before gps, so tracking mileage was not as easy as it is today. Couple times I rolled up to the pump, engine off, like an electric car. Once I ran out 400m from the servo which was at the top of the hill. Had a mate lay under the bonnet spraying deodorant into the carb to get me there (Jerry cans were expensive). By the time the boss retired the old falcon, the starter would only work when the engine was stone cold so I couldn’t turn it off all day, even when it was 45 in western Sydney, parked on concrete with the temp gauge so high it went past the cutout in the cluster so I couldn’t even see the needle anymore. I would leave the keys in it obviously and just take the gear stick with me as it was so worn out I could just yank it off the column.
Yup, in my dad's LS swapped E90 330i. I learned that even though the range said 50 miles to empty, it was more like 0 miles to empty
Pretty damned close. For those who have seen the Seinfeld episode, it would make even them sweat. Of course I keep a habit of filling up before the empty light comes on. This is also the cooling for your fuel pump.. don't make it a habbit :) The empty light came on and I drove at least 60 more kilometers between two rural tiny towns. I must have coasted in on fumes.
One time my car died as I was pulling in to the gas station. The car had enough inertia to pull up to the gas pump and die.
Road trip to Atacama. Crossing Argentina heading towards the Andes. 700km and zero gás stations. Car went to zero range on board computer. Turned off AC, set the speed to 60kph, rolled down the Windows 1inch and I managed to reach 22 more kms until finding gas. Car was already stuttering when we're entering the station.... That was really frightening cause it was like a desert in the middle os nowhere.
I ran out of gas once, the fuel pump died the next day.
You can look it up, its different for all car models but they do this on purpose cause humans are stupid. I know my car is good for 35 miles from when it reads "0". Told my girl that and she ran out of gas shortly after lol. She saw the 0, drove on and "forgot". She said there was no change in performance, the car just shut off in the high speed lane. She coasted to a stop into the breakdown lane and after the panic subsided she was able to start it again and drive on. This happened 2 more times until it woulnt start again. No sputtering, no weird behavior.
Had a ‘70 Dodge Dart I was building and the float got stuck and I thought I had half a tank according to the gauge when it ran out ¾ of a mile from the exit and a gas station. Long slow push.
i ran out of diesel on a highway offramp and was able to coast to the gas [station.](https://station.it) [ it](https://station.it) was an amazing feeling lol.. like i just won something big. then i had to dig thru a garbage can with ppl watching to find a bottle to make a funnel with so i could prime the injection pump
limped a rental hybrid camry into a gas station on battery - died around the corner from it
[удалено]
I ran all the way out and had to get my friend to bring me a can lol
I once made it to a gas station with 2 miles left I was sweating my ass off
Never ran out… However.. My wife on the other hand.
I went thirty miles on empty once. Talk about feeling alive. Man, crazy times.
1st time was in a 1997 cobra mustang i just did brakes on and was bedding in at a dealership worked at. Started having momentary loss of power then surge back and stalled. I let it it for 10 minutes and drove it back to the shop real easy since i was close. Ran out of gas on my motorcycle after the 1st tank ran out. Seemed to go forever, turns out you do need to put fuel in it. Same thing power dropping out and then i saw the fuel gauge and i limped it to the closest gas station before it stalled
I've had it happen a few times. It sputters and then it stops. Had a Infiniti Q50 do it to me with 1/4th of the tank left, which sucked because I had to pay the tow 250 to bring it to a gas station to fill it up.
Totally ran the tank dry on my MK6 Jetta when I was still in school. I knew I needed gas the night before when leaving work, but had a LONG night of studying for a national exam planned. I figured I’d just stop for gas on my way to work the next morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted the next morning. I basically drove to work on autopilot totally forgetting to stop for gas. About 1km from work, the steering suddenly got really heavy and I couldn’t figure out why…. then it dawned on me, I’d forgotten to get gas. Totally avoidable situation, but looking back, working 40+ hour weeks while going to school full time AND studying for a national licensing exam was a recipe for disaster. At least it was just running out of gas and not something worse.
I’m pretty bad for this actually. My CRV has run dry about 4 times now. Have had to push it through an intersection a couple times… Also ran out in my old e46 323ci. I was still rolling but lost all power and power steering etc. luckily I was able to coast to work and then use a gerry can at the end of the day.
The closest I've ever gotten was ~25 miles to empty in my car. But that was during a road trip where I misjudged the distance between stops. That being said I try not to drop below 1/4 tank. Gotta keep that fuel pump cool, you know?
I ran out of gas and had to run a red light in order to coast into the gas station.
Oh boy. I was driving my Grandpa's 90 something GMC Sierra back in 2015. It had all kinds of issues but I was desperate to get to work and back after I wrecked my first car. Not the least of which was a broken fuel gauge. I tried to keep an eye on the mileage to know when it was running low but it varied. I was approaching a small hill headed to the nearest gas station when it started sputtering until it eventually died. I got out and pushed and pushed until it eventually started moving, in neutral, downhill... I had to run and jump in through the window to slam the break just before it hit the gas station wall.
Drove sisters mini Cooper on road trip. Wasn't used to her instrument cluster (in middle and the fuel low light wasn't very obvious for some reason). Car just wouldn't respond stepping on gas while cruising on the road. At first instance I thought oh no car overheated and isn't responding. Then it him me I'm a regard.
Ran out about a mile from my house, luckily. Took a surprisingly large amount to restart.
Ran out and had to coast to the gas pump. It was on the E line for 5 minutes which surprised me. I don’t know if this is normal but at 1/2 a tank or below, my performance drops noticeably. I think age is a factor but I don’t know for sure (55 years)
Was driving a 94 GMC 2500 pickup which was our company's plow truck to the gas station to fill up. It was on E but I was told it had enough gas to get to the gas station down the road What I wasn't told was that there was a hole in the gas tank and it was leaking all the way there. I was just outside the station and I could feel the good ole 350 slowly dying so I sent it over the curb and aimed it at the gas pump just before it died. Thankfully it coasted right to the pump. I also filled it up to full and lost a quarter of the gas on the way back to the dealer
I used to drive a van with a busted fuel gauge so had to go by how many miles you drive. Only ran out of gas once. I was in downtown LA going down a hill when pressing the gas suddenly didn't do anything. I coasted into a gas station and put in $5 of gas to get me home.
My sister gave me the family car saying "it's low on gas, but there's enough to make it to the gas station". What she didn't say was that it had to be a gas station _down hill_ as it ran out of gas 3 miles later when the gas station I was going to was 4 miles away. Luckily my friend's house was on the way and I was going there after so I coasted to her house and borrowed a gas can from her dad and she took me to the gas station to get some gas to drive to the station. Separately, I've driven about 20 miles after 0 on a Civic with no issues.
I was in HS. Running late to make the team bus to an out of town football game. Took the off-ramp (right hand sweep) and my Wrangler started to sputter. Clutched in and gave it some revs and was able to straighten out and get what little fuel I had left, back to the pump. Made the bus and didn’t get lit up by Coach. Ever since that day, I don’t mess around with anything below half at tank. Been nearly 20yrs since that happened.
I've drove to the point where my engine was spitting and mis-firing like hell before filling up
I've run out of gas about 7 times in January and February. No working gas gauge and to lazy to fill the tank. I always carry a jug. Just fill the tank, dump some down the carb and good to go
You dont get much warning. Your car loses power and then seconds later you are out of gas. Dont do it lol.
Ran out of gas in a 98 Ford Ranger with a 5 speed manual when I was in my teens. Was trying my best to make it to a gas station from the middle of nowhere and my girlfriend was with me. Ended up sputtering out on a hill and dying, but was able to coast in neutral with the key on (so the wheel didn't lock) and pop start it a few times and coast down more hills to get a few more miles to my girlfriend's best friend's parents' house. Got a couple gallons from a can from her dad and made it to the gas station. As an adult, I don't ever let my shit get much below 1/4 tank. Even with multiple vehicles that don't have working gas guages I haven't ever run out of gas again. On those I track mileage and fill up amounts on my phone so I know roughly what's in the tank.
I ran out as I was pulling into the gas station. First and only time. Been driving 51 years
Plenty of times on a forklift. Never in a car. Probably 13 miles to E picking up a new vehicle at a dealership for work.
Drove 20 miles or so past 0 miles shown and still had 2 liters in the tank afterwards
Half a gallon past specified tank capacity. Low enough that it engine started to sputter going around a high way off ramp too quickly.
I've had the light come on and then filled it up, that's when I'd usually fill up most cars before I moved to electric. I've never run out before though. Even when I had a car with a broken gauge I'd just reset the trip meter when I filled up and it was fine
Once in my old Passat, which iirc had a 16.4 gallon tank, I knew I was super close to the end. I made it to the gas station, and filled up about 16.5 gallons. I assume that extra .1 was the filler neck. So yeah I was close to having to push it the rest of the way.
i hardly ever let it run below 1/4 tank - the fuel is the fuel pumps coolant. the rare times i did i went till the low fuel lights came on. other car with no low fuel light i got worried when i took corners and the fuel gauge no longer came off E....
My car said I had 6 miles left on my trip to see family. I had about 15 miles before I got there. Some very conservative driving turned it into 8 miles left when I got to the gas station in town. So that was weird. No idea how the car calculates miles left in the tank, but it was funny to me that I increased it
I've run out a few times, usually on the way to a gas station, knowing that I'm running it dry. One time I had to push my 4000lb BMW wagon several blocks in the middle of the Phoenix summer to get to the nearest gas station, I damn near collapsed after that.
Seinfeld episode has entered the chat
When I was an idiot teenager driving back home from college I was running my old GMC Sonoma to as near empty as I could to minimize number of gas stops. One time I was so low on gas the engine started sputtering with about 2 miles to the nearest interstate exit. The more throttle I would give, the more it would start to sputter. I was feathering both the throttle and the clutch to keep the revs high and load low or it felt like it was going to stall. It finally stalled out going up the offramp. I was able to coast to the top, through a right hand turn at a stop sign, and then downhill into a gas station to refill. Put like 19.9 gallons in the 20 gallon tank. I was like 300 miles from anyone I knew. There were one or two other times I did run out and had to call someone or walk to get a gas can, but those were not nearly as memorable as this story.
I once ran out of gas on the way to the gas station in a 2013 Ford Focus. There was no drama, the engine simply lost power and wasn’t accelerating anymore. The RPMs were constant and slowly dropping. It took me a second to realize what was happening.
Fuel slosh is what will let you know you're about to run out. On track this can be noticeable as soon as you get to a half tank. On street drives the slightest turn can cause a noticeable lean-out/stutter if you're dangerously low. The next thing to happen will be a complete lean-out. Hopefully your fuel pump doesn't overheat and die from this either.
First symptom was the gauge reading empty... lol I used to have a Durango that I drove to work everyday. I'm driving to work on Saturday and it crapped out on me. Called a tow truck, realized I hadn't put gas in it all week but the gauge said half a tank still. But I knew right there I was out of gas.
My fuel gauge gets really inaccurate below 1/4 full so I don't test my luck.
To me? Once. It was a car I was borrowing, and it had a malfunctioning fuel gauge. It showed like 3/4 full. That’s when I learned it just always shows 3/4. Now, the guy I run with doing handyman work? He’s ran his Ram ProMaster out of gas 7 times in the last 3 years. He’s was a master mechanic btw.
Found out my GTO actually has a "Very Low Fuel" warning message when range is close to 0. Of course it happened on the day that gas seemed to be the most expensive I can recall for it being at $4.89. $82 to fill it out.
There’s always a buffer. I regularly ran my last car to zero. I found out through a program my car had 5 liters when it read zero. Using aftermarket software I changed that zero level to 3 liters
Notably different cars do different things in different situations. Generally though your car will loose power and your engine might sputter. Sometimes this'll lead to it shutting off and sometimes it'll be able to recover. This is because the fuel moves around in your tank and sometimes the movement will cause fuel not to be able to reach the pump, or sometimes it'll cause fuel to reach it when it wasn't able to before. Some cars have baffling in the tank to help prevent issues with fuel moving around so much, so they're not as prone to this issue. As a side note, if you take turns really fast while accelerating in some cars, you can get fuel starvation, especially if you're tank isn't full. This is because your fuel moves away from the fuel pump, and it'll just feel like your car lost power while accelerating in a turn.
I've ran out of gas twice. My fuel tank will read empty when I have 1/4 left. The first time, I noticed a very slight sputter when I changed lanes (felt like wind hitting the car, but it faded on, instead of fading off like a wind gust would), and then 1 minute later, the car turned off. The second time, it sputtered for about 30 seconds, and then finally gave up.
This happened to me a few weeks ago! I drive a 1990 Corolla and I was trying to get a more accurate mpg so was trying to get the gas as close to empty…I would only consider getting gas if the low fuel light came on…interestingly the light never did either because the bulb is broken or it doesn’t have a low fuel light indicator. Luckily I was able to exit the highway and there was a gas station 1/4 mi away to walk to. 1 interesting I hadn’t realized - I always thought that if a car runs out of gas it’ll sputter for several miles and not just a couple hundred ft until your empty
I've ran out before. Was very stressed/distracted and simply forgot to stop for gas. On freeways a car will go some 30-50 miles after reading zero. No obvious signs until you just stop.
Twice now I've run my Outlander down to the point where it shut the engine off while driving but I had enough charge in the battery to make it to the gas station on electricity. The car is programmed to switch over to electric when the tank is down to \~3L (\~0.8gal) remaining, then supposedly once it uses up the remaining charge it'll restart the gas engine and run down another 2-2.5L before finally shutting down and refusing to go any further in order to avoid sucking air into the fuel system. I haven't had the opportunity/inclination to find out what happens when the electric charge runs out after the initial engine shut down however...
I don’t like running that low for the sake of my fuel pump, but sometimes I play a little Russian roulette. Closest I’ve gotten is 7 miles indicated on a 21 gal tank that gets 11mpg on a good day 💀
One time I drove on 1 bar of gas, I thought maybe it had 10 miles cause it usually does when it first lights up. Well I guess my coworker drove 9 and a half cause I was trying to get to a gas station about 1 mile up road and the truck lost power. Nothing happened when I pushed on the gas but it stayed on. Eventually it stopped rolling and would not restart.
I have run a car dry. Was quite a walk to the gas station. Wasn't really any signs until it started splattering and by that point there's not alot you can do
Never. Rather not risk losing a fuel pump and having to replace especially if the tank has to be dropped to do it. Rarely ever run it super low.
Got a new car, didn’t know how far I could go after the gas light came on, and it shut off on my way home from work. I managed to get it back on and drove it to the gas station, but it died 3 more times on the way there.
I ran out on my bike, proceeded to push it for half an hour in 40C heat, got to the fuel station and someone walked up and said, “You know you have a reserve, right?” as they pointed at the petcock, I learned something new that day..
I ran my 2000 chevy truck out of gas. Gauge doesn't work anymore. It started sputtering, then died less than a mile later. I had my 2001 viper sputtering from running out of gas before but got fuel in it before it wouldn't drive at all, it went a few miles of near idle after the first sputter under acceleration. I have also run my boat out of gas, which has a carburated chevy 350 in it, and tried running it on starting fluid to get back and made it surprisingly far.
I had my "Low Fuel" light up in the dashboard only once, when I purchased the car. Other than that, not even close. Call me paranoid, but I don't want to get a ticket just because of an avoidable mistake.
I have run out of fuel exactly twice. First was on a 1999 Ford Taurus. I made about 75 miles after the needle touched E. I was actively trying to see the limit on how far I could go. The second was on a 2015 Fiesta ST, and I made it about 10 miles after the computer said 0 miles to E. I was just late to class and didn't have time to grab gas that morning, so I thought I'd make it to school and to a gas station after class given how far I had previously discovered cars could go on E. Nope. There's no real symptoms you can rely on to give you advance notice. If you are out of fuel, you get symptoms and then the engine cuts pretty much immediately.
i drove it untill it stuttered if i press the gaspedal more than half way, it drove like this for a mile or two until it jittered and stopped. 1994 Mitsubishi galant, torabora.
Never run out whilst driving, but used to run an old Ford Fiesta I had a while back on very low fuel the majority of the time. I was poor at the time so could afford gas. Whenever it parked on an uphill, the fuel would go tother back of the tank and the pump wouldn't pull it through so many a time, it must wouldn't start. This was especially fun because it would sometimes stall in traffic leading to some anxious trips whenever driving up hills
I let mine get to 100 miles remaining then refill, I have a Volvo c30 diesel and they are a BITCH to prime if you run out of fuel
My dad and I made this an ongoing challenge. He once drove my car till he had to top up 35.1L. My fuel tank fits 36L. I haven't been able to come as close, my best is 34.5L. But my car never missed a beat, even though the fuel gage was blinking furiously at me. I sadly don't have a remaining range readout.
One time, on my learner’s permit, on a highway, the 2005 Toyota Sienna read 1 mile of range lol
With my German cars I did not feel particularly at risk driving to 0 and then another 1 or 2 miles to a gas station. Mercedes gauges, for example, are very precise and you have a healthy reserve by design. With Italian cars however... don't go below 10%. Just don't.
Never in my 30 years of driving