How far your car gets after the fuel warning light?

veryangryman

Wondering about this - ive never been unlucky enough to run out of juice, but today i chanced an extra 40KM odd to goto a preferable petrol station.

I think my record for ignoring the light is 70KM or so. How far is it supposed to bring you?

FYI The cars a Seat Ibiza 1.2 petrol. From the odd top gear ep (im not a big technical car person), i see that a tank should get you 700-750KM givie or take - is that accurate?

litmus paper

I like the way u have created a thread regarding this. I drove my nissan almera (2002) 1.5 petrol, 60 kilometres after the warning light and even after that the car was coughing, it did not actually stop and run out of fuel totally. I would like to mention this was totally city driving, with fan on.

I have also done a trip from tullamore to mullingar on yellow warning light. no tensions whatsoever. doing my normal driving at 70 ish miles. most of the way.

Cookie_Monster

my light comes on with a predicted 100km left by the range display. I've gotten from Greystones to Enniskerry with the range display reading zero before

Under A Funeral Moon

68km. from the moment the fuel warning light came on to when it ran out of petrol. That was driving at approx. 2.8k RPM in fifth gear on a motorway. The car is an 1800cc Primera (2000). Lucky for me, I was only a few metres from a petrol station when the car ran out of petrol.

Oliver1985

Got 40 miles before did not wanna risk it veryangryman grrrrr

Stonewolf

The only way to get a proper answer to this is to track your mileage. I use fuelly.com for it but a decent spreadsheet will do either.

To calculate how far you can go on average with the fuel light on you need to get your average l/100km and the amount of fuel in the tank after the fuel light comes one (generally expressed as researve tank).

My motorbike gets 5.8 l/100km on average and has 18.5 litres to the light so it should go on at about 190 miles (generally it comes on at about 200) and after that I have 3 more litres to play with so that's about 30 more miles (I'd estimate somewhere just over 230 miles is my empty point).

Bluetonic

veryangryman wrote: »

Wondering about this - ive never been unlucky enough to run out of juice, but today i chanced an extra 40KM odd to goto a preferable petrol station.

I think my record for ignoring the light is 70KM or so. How far is it supposed to bring you?

FYI The cars a Seat Ibiza 1.2 petrol. From the odd top gear ep (im not a big technical car person), i see that a tank should get you 700-750KM givie or take - is that accurate?

You'll get a better response over on the Motors form.

I'd say you'd be lucky getting 600km out of the Ibiza on Motorway driving at 120kph. Your tank holds 45 liters. Having had a 1.2 Ibiza myself before I got around 95km out of it from light on before, that was doing around 90-100kph in 5th gear with no traffic.

Antomus Prime

The furthest i've ever gone was from Arklow (when the light came on) to Kilmacannogue, approx 40 miles and the car was full of stuff as I was moving back home to Tallaght. But usually i'd get around 30ish miles if it was city driving.

It's a Ford Mondeo 2.0tddi

corktina

draining the tank to the last should only be done in an energency....could be all sorts of crap down there,(old prams, tesco trolleys, you name it)

Antomus Prime

corktina wrote: »

draining the tank to the last should only be done in an energency....could be all sorts of crap down there,(old prams, tesco trolleys, you name it)

Yup, you end up sucking all the s**t that sits in the bottom of the tank into the engine, but unfortunately it happens from time to time.

foggy_lad

did it once years ago in an old nissan bluebird 1.6 and got just under 120 miles from the needle sitting on the red line to empty.

Joey the lips

I have a Toyota corrola with a kom pu er on it so i get no light...I have never let it go below 50km does kom pu ers go into the minus .....

sesna

Got 50 miles before driving in fifth gear at 50mph. Was the middle of the night and there were no petrol stations. Pretty stressful wondering if I was gonna make it home.

sesna

foggy_lad wrote: »

did it once years ago in an old nissan bluebird 1.6 and got just under 120 miles from the needle sitting on the red line to empty.

Big reserve in that tank ?

corktina

corktina wrote: »

draining the tank to the last should only be done in an energency....could be all sorts of crap down there,(old prams, tesco trolleys, you name it)

Fuel tanks generally have the pipe exit it about 1-2cm above the sludge line.

I used to have a Triumph herald, it had a reserve! on the fuel pipe there was a tap that drained the dregs if you really needed them!

Good kangaroo juice that was!

jolter

sesna wrote: »

Got 50 miles before driving in fifth gear at 50mph. Was the middle of the night and there were no petrol stations. Pretty stressful wondering if I was gonna make it home.

been their before, certainly not a nice feeling.

foggy_lad

Yes sesna the older datsun models had a switch for accessing the reserve but newer Nissans just went forever into the red just like Ireland:D

corktina

Deleted User wrote: »

Fuel tanks generally have the pipe exit it about 1-2cm above the sludge line.

I used to have a Triumph herald, it had a reserve! on the fuel pipe there was a tap that drained the dregs if you really needed them!

Good kangaroo juice that was!

all very well so long as you arent going to go round corners/accelerate/brake....:D

robbie_998

corktina wrote: »

all very well so long as you arent going to go round corners/accelerate/brake....:D

ah yeah, great craic when you park you car at a good angle on a big bump or curb or something and when you get into it and turn it on the fuel needle stays sitting on the rest thing indicating you have no petrol at all.

then you move the car to level off flat and all of a sudden you have a good half a tank :pac:

corktina

corktina wrote: »

all very well so long as you arent going to go round corners/accelerate/brake....:D

Going uphill was the worst!

rameire

not so long ago chanced it in my Ford Fusion.
the orange light comes on with 50km left in tank.
there is also a computer meter that shows how many kilometers are left in the tank.
drove the 50km, the computer also showed that there were 0km left of fuel.
made it a further 25km straight into petrol station, filled her up with diesel and there was by my calculations less than 1 litre left in the tank.

dynamick

veryangryman wrote: »

FYI The cars a Seat Ibiza 1.2 petrol. From the odd top gear ep (im not a big technical car person), i see that a tank should get you 700-750KM givie or take - is that accurate?

There is 7 litres left in the tank when the reserve light comes on. Assuming you're doing 7l/100km then you'll get about 100km in the city and more in rural driving.

ymmv

seanrose

Running on the red light can be pity daunting.

The red light came on for me at Monaghan run night driving to Donegal.Looked for a petrol station cudnt find one apart from an old style pump in an old petrol station.Would have left money only the thing was locked.spent the old journey wondering when i was gonna run out of petrol.got home ok

The Nipp

when the light first comes on in my car there is probably almost 20l still in the tank.

but on flat ground maybe only 10-15l. A few times i had the car on flat ground and the light was on. went to a pump 50-60km away and put in around 64l of petrol into the 70l tank. even after ignoring the light for well over 100km i could never get more than 65l into it

the fuel filter should also stop most of the tesco trolleys from making their way to the engine... should

L1011

My exact model of car is reknowned for having the most pessimistic fuel light going - you can realistically ignore it for quite some time.

I've gone from Ballymena to Dundalk at 3am on a Sunday morning (=about 5 petrol stations open in all of NI that early on the sabbath and I wasn't aware of the 24 hour one just south of the border then) and still not been able to put in the rated capacity of the tank. Which is tiny - 40 litres in total!

The light is meant to come on at 5L, it comes on anywhere from 8 up it seems.

stepbar

I usually go about 40 miles before I refill but I have done 50miles once. I'd love to try it once and see how long it would actually go.

shedweller

There are 8 bars on my fuel display.
The bottom one starts blinking with 5 litres left.
At about 3 litres left, it blinks faster!

User Friendly

I hate seeing the orange light come on,just get images of all the **** bieng sucked up,but when/if the light does come on..... my next fill is usually a fill to the top,for some unknown reason

shedweller

There's a thing that i have often wondered but never found out. But maybe someone that has looked inside a fuel tank would know.
Is the fuel pump drawing fuel from the very bottom of the tank or is it drawing fuel from behind a baffle of some sort, or actually not from the bottom at all?

Off hand i would say it is drawing off from the very bottom and any dirt constantly gets pumped and caught in the fuel filter. There is probably a strainer to catch anything that the pump cannot handle.
I'm just visualising a full tank with all this supposed dirt floating around or rolling about on or near the bottom. Surely it is bound to end up going through the pump at some point before the fuel level gets low?
And if there's a baffle then it's going to have its work cut out because when you take a turn or go over a speed bump, the fuel will splash around in the tank and simply wash away any dirt from behind this theoretical baffle.

Rented Mule

I have a 2010 Ford Escape that actually tells you how many miles you have before it hits empty. It 'dings' and shows a light at 50 and 25 miles.