Will petrol tank being empty affect NCT test?

ProudDUB

I have my NCT test tomorrow. I did a lot of driving over the weekend and I let my tank get empty twice. My "80 KM until empty" signal got down as low as 15 km and 7 km of driving left. (I know its bad to do this, but I was driving in unfamiliar areas late at night and couldn't find petrol stations that were open.) After my last fill up today, I did about 50 km more driving before I got home.

Could this possibly affect my emission test tomorrow, or any other test that is done on the NCT? Someone told me once to never let your petrol get down to 100% empty, as it can lead to sediment in the bottom of your tank getting stirred up and that can be bad for your engines, so I am a bit worried. Should I go for a lengthy spin before the test to let things settle down a bit? Ta.

colm_mcm

No, don't worry about it.

CiniO

So you didn't even run out of petrol, just your trip computer showed you have 7km left.
In fact it was probably much more, as most trip computers aren't that precise - meaning once it goes down to 0 you can still do some distance, in my experience usually more than 20km. Sometimes even over 50km.

I wouldn't worry at all.
I run out of petrol tens of times, and never anything happened to my engine.

ProudDUB

Thanks. I'm not all that worried about doing long term damage to my engine. I'm just worried about the readings being off during the NCT, due to driving when the tank was 99.9% empty, so close to the test. This is only the second time that I have done an NCT test, so I am a bit paranoid about it all.

goz83

ProudDUB wrote: »

Thanks. I'm not all that worried about doing long term damage to my engine. I'm just worried about the readings being off during the NCT, due to driving when the tank was 99.9% empty, so close to the test. This is only the second time that I have done an NCT test, so I am a bit paranoid about it all.

No. The day before my test a month ago, I ran the tank down even lower than you did. I did put some redex in though, just to clean it up. The emissions were absolutely spot on. It failed on a ball joint and driver side mirror :mad:

Fast forward a couple of weeks and she passed

arthur daly

Seen as it didn't run out you have little to worry about,as with anything throw in a drop of fuel treatment a couple of days before and drive in a lower gear to the test ie, instead of 5th at 80km use 4th if you hit traffic do the same this will burn up any nastys.

ProudDUB

Cheers folks. All well well today. I've to go back for a visual recheck on a head lamp, but thankfully its nothing major.

Marcusm

CiniO wrote: »

So you didn't even run out of petrol, just your trip computer showed you have 7km left.
In fact it was probably much more, as most trip computers aren't that precise - meaning once it goes down to 0 you can still do some distance, in my experience usually more than 20km. Sometimes even over 50km.

I wouldn't worry at all.
I run out of petrol tens of times, and never anything happened to my engine.

Hopefully not when you are driving the bus (assuming you have adopted "petrol" for any type of fuel as is the Irish idiom).

CiniO

Marcusm wrote: »

Hopefully not when you are driving the bus (assuming you have adopted "petrol" for any type of fuel as is the Irish idiom).

No, not in a bus.
I think last time I ran out of fuel was about year 2002 when I usually filled up no more than 2 litres of fuel into my tank at one go.

Marcusm

CiniO wrote: »

No, not in a bus.
I think last time I ran out of fuel was about year 2002 when I usually filled up no more than 2 litres of fuel into my tank at one go.

If you were only buying that much at a time, I can understand how you ran out so much. Coincidentally I had a fill from almost empty today, a lot more than 2 litres.

CiniO

Marcusm wrote: »

If you were only buying that much at a time, I can understand how you ran out so much.

I couldn't afford any more fuel at that time

Coincidentally I had a fill from almost empty today, a lot more than 2 litres.

Is this a car with such a big tank?

*Kol*

€1.40.9 a liter too. Where is that?

Marcusm

Apologies, I missed the responses/questions.

CiniO wrote: »

Is this a car with such a big tank?

Big man, big car, big tank.

It's a 2005 Range Rover. I suspect the 100 L in the tank will get me the best part of 300 miles.

*Kol* wrote: »

€1.40.9 a liter too. Where is that?

Texaco Merrion road. I find it easy to pull in, get a tea and use the jet wash to hose down the car. It's probably not the cheapest around but not much in it - it's petrol rather than diesel in case you were looking for sub 1.27 prices.

Panrich

Marcusm wrote: »

Apologies, I missed the responses/questions.



Big man, big car, big tank.

It's a 2005 Range Rover. I suspect the 100 L in the tank will get me the best part of 300 miles.



Texaco Merrion road. I find it easy to pull in, get a tea and use the jet wash to hose down the car. It's probably not the cheapest around but not much in it - it's petrol rather than diesel in case you were looking for sub 1.27 prices.

Wow. 13.6mpg. Do you do much mileage at that rate!?