Several people have posted about filling up when the fuel gauge was down to 1 bar and range listed was very low. They typically reported only being able to put in 8 - 8.5 gallons of fuel.

With the tank rated at 10.6 gallons, that's leaving something like 20 - 60 more miles in the tank (depending on avg. mpg) when fuel gauge says you're running low.

Today I found myself down to 1 bar on the gauge with the range listed at just 5 miles left. I was within a few miles of my house and a gas station. So I decided to risk it and see what would happen if I tried to push it past the range listed.

It went down to zero and then the last bar on the gauge disappeared. I had no bars on the fuel gauge at all. I drove around for another 5 miles expecting to run out of fuel at any moment, but didn't. Went to the gas station and filled up with exactly 10 gallons.

I wish we could get the gauge reprogrammed to be more accurate of what is actually in the tank.

 

why do such a silly thing.. that said, wife filled 9.75 gallons a few weeks ago on the GE. and she wasnt really doing this on purpose to break any dumb record.

 

Who said anything about any record? I did it to see what would happen on the gauge. Duh.

 

you have waaaay too much time on your hands.

 

Says the guy posting useless garbage on an internet forum.

 

Consider that in the life of the car an owner will fill the tank about 650 times. If one fills at 8 gallons rather than 10 gallons it means filling an additional 150 times or so.

I wish that the car had 20 gallons of fuel on board as I'd rather not spend so much time at gas stations. Unfortunately, auto manufacturers scrimp on capacity because fuel carried reduces both load capacity and fuel economy. I'd be willing to make the sacrifice, but if the additional fuel makes that magic Hwy MPG number drop below 40 it would be a marketing disaster.

 

Whenever I get a car I wait until the tank gets low then cruise for a while with a gas can in the trunk just to see what the gauge looks like. But it looks like you already took one for the team. Thanks!

 

Recently, on a trip, range said 1 mile, put in 9.2 gallons. That was after the fuel light was on for 45+ miles. I think that is the most we've ever put in. I would like to see it more accurate too.

 

hit a sweet spot i see. GL to you.

 

yah, i do wish sometimes that the tanks on these cars are bigger..but then i suppose it's a trade off with all the added weight, etc.

i only do about 6k miles on my GE so it's not a huge issue for me... at least after you pump the gas to full you see a cheap bill on the receipt and kinda makes you feel better. haha

 

Japanese cars 0 is not really 0

German cars 0 means get gas NAOW

At well under $3.50 a gallon no need to eek every drop, it's not worth the risk

 

I absolutely agree with you MyFreakFit. I'd love to see a more accurate gauge. I am the type who routinely waits until I absolutely have to fill up, trying to squeeze as much fuel out of every tank, and to me the accuracy thing is huge. I'm always curious to know how many gallons the fuel tanks on my cars really hold since the manufacturers always understate the capacity. My last car had a rated capacity of 14.5 gallons but my fills were routinely over 16 gallons with the most being 16.7. I've already put over 70 miles on my Fit after the low fuel light came on and actually pumped just over 11 gallons for that tank.

 

I regularly do 1,000 mile + road trips several times a year. A more accurate fuel gauge would make it easier to maximize the distance traveled per day and pre-plan for stops.

 

You should not make a practice of driving your car with less than 1/3 of a tank of petrol. It puts more stress on the fuel pump and will cause it to fail sooner. Your choice.

 

This thread reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer is driving a car past empty:

 

I thought it was a bad idea to let it get that low due to making the fuel pump working that much harder when it is low?

 

I've filled up my tank two whole times now. So small sample size. But both times I hit the last the last bar and both fillups were 8.6 gal. That last time I had driven 10 miles into that last bar. It makes no sense why it is sooooo off.

As for tank size... Gas weighs like 5lbs a gal. Adding ~5 more gal would impact the overall weight by about 25 lbs. Sure the tank being bigger would impact the weight too. But I have my doubt's we'd be talking about additional weight of significance.

 

Let's do some basic math and then maybe realize how absurd that would be with a vehicle with this small of a fuel tank.

Average range of a full tank with average mpg being 35 = 350 miles

2/3 of that = 233 miles

Who in their right mind wants to stop every 200 - 250 miles when they are making a 1,000 - 2,000 road trip? If I had unlimited time to get there then maybe yeah, but that would be a luxury.

When I travel I need to get from A to B in a specific time frame and want to maximize the distance traveled per tank to minimize stops to get to the destination as quickly as possible.

Aside from that, I've never had a fuel pump go bad in any car ever and have always run the gauge down as close to E on every car I've ever owned. Honda also isn't known for having unreliable fuel pumps. So I'll continue to maximize my time driving the car as much as possible and not standing outside feeding it.

 

My philosophy exactly.

 

1. Let the car idle all day, burning off 8 gallons.
2. With a tank average of 0 mpg and 0 miles remaining, get on the highway with your two remaining gallons.
3. PROFIT!!!

They already make that. So do these guys. They're great.