Fuel tank size (F11)

[Jobbo]

I've only had my F11 for 5 weeks but I've filled it up five times already. The handbook says the tank is approximately 70 litres, which would be great; however, I have yet to get anything more than 64l into it. Last night the range was down to 14 miles and the permanent warning of miles to empty had been on since 30 miles remaining, but there should still be ~6l to use.

6l at 23mpg (worst case) would get me over 30 miles so the range reading seems very pessimistic. I'm not sure I'm willing to see how far after 0 miles it will run, though. Has anyone taken the gamble and managed to fit anything near 70l into their F10/F11? I'm guessing the fuel tanks are pretty much identical for petrol and diesel models.

[Jobbo]

I regularly put 64l in my 66l Merc C-class fuel tank though. If the tank needs to retain over a gallon when reading 0 miles to empty, they shouldn't state a capacity of 70l.

[Jobbo]

A gallon and a half of petrol is not fumes. Why would you not want to use the full range of your car?

[Jobbo]

It is potentially damaging to the fuel system of a diesel to run it dry, but it's not an issue on petrol cars.

Very tempted to take a 1-gallon petrol can with me at some point and run it to about 30 miles past zero.

[Jobbo]

@drmark: I struggle to see why such a banal post elicits a reply from someone who doesn't care about the issue at all

But it would be useful to know if the capacity really is 70l, not the ~66l which the car is telling me.

[Jobbo]

gizlaroc said:

It's called the reserve.

fk me there are some pretty anal people on here!!


With 0 miles remaining shown on the OBC there should be around a gallon remaining in the tank. I'm sure those moaning they don't get to use the full 70 litres would be moaning more if the car ran out as soon as it said 0 miles remaining.

If the reserve is what's left when there's 0 miles remaining (approx 1 gallon) what is it called when the computer starts bonging at you to fill up (approx 3 gallons remaining), or when the warning to fill up becomes permanent (2 gallons remaining)?

It's a 15.4 gallon tank, so that's 20% of the usable capacity during which you get annoying messages warning you to fill up. I'm allowing 0.4 gallons (about 2 litres) as a proper reserve.