Schoolboy error

[ewenm]

For the first time in my 18 years of driving, I ran out of petrol today. I was assuming the Mustang's fuel gauge was being its usual recalcitrant self when in fact it was accurately telling me I had no fuel left! Ooops! It spluttered to a halt on one of Bath's smaller hills in rush hour this morning. Fortunately I could roll it back into a parking space and walk to work from there. Fuel can and 5L collected on the way home this evening and it is back to normal noisy health. Really must fix that gauge

Anyone else pushed it too far and emptied the tank?

[graemel]

Always like to keep the fuel tank on the plus side of half. Ran out of fuel in my Hillman Hunter with a guage showing a quarter of a tank left.

[VetteG]

I had the opposite problem with the vette a while ago. It spluttered to a halt with the guage showing half full caused by a sticking float in the tank. Quickly sorted though.

G

[lowdrag]

Ran out while luckily approaching a garage once. Turned out the voltage stabiliser was kaput and the gauge was over-reading. It was a useful exercise though because I filled up in five litre increments, noting the gauge position while stationary. I now know that when the gauge is showing empty (new stabiliser fitted of course) I still have about 15 litres left.

[slomax]

I ran out of electricity once in almost exactly the same fashion.

Done a run up to the lake and a club run around the lakes and Yorkshire. Assuming that the alternator was charging the battery and my gauge was playing up as usual. Had to use the lights on the way back for 20mins or so. On the way home stalled up a one way hill in Lancaster. Wouldn't get going again. Was pretty impressed that it managed around 250-300 miles plus 20 mins of dipped beam on just the battery though.

[ewenm]

slomax said:

On the way home stalled up a one way hill in Lancaster.

Going up towards Ashton Square and the Town Hall? Not a great place to breakdown!

[vixen1700]

Had this happen to me for the first time a few months ago, most embarassing.

[//j17]

I once ran out of fuel while driving home from a mark specialist where...I'd just bought a new fuel sender to replace the badgered on. Doh!

I also ran out of fuel in my other Triumph, discovering that the fuel warning light was MUCH more reliable that the fuel gauge in the process and it still took the AA man 5 minutes to accept that I'd just run out of fuel. He wouldn't accept it till he'd had the float chamber lids off...no matter how many times I pointed to the (empty) glass bowl fuel pump with manual primer leaver on the bottom.

Edited by //j17 on Tuesday 27th September 10:08

[rabidant]

Ran out in my Esprit once in the middle of town (gauges always dodgy) an old granny walked past with her shopping trolley and said "thats a nice car" I said "yes pity it has run out of petrol" she replied" if you can afford a car like that you should be able to afford the petrol" and stomped off!!!

[alfa pint]

Used to happen to me frequently in the old B, which had a not particularly accurate Reserve bit on the gauge. The tank is also sort of pyramid shaped, so it took ages to do the first 150 miles and not very long at all to do the rest.

Got used to using the trip meter to decide when to put fuel in it.

One of the advantages of carbs and old fuel pumps is that there's no damage caused by running out of fuel. Not like with these modern fuel injected things.

[Motown Junk]

Pretty sure my Triumph Vitesse actually had a reserve tank lever in the boot.

Or is senility hitting early?

[WillE]

Ran out of fuel in my spitfire on the A505 between Royston and Baldock. Was overtaking a lorry and just lost power didn't overtake the lorry and coasted into a farm turning.
The worst part is I didn't go to the Tesco I had just pasted because I wanted to get the Shell drivers club points.

[Steffan]

Motown Junk said:

Pretty sure my Triumph Vitesse actually had a reserve tank lever in the boot.

Or is senility hitting early?

Yes they did. So did my Heralds but I do not remember this in the Spitfire.

Lot of cars had reserve tanks/switches then I had`several P3 and P4 Rovers with this device switchable from the dash.

[Perd Hapley]

Who else has suffered from smugly reaching for the reserve tank switch and finding that it is already switched to 'reserve'? That's a lot of fun.

Motown Junk said:

Pretty sure my Triumph Vitesse actually had a reserve tank lever in the boot.

Or is senility hitting early?

Trivia: Herald estates don't have the reserve tank.

[Dogwatch]

Ran out just by a filling station once! Other times (very few and long ago) not so lucky.

Nothing to do with faulty guages, just faulty observation

These days I'm grateful for the little flashing light though I try to avoid getting low enough to activate it.

[AndrewW-G]

Many years ago I ran out of fuel in a Silver Shadow that had been used by the mid/late 90's dance outfit "The Porn Kings" the car had been painted with a union flag over the entire car and slogans like "R U Sexy" in big letters all over it (there is a rare album cover with a picture of Kerry Katona half-naked, perched on the radiator shell). . . . . it failed to proceed in the middle of a crossroads at lunchtime on a busy Saturday . . . . oddly nobody offered to help push it out of the way

[varsas]

Seeing how far I could push it once (how dare the light tell me I need to fill up?) the car actually started spluttering as I drove past the petrol station near my house, cut out at the top of my road, but I managed to coast down the hill and park up outside the house. After I crowned myself fuel light bingo world champion I had to walk to the petrol station to get some fuel...

More recently I was tuning my XJ6 when, for no reason, it started running very badly indeed and wouldn't pick up. I assumed i had snagged an electrical connection or something...then I realised, switched to the other tank and all was well.

Every other time I have thought (hoped) a car was just out of fuel it's been something much worse.

[slomax]

varsas said:

I drove past the petrol station near my house, cut out at the top of my road, but I managed to coast down the hill and park up outside the house. After I crowned myself fuel light bingo world champion I had to walk to the petrol station to get some fuel...

[slomax]

ewenm said:

slomax said:

On the way home stalled up a one way hill in Lancaster.

Going up towards Ashton Square and the Town Hall? Not a great place to breakdown!

Just outside the back of boots at the traffic lights going A6 south. managed to coast down the hill into a cycle lane so didnt case too many issues!

[beach bum]

I must have run out of petrol at least three times in my Lotus Seven. I usually blame the lack of a factory fuel gauge ( I use a stick that I dip into the tank to measure the fuel left), but the truth is I am having too much fun driving the thing!!!