***Low Fuel Warning***

[ExCrystal]

Mine came on this time with about 30 miles left until E. She took 16.5 gallons :P

[gajagfan]

Mine pops up around 40 gallons. As long as fuel is flowing through the pump, it should not overheat. I never ran my '93 Z/28 out of fuel, my '01 WS-6 out of fuel, nor this '13 1LE yet, but I run them all low. The same has gone for the 3 Tahoes my wife has had through this same time period. I do not believe that you can hurt the pump in any way by running it low. Running it out (or right before it runs out) might cause some cavitation, but if you are putting 16 -17 gallons in her when you fill up, you have nothing to worry about.

[bulls96]

What's the next warning message that appears when it is critical?

[ChrisBlair]

re: running the car out of gas- there's always water in your tank.

re: this situation with a Camaro- my car does not display a low fuel warning light at 85 miles' range remaining. I believe this is a dynamic function of your average MPG more than simply gallons of fuel remaining

[skipinminn]

Living up in Minn. with weather temps of -40 wind chill I never ever let my tank get below 1/4 tank.

[Sunset6928]

A little bit off topic, sorry. When you filling up and the nozzle turns off by itself, I can still put in about 2and 1/2 gallons in my tank by running the gas very slow. Has anyone else found this happens?

[meissen]

Originally Posted by Jim968

Your analysis is flawed. If you drive the same number of miles, getting the same MPG and pay the same price per gallon then your total cost will be the same no matter when you fill up. If your total cost has changed then one or more of those three variables has changed.

Originally Posted by jd10013

it's either in your head or your numbers are wrong. filling up less often will not increase your MPG. if your MPG's are staying the same, then your spending the same amount of money. so long as your doing the same amount of driving. you may fill up less often, but your spending more when you fill up. the only way you would save money by filling up less often would be if you could somehow buy 18 gallons of gas for the same price as 14 gallons.

I recently had an incident which made me think that the average MPG may not be linear as you drive the car. What I mean is that I had one week where I filled up with half a tank just to "top it off" and my MPGs for that fill up were only 16mpg, yet I average in the 20's.

Maybe the affects of letting the car warm up (decreasing MPGs) is greater noticed when you're filling up half a tank instead of at my normal fill up point. Otherwise I can't understand the drastic drop in MPGs - I fill up at the same gas station.

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

re: running the car out of gas- there's always water in your tank.

re: this situation with a Camaro- my car does not display a low fuel warning light at 85 miles' range remaining. I believe this is a dynamic function of your average MPG more than simply gallons of fuel remaining

Agreed. On the 4th gen Camaros, running your car out of fuel was a surefire way to make the fuel pump fail. Dropping the gas tank out to get to the fuel pump is not fun - which is why most 4th gen owners cut a hole above the gas tank to make a trap door for accessing the fuel pump.






I don't normally let my car get that low, but every now and then I just can't get to the gas station before the "Low Fuel" warning comes on. For me it comes on around 50 miles remaining, but what I think is the biggest issue is that when I'm low on fuel and have a heightened need to know how many miles I have remaining that I can't. Really damned annoying.

[Fish-man]

Originally Posted by meissen

I recently had an incident which made me think that the average MPG may not be linear as you drive the car. What I mean is that I had one week where I filled up with half a tank just to "top it off" and my MPGs for that fill up were only 16mpg, yet I average in the 20's.

Maybe the affects of letting the car warm up (decreasing MPGs) is greater noticed when you're filling up half a tank instead of at my normal fill up point. Otherwise I can't understand the drastic drop in MPGs - I fill up at the same gas station.

Attachment 596648

Attachment 596649

Man, you track that like a hawk!
Hmmm... I notice that your 1/2 fill date was 5jan... the day before coming back to work after a long break... perhaps you did a lot of short distance or city type driving in the miles leading up to that? I know on our malibu, I drive it 26 miles each way to work and get decent mileage .... but when we cruise it on the weekend, the mileage always goes down , unless we take a long trip that fully warms up the car (OIL temp seems to have a big influence... coolant temp gets up fast, but oil is way slower to warm up, and mileage comes up after oil temp does). I Always get better mileage in summer... part due to the fuel, part road conditions, and part I suspect due to warm up times