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I am old enough to remember to save some gas from the gas can to put in the carburetor to get the thing going. Now a days, we rarely let the light come on before we head for the station. I just feel it is better for the car to play it safe. Good luck to the OP in Redding. :-)
Some of you need to take a serious chill pill. I'm all for personal responsibility and things, but **** happens and people get stuck making tough choices. The OP put this in their first post...
They're on a fixed income, something got screwed up and now they're short on money and have to make a tough choice. Why pile on with criticism about how they manage money? This isn't the "personal finance" section. They asked a pretty straight forward automotive question. Just answer the damn question. You should all count yourselves fortunate if you've never had to make the choice the OP had to make as many other people have. Sometimes even the very financially responsible find themselves in a tough place and have to make a tough decision. My parents are pretty comfortable now, but there were times growing up when I know they had to make similar choices and it was never easy. I had to make some tough choices when I was out of work for five months in 2009 and had a pregnant wife and two kids to support. Have some ****ing compassion.
/rant
Excellent post.
OP, as was already stated, depending on the car, there may be increased risk of damaging the fuel pump by running it dry, so you should avoid that when possible.
To the rest of you "finance gurus" lambasting the OP for her post, get off your high horse and find something better to do with your time.
Umm, I think you do pal. I have to go to the store to spend money but I don't have money to buy a single gallon of fuel ($3-4) and would rather wait along the side of the road for an hour to have AAA bring it to me for "free?" Sorry, that's not a tough choice. That's just flat out idiotic. Hopefully, what you deem as criticism actually knocked some sense into them.
Edit: apparently not
Hey, I'm not the one berating a senior citizen on a fixed income whose faced with the choice between putting gas in their car or food in their belly. Why don't you kick her a couple more times while she's down tough guy?
I've driven my car out in the middle of nowhere on an interstate highway when the needle hit EMPTY. The nearest gas was 30 miles away. I didn't think I would make it. The fuel gauge dropped way below EMPTY, but the car still made it to that town! The EMPTY mark on my car indicated there was at least one full gallon of fuel left in my tank. But that was the only time I ever pressed it. Maybe the fuel indicator shifted, and I can no longer get a full gallon past empty. I now always refill well before the empty mark.
Geez, OP asked a simple question, not for input on their finances.
I have some relatives who run out of gas at least once a month and need someone to come bail them out. I wondered if it could hurt their car letting it run out that frequently. Good to know.
At the risk of setting off NJGOAT or being attacked by an angry senior citizen, could I make a recommendation? Put a credit card somewhere in your car so that if you forget your wallet or do something stupi -- I mean through not fault of your own cause your cards to be demagnatized -- you won't have an issue. I also store some gas in the garage. I don't keep much. I have three five gallon tanks. Between the mower, blower, pressure washer, topping of motorcycles (hate getting gas before a ride), they don't sit for too long. That means I always have 10 gallons of gas. No hassle. Whenever I run out in one tank, throw it in the back of the car and fill up next time you get gas.
Maybe, although now if the car is stolen, the thief has your credit card too. And the credit card won't save you if there is a power outage. I think a better practice is to keep the tank at least 1/2 full.
It was a good question. l've run out of gas many times in my life, but when I bought my current F250 turbo diesel (my first and only diesel) I got a warning from the salesman and also read it in the owner's manual, that if I ran it out of fuel it would need to go to the repair shop.
It was a good question. l've run out of gas many times in my life, but when I bought my current F250 turbo diesel (my first and only diesel) I got a warning from the salesman and also read it in the owner's manual, that if I ran it out of fuel it would need to go to the repair shop.
Taking a Diesel to a repair shop because you run out of fuel is a scam. Granted it takes more than just refilling the tank but by no means does it require a mechanic.
Taking a Diesel to a repair shop because you run out of fuel is a scam. Granted it takes more than just refilling the tank but by no means does it require a mechanic.
Well, in my case, since I wouldn't know what "more'" is required... mechanic.
It may state in the manual what is required, but to me it just meant, don't run out of fuel.
In my last pickup, an '89 F250 460 gasser, I'd routinely run one tank dry, then switch to the second tank. I did that driving across SD once, thinking I still had a full tank of fuel after switching to it. About a hundred miles down the road it ran dry! I couldn't believe the lousy fuel economy, but the tank was obviously empty so I called AAA, then sat at the side of the road for a couple hours waiting.
When AAA got there the first thing asked of me was if I'd tried the other tank. "I ran it dry before switching." Well, he tried it, it started right up, and the gauge showed it was half full.
I didn't know about the Ford fuel system, and how it pumps more fuel to the engine that it needs, then returns what it doesn't need to the fuel tank -- in this case to the first tank that I'd run dry! (Maybe that's typical of all fuel systems now, I don't know.)
I also didn't realize until after that happened that I had a blocked return fuel line so it could only dump fuel into one of the tanks, so if I burned fuel from the wrong tank first after filling up, all the unused fuel would be returned to the full tank and it would just overflow onto the roadway. My mpg average increased dramatically after I learned that!
read the posts including how the gas doesn't actually serve to cool the fuel pump. It's like 10F out... isn't that cool enough for it these days anyway?
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