Title says it all. I should have been suspicious - I’ve previously run it down to that point, and the car took 18.6 gallons (stated capacity is 18.5).

Was cruising on I-90 in Minnesota, part of an epic, 5100 mile road trip, which I’ll write about separately, looking for gas. Passed 3 exits with none, car showed 48 miles to empty, no low fuel warning. Car started missing; thought it was bad pavement at first. Was in the left lane, happily traffic was light. By the time I got over to the right lane, engine was dead. Car handled well as I coasted to a stop on the shoulder - steering and brakes were fine, and the car rolled fine though still in ‘D’ with a dead engine.

Nice guy from AAA came eventually (after waiting for someone to arrive who was dispatched to WI, not MN.) He gave me 2+ gallons (I had asked for premium but didn’t confirm). Manual says that 1.1 gallons is needed to recharge the fuel system. After fueling, turn on the ignition, but don’t attempt to start the engine. Wait 5 minutes, then start the engine. It turned over a few times, then started right up and ran fine.

The AAA guy (who was a full-time farmer) followed me 6 miles to the nearest gas station to make sure I made it (wish I had an opportunity to give him another $20). The gas station, of course, only had 87 octane. I put in 4 gallons to get me to another gas station (engaged snow/rain mode to be sure I was easy on the throttle), and filled up with 91, which happily doesn’t have ethanol in much of the Great Plains. Kept topping it off, and all was/is fine.

During this, Unhingd warned me about discharging the battery, and having enough juice for the 5 minute priming period. This didn’t concern me, as I had just put in a new battery (and charged it.) However, sitting on the side of I-90 when it’s 91 degrees, with a black roof, meant windows had to be down. Except when I talked to AAA (repeatedly), it was too loud with trucks whistling past at 80MPH, so windows up. It takes the ignition 10 minutes to go to sleep after turning it off, so eventually, I did get a low battery message. At this point, I stopped turning on the ignition, and I turned off the hazard lights (I was off the road, in the sun, in a bright red car.) Low battery message went away and didn’t return.

Clearly, the calibration of the fuel gauge is off, or there’s an issue with the sensor. Might also explain why the trip computer reports about 2mpg better than reality, it may think I’m using less fuel than I am.

Moral of the story: I won’t get close to 50 miles remaining again before refueling. Warranty is long expired, so I don’t expect to do anything about it, unless it could be fixed with SDD, etc.

 

Good to know and thanks for sharing. I am going to show this to my wife! Every time I use her Cayenne S, or the Jeep Sahara she drives to get groceries, the gas light is on. I always tell her not to get it so low, and she always says it is fine, and has plenty of gas left. And interestingly, she always...ALWAYS, says "it just came on"

Glad you made it safely.

DC

 

+1,000!!!

 

Running out of gas is a huge problem on F-type, as a high-pressure fuel pump that runs direct injection system will be damaged if the fuel pickup sucks in air. Hope your car runs ok.

 

Any positive displacement pump will suffer damaging cavitation if it sucks air. Not too serious if resolved quickly, but it will shorten lifespan.

 

I could show my wife, but it wouldn't do any good. It's like a game she plays and wins if she makes it to the gas station without running out. Many times it's me that takes her car and ends up filling it up.

 

This ^....Every time. They are definitely smarter than us...

On the fuel pump comments...Sounds like he stopped it quickly and primed it to start it, so he should be golden.

DC

 

+1. Not priming it will do more damage than running it dry.

 

Out of interest, did the gauge show that you had more gas left, or do you just rely on the range figure?

 

....and repeatedly running any modern car with a low fuel level risks fuel pump failure - that is the most common cause of failure for in-tank pumps which are cooled by surrounding fuel. Best practice: start looking to refuel when the gauge reads 1/4 full.

 

Agreed. Never go lower than 1/4 tank.

 

I hardly ever go lower than 1/4 tank, but I have had the opposite problem to the OP on all three of my Jags - the fuel gauge and "range to empty" are both extremely pessimistic.
When the low fuel light comes on I still have at least 100 km (60 miles) until the "range to empty" reads zero (- - -) and then I still have at least another 50 km if not 100 km of fuel left. I've gone 50 km past "empty" a couple of times in the old XF's but never in the F-Type, and I have never yet run out of fuel.
I reckon the moral of the story is don't trust any of the fuel gauge, the low fuel warning light or the "range to empty" figure, it seems they are all a bit dodgy and you could end up like DJS!

 

I think it showed around 1/8 full. No warning. After receiving the 2+ gallons and priming it, it still said 48 miles remaining.

 

Apparently the young ladies are told to full up at a half a tank now due to personal risks if they run out of juice. Or maybe that is what my daughter tells me to get me to fill her car up when I pinch it.

 

The fuel gauge and distance to empty are very inaccurate, though I believe they are linked. I used to get 22x miles distance to empty on full tank, every time I refueled at around 1/4 tank with ~60miles distance to empty I'd only get ~12 gallons filled in. now it is at 27x miles distance to empty on a full tank, I ran it down to a little less than 1/8 and it took in 16.x gallons of gas, which is reasonable.

There were another instance that I topped it off, but the gauge didn't show full, I thought it was my mistake but the gauge slowly climbed to full while driving!

I used to refueling my previous car once every 2 weeks, not possible on the v8, so always try to run down to 1/8 to get another day or two, but after reading the potential damage I won't do that again.

 

I’m hoping that during the many times I turned the ignition on for the windows, etc, the fuel pumps weren’t running, trying to prime it while dry. No way of knowing. But car has run fine ever since.

 

The only time something similar happened to me was with my GTI - I had a recall fix done for the fuel filler neck causing premature shut-off when pumping gas (hmm, sound familiar to this crowd too?) and somewhere in the course of the work, the fuel level sensor either broke or got stuck. The car suddenly sputtered and died on the highway with half a tank indicated; fortunately I had enough momentum to coast to a stop on the side of an off-ramp.

I always reset the trip computer when I fill up so I would have potentially noticed that something was amiss if I had looked at that, but the dealer had reset it to zero (pet peeve - I hate when they do this but unfortunately the procedure to reset the service indicator involves pressing the trip reset button)

 

 

Lol, one of my brothers illustrates every story with a Seinfeld reference - "it was like when George double dipped his chip" or "like when Kramer was constipated" etc which of course makes the stories much funnier because you immediately picture George (in particular) doing something. For me, as a Star Trek TNG guy, it is exactly like Darmok.

 

Some of us have a similar linguistic established during a number of Maine misadventures: “Like Jay, when the blueberries harvested”.