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Low Range but still have lots of fuel?

joerefunds

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Hello everyone

I’ve been having this “issue” where my fuel range tells me I have <30 miles left and I know I have a lot more. I go to fill up for gas and it fills up for 9.5 gallons. I can tell this affects the actual fuel bar at the bottom though i know it’s not correct.

My question is; I drive semi normally everyday with city and highway. I average 32-33mpg. Can I go driving once it reaches zero or will the car bog down on me? I’ve never tried it but I got down to 13ish miles of range left. Also is this way to “ fix this “ or do i just ignore? I’ve seen people with 113+ miles of range left on 2 bars of fuel.

Thanks! attached is a pic.

11th Gen Honda Civic Low Range but still have lots of fuel? F98B0B23-9A3C-4032-89C2-A9737D3C5A2E
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zeroptzero

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That seems relatively accurate to me, and it is all based on your driving history leading up to the low fuel reading. No two cars will be the same. If a person with 2 bars did mostly highway driving their range estimate would be higher than one that did mostly city driving.

One member did a test on how far the car travels after it hits zero bars, and that was approximately 45 miles ? There is always a reserve built into the fuel tank for the people who like to tempt fate, it is a way to protect us from ourselves, lol.
 
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tacthecat

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Range is an estimate based on "prior" driving history - I go by the lo-fuel indicator - when you hit lo-fuel you have 1.5 - to 2+ gallons left in the 12.4 gallon tank. Looks like yours came on a little early @2.9.
 
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joerefunds

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Thanks for the replies everyone :)
 

trucke

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As your car gets older, it becomes more important to not run it dry. This will cause all the foreign material in the tank to clog the filter. Then you have to change that just to get going again. Not really an issue when new.
 


tacthecat

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In 60+ years of running most, and in several cases all, of the fuel out of a tank I've never had a clogged fuel filter. Have replaced a number of engine mounted fuel pumps due to high demand fuel starvation but never a filter. Maybe I'm just lucky.
 
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Zavage

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I would never run out of fuel in newer vehicle because of the high pressure fuel pump. There might be some problems if air is sucked into it.
e.g. in diesel powered cars, the lubrication and cooling of the fuel pump is made through the diesel fuel.
 

TMM

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As your car gets older, it becomes more important to not run it dry. This will cause all the foreign material in the tank to clog the filter. Then you have to change that just to get going again. Not really an issue when new.
As the fuel sloshes around it will churn up any debris in the tank. Also the pump sits at the bottom of the tank so will suck up anything that settles anyway.

The idea is that any contamination that enters the tank gets collected in the fuel filter and you replace it periodically before it gets critically blocked. The only reason you'd expect an old tank to be excessively dirty is that the car was allowed to sit and the fuel went bad, or water was allowed to sit in the tank and rust it out. At that point you clean the tank unless you want to be replacing fuel filters daily or weekly.
I've had a blocked fuel filter once and it was probably due to a contaminated batch of fuel (dirty water mixed in with the fuel), since the car was driven regularly there is no reason why there should be an excessive build up of dirty water in the tank. Water settles to the bottom so should be sucked up by the fuel pump and sent into the engine and be gone.

The most important reason for not running your tank too low is that the fuel acts as a heatsink/cooling for the in-tank pump. The less fuel in the tank, the hotter it and the fuel pump get. Also if you run it dry, sucking air isn't good for the longevity of the pump since to at least some degree the fuel is a lubricant for the moving parts of the pump. You wouldn't run your engine without oil, so don't run your fuel pump without fuel.
 
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zeroptzero

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On a side note I opened up a fuel tank from a 2003 Honda S2000 which I had to drain a couple years back. I was shocked how clean it was inside. The fuel that came out of it was very clean and clear. The inside of the fuel tank was shiny and clean, there were no real deposits at the bottom of the fuel tank. The sock on the fuel pump was pretty clean, just slightly discoloured, pretty good for a 20 year old car. I think the refinement of fuel and filtering at gas stations is better than what we think, unless you go to a crappy run down gas station.
 
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natedg200202

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As the fuel sloshes around it will churn up any debris in the tank. Also the pump sits at the bottom of the tank so will suck up anything that settles anyway.

The idea is that any contamination that enters the tank gets collected in the fuel filter and you replace it periodically before it gets critically blocked. The only reason you'd expect an old tank to be excessively dirty is that the car was allowed to sit and the fuel went bad, or water was allowed to sit in the tank and rust it out. At that point you clean the tank unless you want to be replacing fuel filters daily or weekly.
I've had a blocked fuel filter once and it was probably due to a contaminated batch of fuel (dirty water mixed in with the fuel), since the car was driven regularly there is no reason why there should be an excessive build up of dirty water in the tank. Water settles to the bottom so should be sucked up by the fuel pump and sent into the engine and be gone.

The most important reason for not running your tank too low is that the fuel acts as a heatsink/cooling for the in-tank pump. The less fuel in the tank, the hotter it and the fuel pump get. Also if you run it dry, sucking air isn't good for the longevity of the pump since to at least some degree the fuel is a lubricant for the moving parts of the pump. You wouldn't run your engine without oil, so don't run your fuel pump without fuel.
You’re operating on old info. None of these are valid. Run it low all you want.
 

sackofcheese

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I've run mine to 0 miles of range a few times, yet have never had to put more than 11 gallons in (12.4 gallon tank). I'm not sure how Honda measures fuel level but my MK7 GTI didn't actually have a tank level sensor. It instead went off the estimated MPG based on fuel flow. So after a track session or a hard canyon drive it would show it was a lot closer to empty than it actually was. The first few times it scared me, since I thought I was going to run out of gas on track 😅
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