How far can you drive a car on empty?

I have one of those ancient little trucks that people roll their eyes at, pray they don't get behind in traffic and give the side eye glace of pity/derision when they pass. Which sometimes bothers me and sometimes gives me great glee when I realize I paid $100 for and have no car payment.

Anyway, in it's ancientness, I have little to no faith in it's ability to accurately communicate the true level of it's gasiness. It is a manual with no tachometer so shifting gears relies solely on the sound of the engine and where the little arm rests on the speedometer. Given that, I figure the little arm that denotes the amount of gas left is not exactly reliable. So I never let it get below half a tank. When it gets close to that, I fill it up.

Oh, and as you can imagine, since I have to actually ROLL the windows up and down, there isn't a little light that comes on when the gas gets low. You just have to actually look at the gauge with your little eyeballs.

I drive my Honda Odyssey to fumes regularly because...I have no idea. I just hate getting gas and always push it too far. It has a 17 gallon tank, and we’ve put in more than 17 gallons before after one of my “oh, I can make it” weeks. My husband gets so mad, and also confused as the tank must really hold a bit more than that!

Of course since I know that it’s like a license to push it even farther I really have a pathological hatred of gas stations...

Never run out of gas in this van in the 12 years we have had it, though. Ran out a few times a year before that in other cars, you’d think I’d learn...

Just until I stroke out from the stress.

It’s something I haven’t outgrown in 30 years of driving. That little light comes on and I panic.

I have gotten mine down to 6 miles on the countdown, then I chickened out and put gas in it. LOL I am going to pay attention next time I am using the countdown and put gas in and see how much further it can go. Never thought to look at it before! SaveSave

The light comes on at around 45-50 miles left. At 30 miles left, it stops indicating a number.

I can tell you this.  In the '70's I had a Fiat Spyder.  My boyfriend lived in Las Vegas and I lived in Tucson.  I got a whim one Fri night to drive up and see him. My girlfriend went with me.  I knew there was a gas station where we would need to get gas on the way.  My friend was driving and she went right passed it.  When I woke up I knew we were up a creek unless we could get to this little tiny gas pump and when we got there, because it was so late it was closed up and dark.  There was no gas for miles and miles.  Finally, a few hours later, we were like 30 minutes from Kingman Arizona near Vegas.  The gas gauge was on empty so long that the gas light was flashing red like it was yelling, "Mayday!"

I started driving as fast as I could to get closer to Kingman, when everyone knows to drive slower and use less gas.  But I wanted to be as close as possible to the city when we finally stopped dead on the side of the road.

Suddenly Kingman was in site, I got off at the first exit, pulled into the gas station and I swear to God, I could hear the gas hit the metal at the bottom of the gas tank.  I said we got there on fumes and prayers.  I have no idea how we got all the way there.  There should have been no way.

The light cones on in my highlander long before the tank reads empty. I’m oretty sure the light goes on when the info screen says 32 miles left. But, from experience, I know you can go at least 5 miles past the point the info readout says you have zero miles to go. I accidentally did it once.

Now I tend to fill up at 1/2 tank. Because that was too harrowing to experience again. Plus I can only fuel up my work car at certain places so I also have that habit from work as well.

I have no idea. I'm the daughter of a mechanic and the wife of one also and it was drilled into my head to never go below a 1/4 of a tank because of how bad it is for your car. I know from reading the manual a light and a bell should go off when I get to a gallon.

Also, what if I ever need to get away from some bad guys or something and I don't have enough gas, lol 

I would have a heart attack if the low light came on! I don’t let it go below a quarter of a tank....ever.

I don't think I ever saw the light in my old car and i drove it for 8 years. I really don't understand why people would wait for it. I usually fill up based on the price of gas but I've never had to wait long enough that the light came on.

I try to never let it go below a quarter of a tank. I do NOT want to run out of gas. I never ever would have except for my @#$% xh. When we left Dallas, I wanted to stop at the gas station but @#$% said no, we'll wait until we get to Lake Worth. I don't know what difference it made but guess what. Ran out of gas JUST before the exit to Lake Worth... yeah, that saved a LOT of time NOT stopping at the Dallas gas station.

Late DH and I had an RV that we quickly figured out that the gas gauge didn't work. He just figured out how many miles we should drive before we needed to fill up. One time, his calculations must have been off because we put 50 gallons in the 50 gallon gas tank!!! Whew!

Before we got the RV, we had a travel trailer. The wind was blowing so hard that it wasn't easy driving so we stopped for the night at a roadside rest area in northern New Mexico. We were NOT the only travelers parked there for the night. The next morning, got up, walked the dogs and ate and headed to Raton.

All of a sudden, DH noticed the gas gauge was EMPTY!!! We should have had plenty of gas because he always topped off the tank when we had long stretches of no gas station. He said, well that explains the funny hissing noise he and our dog Midnight heard in the middle of the night even over the wind blowing. Somebody was siphoning our gas and possibly some of the other travelers also.

You'd better believe we were praying make it to the first gas station in Raton. We had never taken the first Raton exit but decided it was our best bet. That we'd rather be out of gas OFF the interstate rather than run out on the interstate. We DID make it to a gas station before running out. But boy, was it close...

I'm a drive on fumes kind of girl! I regularly drive it past when the range meter says ZERO. I've gone 15km past zero before filling and even then still did not need to fill the 70 litres that the tank is by 2 or 3 litres. But even I hold my breath till I get to a station when I've got past zero.

Food for thought. Most cars drive slightly tilted forwards. So the outlet of the fuel tank is at the front. If you are very low on fuel AND park on a slope with the nose higher than the tail. The you could end up not being able to start because if lack of fuel. Tip - park so your nose is pointing down the hill. Or better still fill up before parking up ;-).

My van has a 20 gallon tank, but when I fill up when the light is on the pump stops at 18 gallons. I don't like driving with the light on, but it's happened...

Like ~Susan~ I've been told not to go below a quarter of a tank. Here is a link about damage you can cause if you run on empty.

www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2011/05/running-on-empty-low-gas-in-the-tank-can-be-costly/index.htm