Think litigious: of course. Do you want to run out at the exact moment it hits zero? I drove an American car that did that. No fun.

 

I've seen some other threads about this before. Some other people have noticed the distance to empty seems to be set to an 18 gallon tank, i.e. there always is about 2 gallons left when the console first says it's empty. And I'm sure I'm filling the tank all the way when this happens to me.

So yes, I think that meter gives you a 10% leeway on your tank to err on the side of caution. I wouldn't necessarily call it a hidden reserve, just a conservative DTE counter.

But that has nothing to do with the MPG meter.

 

ok fine. lol
good conversation starter atleast? gotta give me somethin...haha eeeek

 

problem solved:

i never let the tank get more than half empty. and that doesn't mean i have to get gas every couple of day either.

 

Someplace I have seen articles that say one should not fill the gas tank beyond the pump click off as the fuel gas canister can be damaged. That could be trouble. Is this valid or not, anyone know?

 

The reason you shouldn't "top off" is that gas expands when heated. Rather, the vapor of the gasoline expands when heated which can lead to an explosion if something goes wrong. As far as the fuel take becoming damaged, I highly doubt it. But, if your car blows up, yes, I expect the fuel tank to be obliterated.

 

Calculations for DTE are VERY accurate ...

But the fuel level sensor is not. There are actually 2 in the G. The gage will actually read differently if the float mechanism on the passenger side is tweaked one way or another. Mine was 1/8 low every fill up. After changing my sensor it now reads 1/8 high every fill up.

The other item for calculating DTE is injector pulse width. The calculations are based on the most recent inputs (how you were driving).

In short ... the DTE is not very accurate unless you drive long distances with the cruise control on. It's only meant to be an estimate.

Yes .. fuel in the tank is used to cool the fuel pump. There is a filter on the fuel pump, but why take it so low?

Filling up past the first click at the pump is bad for your wallet but good for the gas station because fuel actually goes back trough the vapor return hose if you over do it. Sorry, I forgot the news source I got that from.

Side note ... I crack up (to myself) everytime I see someone trying to top off the tank and trying to put in an even dollar amount when they are paying with a credit card. Do their monthly statement really come back in whole dollars?

 

Have you ever seen or heard this happen from any credible source? There would be national panic if topping off a gas tank led to explosions.

The real reason is to lessen the chance of overflow and fuel spill, which causes environmental hazards above all else. Most gas stations are brownfield sites after some years of operation, which means environmental remediation is required when the use changes (remove soil, etc.).

 

I don't think it has led to any explosions, but the gasoline vapors do expand when heated, which definitely increases any risk. You're right on the real reason, with environmental hazards, but I was reading that topping off can actually lead to fuel filter failure (charcoal canister failure). I'm not positive about this, but it seems plausible.

Regardless, topping off is bad.

 

Another good reason not to overdo it is often eventually the gas comes splashing back out and ends up possibly on your clothes and definitely on the side of the car. I'm not sure if that's bad for the paint or not, but I'd rather not find out.

 

You would have to overdo it BIG TIME to have it flow back into the hose...there is nothing wrong with putting gas in the tank until it is full...the first time it clicks off it isn't full.

And most people like to make their gas bills end in a certain # so that if they see a gas charge NOT ending in that # they know someone used their card. Pretty smart thing to do IMO.

Well it is possible because when gas burns its the vapor, not the liquid, that burns. Topping off won't ever lead to fuel filter failure. That's like saying putting gas in your tank will lead to fuel filter failure. Won't happen. Nothing wrong with topping off.

So don't overdo it...it's not hard to put gas in the tank until it's full and then stop before it comes splashing out.

The gas is absolutely terrible for the paint BTW

 

Well, yeah, that's all I meant. I have no problem with topping off. When I drove a "big truck" we simply had 2 x 100 gallon (diesel fuel) tanks, one on each side. The truck fuel pumps run much faster than auto gas pumps. There's just a wide, capped hole at the top of the tank -- it doesn't fit the pump spout like a glove the way the car pumps do.

But you could still rest the thing on the side of the pump and leave it on auto. You can pretty easily see inside the tank while it's pumping, and it would auto-shut-off as soon as the liquid level reached up to the pump spout. Because the pump extends a few inches down into the tank, at this point if you didn't pull it out a bit and manually top off both tanks, you would probably be leaving out around 20 gallons. As far as I know this never caused any problems.

But I'm not sure if that's even relevant; just thought I'd talk about it .

 

I kind of get the litigious angle, but that's kind of ludicrous also. If Infiniti says your car is going to run out of gas in 50 miles, and then 50 miles later you actually do run out of gas, I can't imagine anyone could reasonably claim Infiniti was negligent there.

 

Agreed. I just think they err on the side of caution. It's always better to show "0" when there's gas left in the tank than to show "50" and run out. Now that situation would be worthy of a discussion.

 

Well ... OK, but easier to keep receipts for me.