I'm only on my 4th tank of gas having bought the car 8/16/13 (wow actually two months to the date!), but I too have experienced this.

Learn by doing right?

Usually 5-6+ miles after three dots remain, the 'estimated range' alert comes on. I've let it go to dashes, then filled up only 16.7 gallons, so I was taken back a bit by that for a 19gallon tank.

The lesson here is, there is simply no accuracy to the range, and I've settled for a minimum of 3 dots since I don't like looking at the alert message.

Yes in case you were wondering, do the the proximity of work & gas/grocery stores, I usually fill up only twice a month.

9 times out of 10 I fill up at 1/2 tank or slightly greater than 1/2. A few times it got to a dot or two below 1/2. I see plenty of fuel starvation episodes on this forum so I try to mitigate that risk as much as possible. Never saw the blinking dashes or whatever they are. Never want to run it dry since from what I understand a lot of fuel pumps are essentially lubricated by the fuel running through it.

Download a free app to record your gas consumption/mileage. I've been doing this since buying the Z (manually recorded the fuel economy since '84, yes I'm anal retentive) and find the fuel economy pretty consistent. If your driving habits don't change, then you could accurately guess how many miles/tank to expect. I can stretch it out to 400miles/tank, but fill up before 385, after that, beads of sweat start forming on my forehead, not to mention my wife just itching to say "I told you so".

The most I've put into the tank in one fill up was 18.999gallons. All asteriks on the distance to empty, no dots on the fuel gauge and lots of worry (completely miscalculated our next pit stop on the way to Vegas from Reno). But we made it... wahoo!

I've never been one to believe not to let the tank get too low. Each tank is drained as far as I can and never had a problem with water in the tank, sediment or fuel pump issues. Doing this since the 80's. Not sure if it has anything to do with the oil company I use, but would confidentally say over 99% of the gas I've used has been from Shell. No, I'm not an employee of Shell, just found the vehicle was getting better gas mileage whenever I used their gas (see first paragraph about being anal retentive), and have never tried anything else since.

my 2cents.

Cheers

2003 z4
 

Not related to the 370Z but I took my previous car to Progressive Insurance for body work and it had 1/2 a tank of gas. When I went to pick it up the Low Fuel Light was on I couldn't see 1/32th of a tank gas. No telling if any damage was done to the fuel system as a whole but I learned my lesson...people just cheap. :icon14:

My 2c if you take your 370z in for any repairs leave it with a Full tank of gas and write down the miles on the OD.

huh... they needed to do work on the gas tank? :confused:

is it easy to siphon gas out of the Z? :confused:

think the indicator lights are predictive and will vary the dots based on your driving style. i know OBD2 can pull the % of gas left. not sure if it's predictive but an option if you have the Torque app.

Clarification
 

They needed to replace the bumper. I dropped off the car with 1/3 tank. The car was driven to a shop for body work and a shop for an alignment. Never thought they would drive it around and not bother to top it off. Its not good to drive around any car near empty.

If this was my 370z same thing would have happened.

18.437 gallons into my Z on March 12, 2012.


http://media.ziptied.com/members/files/127/IMG_0075.jpg


I recall once I put in 19.1 gallons into my Z. I just can't find that picture.

My gauge and range calculation is accurate.

Broke my previous record, and know it now holds at least 19.004. :eek:

No... I win this title...

2 different fill ups
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...ps9f0dfcaa.jpg
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...psed1eef56.jpg

:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::bowdown:

Fill it all the way! Only suckas fill every quarter tank and hope it works. Before they get stranded and nobody helps them :inoutroflpuke:

I was told you are supposed to stop filling when the pump clicks off the first time; not to top off completely. sumthing about overflow goes into some kind of charcoal canister? That was a toyota tho. But once the handle clicks off, I'm full enough.

Every car has that, one of those fillups I had topped it off (the one that is even) and the other the pump shut itself off