Last few fuel dots?!?

JARblue

My wife got 21 mpg for the first 18 months commuting about 15-20 miles per day all highway (with me romping on it during the weekends). Since Sept 2012, I have knocked that lifetime avg down to 18.5

I guess I'll be ready when it happens, but I still don't understand how the fuel pump is affected by how much gas I have in the car (I run it to '--- miles left' pretty much every tank). And if I have to leave several gallons of gas in the car to keep the fuel pump from failing, how is that not a poor design on Nissan's part and ergo their fault? You're damn right if it fails within my warranty period I'm going to blame them. I should be able to drive my car until it's almost out of gas, and almost is not 'I could have driven another 100 miles'

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UNKNOWN_370

Hey knock yourself out. Just advice to save you guys trouble. Take it or leave it. The fuel pump potential issue is on ALL cars, not just nissan.

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JARblue

I'm just not worried about it... if it happens to me, maybe I'll change my tune then. I can handle a little inconvenience. For what it's worth, I've never had the problem with any of my DDs (88 Pathfinder I drove 120K of the 220K total miles, 95 Explorer Sport 120K of 160K, 99 CR-V 180K of 250K, 2000 Sentra 10K of 50K - grandpa gave me the Sentra which I traded for the Z within 6 months ). I drive the car until virtually empty so I know how many miles I can get on the tank - I never trust the car's fuel gauges, only the mileage counter. It's worked for me so far

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SouthArk370Z

It's not a big problem unless you empty the tank and run the pump dry. Very few ppl do that.

It may slightly reduce the life of the pump to run with a very low fuel level, but, in the end, it really doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

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CDepp

You're silly. That makes no sense as a reason. LOL. You can do the same if you constantly fill up after driving only a couple hours and fill up again, rinse/repeat.


ex:
running to empty tank-
18.8 gallons used
396.87 miles driven
21.11 mpg (21.11010)
19.1ga. capacity tank
tank can go 403.2~ miles

filling up every couple hours-
3.65 gallons used
77.05 miles driven
21.11 mpg (21.10958)
19.1ga. capacity tank
tank can go 403.2~ miles

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-CDepp-
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JARblue

Yes, I can do math, thank you That does not account for varying driving styles. Some tanks get more miles than others. It's knowing my driving habits vs the car's mileage.

The reason I want to know exactly how many miles I can get on one tank is because I drive all over Texas, which is a big a$$ state. If I'm out in the middle of nowhere and running low on gas, it might be awhile before I come across a gas station. So if I need to reroute to find some gas before I run out, then I can map out a plan to do so. I know exactly how far I can get at any point, and I can adjust my driving habits as well if needed.

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CDepp

I know JAR. I'm just stating that letting your tank go to the last few dots is not going to give you any more information about the capacity to use a tank of gas than filling up after using 1 gallon. The math and physics don't change over the life of the tank, so you can just as accurately gauge how far you can go from 1 mile from fill-up just as easily as waiting until you've used 3/4 of a tank, regardless of how much gas you have left.

Again, not a reason to run your tank low. But, if it's your preference, go all about it.

I'm just a logic guy, so if you say you have a rock that keeps away tigers, and justification is that you carry the rock and never see a tiger, I might say something. Running low on your tank provides no more information about how far your car can go as filling up every few miles.

Like you say, it's all in how well you drove the car, or intend to drive the car from filling up.

Cheers!

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-CDepp-
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JARblue

I understand exactly where you're coming from. Now that you have removed all logic from my argument, going forward, I will be emptying the fuel tank just to show you guys that it doesn't hurt anything

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wdkwang

Fuel pumps, by design, are located in the tank and the fuel is the only thing that's cooling it (like a radiator) from overheating and burning out. That's how fuel pumps are in general. If your running on fumes, the fuel pump will be running hotter = shorter life. I don't know how Nissan quality is but I ran my old '92 Integra till the E light was on all the time. No problems. I personally try to fill when it's down to 2-3 lights

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JARblue

Thank you for the explanation. I was aware that the fuel helps cool the pump, but is there ever a point where the fuel pump has zero fuel cooling it? If not, I would think that while a smaller volume of fuel heats up quicker, a full tank could get to the same temperature eventually on a long trip. So it would make sense to me that it could be affected more by driving habits in conjunction with fuel filling habits than just fuel filling habits by themselves.

Sorry for jacking the thread...

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