These things don’t bother me. I drag my ass along the side of the road in all weather to run anyway. If you hate them that much, go ahead and keep your tank full.
I don’t like to waste time, and to me, stopping at the gas station is a waste of time, while walking is not. When I stop at the gas station to fill my empty tank, the pump must run for twice as long as someone filling their half-empty tank, but the bulk of the time is spent by stopping at all. My fuel stop will not take appreciably longer than the other person’s, but they have to stop twice as many times, wasting extra hours per year.
Plus, a full tank weighs more than an empty tank, so they are needlessly hauling extra weight around and thus getting worse gas mileage, so they have to stop even more and buy more gas. Their tank also will build up more sediment and have more old gas in it. If they do get low, a bit of sediment is more likely to get sucked in and clog up the works, whereas my sediment is always getting dispersed.
And what if the unexpected walk turns out to be in the, um, interesting part of town, or the three grinning young men saw a need for the contents of your purse/wallet?
Choosing to run out of gas is choosing to take a risk (how big a risk depends on your locale, lifestyle, assets, appearance, etc.). It might turn out ok, and it might not. If it doesn’t, though, you might not get the chance for a do-over.
Just a couple of months ago, e.g., a woman down in Oklahoma City thought she’d push a vehicle that ran out of gas on the road. Somebody else didn’t see her, she got pinned between the vehicles, and was pronounced dead at the scene.
I think I remember reading that actually going to empty, literally zero in the tank, is bad for modern car engines. So manufacturers build in that 2 gallon gap not only for the people who don’t fuel up, but for the health of the engine. I find that 2 gallons is exactly the buffer the manufacturers put on my vehicle.
I’ve also heard that a car is slightly more efficient with fuel usage with a full tank and gets less efficient as it uses up more fuel. That could be baloney though. I have zero evidence than hearsay and my own car’s behavior with a full tank vs near empty.
Now, my parents used to have a 90’s Blazer with a new fancy digital display that ended up mis-calibrated. When that thing showed a quarter tank left, it was actually completely empty. That was a fun half-hour on the side of the road trying to figure out what it could be – no, it couldn’t be the gas, the gauge says a quarter tank still! But when everything else had been exhausted, well…let’s try the gas…(and so it was).
I get concerned about things because I care. I care about inconveniencing others- the people behind me on the road, the person waiting for me to show up and I’m late, the person who needs something from me that now I can’t do because I ran out of gas.
I think the number one hallmark of being an adult is recognizing that your actions may have a legitimate negative impact on others and doing your reasonable best to minimize that. If it means keeping track of the gas in my car and making sure I’m close to not running out, then that’s the logical thing to do.
As Procrustus said, the way to not feel anxious is to not have to worry about running out of gas. They way you do that is to not let the tank get too low.
And as slash also said, it does depend on where you live. The closest gas station to me is 15 miles. And I very often deal with exstream weather what with driving over the continental divide every day. It’s just makes good sense to make sure I have enough gas even for things I may not anticipate.
Not to mention the dangerous situations having a car stall out on you can cause. And I don’t mean just getting stuck in a bad part of town.
Back to the original question: I find that once the Miles Left gauge gets to around 100, it drops 2-3 miles for every mile I actually drive. So no, if it’s at 49 miles, I certainly don’t expect to drive 40 miles on it.
The car I have now has a DTE function and now I hesitate to believe I can live without it.
I don’t even use my gas gauge half the time because I just cue up the DTE and it tells me there. The only annoying thing about it is that when it gets under 19 miles left it says “refill feul now” so I can’t REALLY take it to 0, but I know that I have some buffer and that’s good.
I always thought that keeping your tank always half or a quarter full was wasting money because you put the money in the tank to begin with, and by not using it to it’s full potential you are wasting that money. I am no economist, but that makes sense to me.*
*not counting the cold winters. Have at least an 1/8 in there, preferably a quarter
Thank you, Kenm. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that running your car on empty damages the engine. And I have a habit of always keeping it at least 1/4 full in the warm weather, 1/2 full in the wintertime. I do NOT want to get stuck somewhere in the snow.
I have had to walk for my car. Back in the day, before everyone had cell phones, the distributor cap on my 1990 Toyota Corolla blew. That was scary! Everything just shut off and the car began to coast. Worst of all, the power steering switched off and I had to wrench the wheel to move at all. And I was in traffic time. I was lucky to be able to get over onto the shoulder.
I had to walk a couple of miles to the nearest gas station to be able to call a tow truck. I am actually glad I had the experience, because I know I can handle it now, but it’s not something I exactly enjoyed doing or would want to do again. It’s easy to say walking is enjoyable, but it’s not enjoyable on the highway when people are doing 70 mph+ not far from you.
I have also had a car die in traffic. My next car, also a 1990 Toyota Corolla, had been in an accident and had many problems and I was too poor to fix it. It had this distressing habit of stalling out at traffic lights. I had no pleasant experience of young men helping to push it. Nope, I either had honking horns as I desperately tried to restart it, or pitying looks as I got out of the car and pushed it. Thankfully Corollas are super light and I am strong enough to push them.
These are not experiences I care to repeat. The gas station is on my way home. It takes me five minutes to fill up (and my Honda Fit is cheap, too). I’m never “anxious” because I’m never that close to empty. I also do take care of my car and monitor its functioning closely. And I have never, ever, run out of gas, so I just don’t have that anxiety in my mind.
When I fill up my cars, it shows ≈ 400 MTE; in practice, I get about 300. Off by ⅓ is significant.
With my old car, the light didn’t really come on until the indicator got to the E line & then you had a few gallons. With my new car, the light came on at about 1/8 of a tank & I was on my way to get gas, less than ½ mile away when it died. This car doesn’t even get to E before it’s empty. :smack:
I have all kinds of conflicting information about my fuel status.
I have a predictive readout of how many miles I have left to drive, which says 513 miles right after a fill up, and that’s a lowball number because even at its lowest city milage mpg, it’ll do 600.
I have a LED gas guage divide into 12 increments, which suggest that each increment is 1/12th of the 16 gallon tank (1.33 gallons). When it hits the last segment, I should have maybe another 50 miles until dry. But when I fill up at that point, there is always 4-5 gallons left – so about a quarter tank was left.
To me, being an adult is being able to handle minor inconveniences, not being anxious about the idea that your day might not go exactly as you planned. Sometimes I have to wait for people or be inconvenienced by them, sometimes I may keep someone waiting or inconvenience others. I am happy to stop and provide help for people and I encounter others who feel the exact same way.
When one goes to extreme care to never be in the way, it can be very annoying when someone gets in your way, as if you’ve somehow earned the right for this never to happen. I don’t want to go around being annoyed by people all the time.
Running out of gas is not a minor inconvenience. It can get you a traffic ticket, it can get you into an accident, and it can require a professional to get it started again.