1998 Chevy 1500, first fuel pump cost ~$430.00, Kept having to exchange it under warranty.
The last time, took it to the local mechanic and spent ~$500.00 to install the warranty fuel pump, new fuel filter and the replacement wiring harness I bought for the fuel pump.
It is a little easier on a truck, you take the bed off instead of the tank, most cars require you to drop the tank and pull it out from under the car.
My 95 Jimmy cost ~$500.00 to pull the leaky old fuel tank and install the new one I had bought for it. Just in labor.
Simply, the newer fuel injection pumps are expensive on top of a labor intensive job. If the shop got your fuel pump, filter, and cleaned the injectors (for real) and installed it all for ~$1000.00 or less, I would say you got a heckuva deal.
The reason I asked is that I’ve driven several different cars completely out of gas multiple times and it never even occurred to me that it would cause a permanent problem. In my experience, you just push the car to a gas station, or bring some gas in a canister and it runs again. So are some peoples cars not restarting after this, or does the damage surface some time after? If so, how do people link it to the original incident of running out of gas?
Older cars never seemed to have this problem, older being late 80’s I think.
Once you get into fuel injection, where you are using higher pressure the fuel pumps need the fuel to keep them cooled. I believe some have safety shut off for running out of fuel. Some are just built better. Some people are just lucky/unlucky. I never ran my truck out of gas, the fuel pump just quit, the second, third, and fourth did the same. I only paid for one due to the warranty, they just didn’t outlast it. Chevy was evidently known for it.
To the best of my knowledge all electric fuel pumps used on fuel injected cars have a cut out for when the car stalls. This is a very needed safety feature.
Picture if you will, a car crash, a fuel line gets broken, the engine stalls and the pump keeps running as long as the key is on.
Look up both A very bad thing
and Gigantic freakin law suit
in the dictionary. It will say: Definition A: Broken fuel line and a fuel pump that is still running. See also Big assed fire.
So what happens in the real world is: Engine stalls. Pump stops. Pump runs while engine is in crank mode (but frankly this is only for a few seconds at a time, not minutes, hours or days)
What has not been mentioned is as the engine runs out of gas, the engine misfires. As the engine misfires it can easily damage the converter under the car. A missfire will dump raw fuel into the converter. Add oxygen and it will burn and can easily get so hot, the ceramic substrate melts. Or you can get a load of raw gas into it that can explode blowing the substrate into pieces. depending on the car a converter can easily cost a G or more.
This talk of pumps being cooled by fuel brings up something Ive been wondering about for a while now.
Subaru makes upside down U shaped gas tanks with two pumps, one in each side (the U goes over the drive shaft as the tank sits in front of the rear axle). Now one of the pumps moves fuel to the engine, the other only delivers fuel to the other side of the tank.
Look carefully at the diagram you linked and you’ll see there’s only actual (electric) fuel pump. Furthermore, the other pump, called a jet pump or transfer pump, is on the same side as the fuel pump, although its pickup tube is on the other side. The jet pump has no moving parts, and uses the momentum of fuel returning from the pressure regulator to create a vacuum in its pickup tube (the venturi effect) and thus bring fuel over to the right side. It will not be harmed by having the left side of the tank run dry.
Many years ago a goofball I worked with described a trick they learned - while driving down the road, turn off the ignition for a second or two then turn it back on. Large bang! They did this once in a tunnel while passing a pedestrian and he swears she jumped 2 feet in the air. Never did say what happened to the muffler, but by this time it probably didn’t matter…
Ran out of gas in my car the same way. Unconvinced that I could be out of gas, I tried starting the car several times. Finally giving up, I got two gallons of gas, put it in the car, and tried again. Still nothing. Listened at the fuel fill, no pump running.
My mechanic said the pump is cooled by the fuel, cranking repeatedly would overheat the pump and shut it down. Tried the next morning, heard the pump operating, and started fine.
Definitely was out of gas, took the full capacity of the tank.
Not sure if there’s an actual thermal shutdown in the pump, or if it just overheated and ran again when cooled off.
Did it again last week :smack: Fortunately, it was so cold out, it cooled off quickly.
Knowing this about my car, I doubt other cars might burn out the pump instead; running out of gas isn’t uncommon. And I doubt even more that the injectors could be damaged.
But as for the cost of the repair, according to my mechanic, if I’d had to replace the pump, it would have cost over $300 for the pump and another $300 in labor. Not far from the $1000 quoted by the OP.
Just a little ‘cite’ from a fuel pump maker that running out of fuel can destroy the fuel pump ->“Don’t make a habit of driving with a nearly empty gas tank. Running out of gas is not only inconvenient, it can burn up your fuel pump since the pump relies on the gas flowing through it to cool it.”
Of course, that is only one maker of fuel pumps, and there are likely other types that are not as such. But why chance it?! I’m in the habit of presuming that when a quarter-tank is indicated, its time to refuel. In my son/wife’s case, she knew truck was almost out of fuel, had the $ for fuel specifically in pocket as she drove past the convenience-store, but she was simply too lazy…assumed that she could squeak out another thirty or so miles home then back-to-town when hubby got home so he could do that awful chore of fueling the vehicle.
