A while ago I was having drinks with colleagues and - not sure why - we got onto this…
My strategy for filling up my car is simply this: I drive until the tank is almost empty, then I stop and fill it up until it is full. Normally, I wait until there are two bars left on the gauge (the last blinking bar makes me uncomfortable - the prospect of running out of petrol/gas mid-journey *mortifies *me). I thought this was how everyone did it.
Apparently not. I discovered a wide range of strategies. Among them…
Only ever filling it up till halfway, because any more than that you are driving around with a heavy tank (thus costing you more money, because the car is burning more fuel to, ironically, transport more fuel)
Only ever filling up £ worth at a time, because it’s depressing to spend any more than that in one go
Filling up whenever you pass an station, because it’s the cheapest/you like the people that work there/random superstition/whatever
Filling up on a Saturday, goddamit, because that’s what Saturdays are for.
Keeping the tank as full as possible, because you never know
Fuck it, just fill it up whenever, man
(etc…)
Am I the weird one? Or should we accept a post-modern pluralistic approach whereby there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ strategy for filling up the car?
I fill up at just under 1/4 tank. I can go another day, maybe two past that point, but if the “Low Fuel” light comes on, I need gas NOW, so I try to make sure to never get close to that point.
Any minute now, someone will be along to inform you that filling your gas tank is such a tedious and morally reprehensable waste of valuable time that she’ll drive on vapours and run the risk of running out of gas just for an opportunity to meet kind and interesting people who’ll help her push her car out of traffic in order that she seize this fortunate opportunity to get some fresh air and exercise walking to the nearest gas station. And what sort of right thinking red blooded American would even think to disagree with that perfectly reasonable approach to life and operation of a motor vehicle?
I’ve never actually run out of petrol (in my life!), so I have no idea how much is left when I am at the ‘low fuel’ point. Who knows, the car might be able to go on for days/weeks/months longer - but I still freak out about how I’m about to grind to a halt at any moment as soon as the little red light comes on.
Still, filling up when you are at 1/4 suggests that your car guzzles more fuel than mine/you don’t have as many filling-up points nearby as me.
As a peripheral point, do cars vary widely in terms of the physical capacity of their gas tanks?
“* Only ever filling it up till halfway, because any more than that you are driving around with a heavy tank (thus costing you more money, because the car is burning more fuel to, ironically, transport more fuel)”
This makes sense to me. If you are looking for money efficiency, that’s the “right” way to go. I think my uncles do that too. I don’t drive myself. I was never into cars. I can’t even name different car types other than sedan, van, truck (& there are whole different types of truck apparently).
Well, yeah - but surely the weight of that extra fuel is negligible in the grand scheme of things. How much money would you realistically save from such a strategy? If you think about how much a car weighs vs the weight of half a tank of petrol.…
My husband puts 20 bucks in. Every time. I don’t get it, why would you waste your time like t hat? I drive it until it’s close to empty and then I fill it up. I hate having to put gas in the car, why would I do it more than I have to?
I do let the light go on, but that’s because the vast majority of my trips are under, like, five miles.
Well, I think it’s kind of being on a diet & staying away from that 1 extra chocolate bar. Regardless of how much difference it makes. My uncles seem to do it anyway. It’s not like that time for frequent fueling really costs them anything. They still work their hours with no problem.
We got lots of cars, some driven more than others. The Jeep gets driven almost every day, but only for about 5 miles max. But it also gets the worst mileage, and cannot be used on the streets. The nearest gas is 12 miles away.
On top of that, our supermarket rewards card offers up to $1 off per gallon discount (up to 35 gallons) every month. But its “use it or lose it”.
At the beginning of the month, we fill what were driving as needed, but towards the end just before using the discount, tend to let them get low, as we probably need them near empty to get the full 35 gallons. For example, if I know I’ll be cashing in the $1/gal soon, if I go skiing, I’ll put 5 gallons in (100 mile round trip/20 mpg) so I’m where I started when I get home.
So, when the max discount is reached, sometimes we have to take 2 cars down to the station, with cans in trunk, to get the full 35 gallons. How many cans depends on how much the Jeep needs, and what other two cars we take to fill up.
I get gas when I’m down to 1/4 tank, then get $10 worth, mainly because it’s too depressing to spend more. But I don’t have to drive every day, and since gas is about $1.00 cheaper than it was last year, I can drive for about a month on that $10.
When it’s somewhere between 1/2 full and 1/4 full, I will fill it up. If I’m on a trip, I won’t let it get below half because I have gotten lost before, and there’s nothing like being in the country trying to figure out where you are without worrying about gas, too.
Wait 'til it’s on fumes, then refill it, in terms of daily life. I know how far the car can go between fill ups, I know where stations are, etc. So I push it to the limits. Too much stuff to do, too little time.
On road trips, I tend to get nervous if it gets lower than a third full, depending on where the winding road is taking us. Sometimes it’s a long ways between fill ups. I like to see the gauge on “Full” on road trips.
Get down to about 1/4. I live 20 miles from the nearest gas station. Ya never know. And if 1 forget to gas up at 1/4, I can always do it the next day. After that I would be pushing my luck.
I don’t really have a method. I know I can go up to 50 kilometers after the gas light comes on, probably a bit more, but that’s as far as I’ve taken it. I usually will try to stay under 40 kms just to be safe,
My problem is that my drive to work is about 167 kms, so I stop frequently and just top up the tank. I pass through 5 towns with gas stations and use the Gas Buddy site to find our who’s lowest. Sometimes I’ll just bite the bullet and stop at one particular spot because I have a points card with them that will save me a buck or two on a tank.
I usually drive in an area where stations are plentiful, so I’ll keep an eye on it when I hit 1/4 tank and go in and fill up when the ‘low fuel’ light pings on (I have about 20-25 miles in reserve when that light goes on).
like ddsun above, on long drives I’ll fill up at about 1/4 tank, especially if I’m in an area that I don’t know well (in terms of gas).
But normally if I go get gas, it’s a fill-to-the-brim stop.
The smallest I’ve owned was around 10 gallons, a Ford F150 with extended range tanks holds 36 gallons. Half of that large tank is around 100 lbs of gas, so it could make a difference over the life of the car.
I generally fill up around 1/4 tank left, and I always like to leave for a long trip with a full tank so I will top off the night before. My current car has a 16 gallon tank.
I tend to fill up right after payday because I can afford to then. I don’t always have the $100 or so it takes to fill the tank between paydays. I usually need to get gas again before I get paid next, so then I just put in $10 or $20 depending on how much cash I have on me and how close to empty I am. How much I put in also depends on whether I’m on fumes and need to get gas right now at the expensive station or can wait a bit and try to catch the discount stations that drop prices 5c or so a litre.
Six pounds per gallon, half a tank is about 8 gallons, so we’re talking about 48 pounds. If you only fill your tank halfway, you can take all of your kids to Dairy Queen instead of leaving one at home.