Yes, but what do you mean by “need gas”?
I consider the last 1/4 tank my emergency reserve, and rarely let it get below that. Thus, if I ever have to drive somewhere in an emergency (which happened a couple of times this past year due to family health problems), I don’t have to worry about if I have enough gas to get where I need to go, or waste time stopping for gas.
I’ll adjust that a bit depending on the current price of gas. If I see a really low price I’ll fill up earlier, and if it’s a really high price when I’m at 1/4 I’ll wait a day or two to see if it goes down. In the latter case, though, I don’t think I’ve ever gone below 1/8th before at least putting some gas in the tank.
I’ve noticed that my low fuel light almost always comes on when I’m doing an evening shift (finish 2230) followed by a day shift (start 0730), which means calling in for petrol when I’ve got the least amount of time to spare.
The petrol gods are picking on me.
Locally most of the UPS trucks are propane powered, while many of the garbage trucks and transit buses run on CNG.
I fill up at two bars left or 1/8th to a quarter of a tank, depending on the vehicle (the truck has a traditional gauge).
I have a friend with a 90s model Suburban. The thing has a 42 gallon tank, and he never lets the tank go below 3/4 full. That thing has some seriously old gas in it.
I pay very little attention to price. It affects the cost of a fillup by $3 or so, one way or the other, at most.
If I’ve driving around town, normal commuting, I let the tank get within a couple of gallons of empty. (Pushing E on the gauge, and depending on when I pass my usual gas station.) On a road trip, I fill up at about 1/4 tank. On a road trip in winter in the north, I fill up at about 1/2 tank.
42 gallons in a Suburban? :dubious:
Anyway, the gas will be constantly be mixing up. No worry about old gas filling up at 1/4 tank.
I’ll be pulling a trailer Sunday about 200 miles. I had 3/4 of a tank this evening coming home from work. Really plenty. BUT. I’d rather not gas up pulling the trailer, and it’s going to be a long day as it is. So I topped it off tonight on the way home from work.
It’s clear that folks that live in the city don’t seem to mind letting the low gas light go on. Best hope that sensor doesn’t fail though. It’s a bit different when gas stations are far from home.
Yep, 42 gallons.
Cite: http://www.edmunds.com/gmc/suburban/1995/features-specs/
He also doesn’t drive it very much. Probably only adds that fresh 1/4 tank once a month.
Drove older cars for years, like 15 years+ old, so when we bought a new car a few years, had no idea there were low gas lights and the gauges were usually unreliable. So now in the Prius, I still fill up at the half empty mark, when I could, according to the instruments, go for another 400 km. :rolleyes:
My Honda has a 17 gallon tank, and if I fill it up when the low fuel comes on, it only takes 12 gallons or so. I usually do fill it up then (mostly because it drives SWMBO nuts), but it’s nice to know that I’ve got 150 miles or so of slack. I did push it to 100 miles once, just to verify it - but got spooked about running out if I forgot how much I’d driven after it turned on.
I like SmellMyWort’s A/B trip meter scheme - I may implement that.
If I’m on a long trip, I start looking for a gas station at around the quarter-tank mark, but if I have to stop to use the bathroom, I head on over to the pumps and top off anyway. I figure I might as well kill two birds with one stone in that case.
For the day-to-day driving that I do close to home, I fill the car up when it gets down around a quarter of a tank or so. During the winter months, I seldom let it get below half a tank before I refill it.
My car takes 91 octane gas, so I have to be careful of where I buy it from. There can be a price difference of over 50 cents per gallon depending on the station. The station with the cheapest regular gas does not necessarily have the cheapest 91 octane, and many stations do not advertise the prices for higher octane fuels on their signs.
Huh. Color me surprised. My Dodge 2004 1500 with the Hemi V8 has a 26 gallon tank.
I really only use it as a plow truck on my property, and only go through about 2-3 tanks a year. Mostly I just fill it up 5 gallons at a time with a gas ‘can’. It has chains on the tires, so I don’t drive it on the roads in the winter.
I usually charge it up on Wednesdays while at work.
My strategy depends on what gas prices will probably do. If the price of gas looks like it’s going to go down I will only put $5 in when the gauge reads 1/4 tank. On the other hand, if the price of gas looks like it’s going to go up I will fill it up every day, even if it only needs a gallon or two.
On long trips, when the gauge reads 1/4 tank I’ll start looking for a gas station.
I have an infallible method for determining when the price of gas will go up: there is a segment on the local evening news stated that the price of gas is about to drop. That is when half the refineries shut down for “maintenance”.
I drive until I get down to ~1/8 tank indicated on the gauge, and then flip from Instant Milage to the Fuel Range display. When the low range alert comes on (@ ~70km), I’ll fill up at the next station. I get ~500+ km/tank, lasts me about a week. Costs about $50 to fill the tank from almost empty.
-DF
There’s an optional 34 gallon tank that I think most of the 4x4’s got. My '07 is pretty bare bones (4.7L and a stick) but it has the big tank. Yours must have been weirdly optioned to have the good engine but the tiny tank.
Considering the limited amount of driving I do, I actually do think about my fueling.
Since most of my driving evolves around driving to Germany (I’m in the Netherlands, it’s about 150 km to Germany) I only take on as much fuel as I need to get to my destination in Germany. Here it becomes more specific and I try to refuel in the morning or early afternoon and definitely not on a sunday.
In general the rule applies that gas pumps off the free ways are at least 10 eurocents a liter cheaper. Gas in Germany is at least 20 eurocents a liter cheaper than in the Netherlands.
In Germany prices change multiple times a day and are best fairly early in the day. During rush hour or strange hours (late at night) they charge more, although these differences are rarely more than 10 cents a liter. There are also differences between the different parts of Germany, but I typically don’t let gas prices determine my destination.