Just curious.

I've been typically filling up around 300 miles on each tank.
And this is a pretty good mix of city/highway/aggressive driving.

When I fill up at ~300 miles. The gas needle is below the 1/4 mark, but is not completley pegged at the bottom. The DTE Distance to Empty still tells me I have ~ 70 miles or so.

Does anyone know how accurate this gauge is?

Just today I decided to let the gauge go until the gas light came on to fill up. On the way to work it came on, but the DTE is still telling me I have 41 miles left.

Can this gauge be trusted?

 

In my Z and from what others have said the DTE gauge is a little bit of a "chicken little" the sky is falling.

Several people including myself have taken the DTE down to zero and still have about 2-3 gallons left in the 20 gallon tank. So it would seem that the Z has a pretty big reserve even when on empty.

Ja

 

i let my z run till it wouldn't even tell me how many miles left....it just flashed a line (as though i had no miles left). i filled the tank up (after driving at least 10 miles after it started flashing just the line)...and i put in a little under 18 gallons. so, yes, there is still a lot of gas left in the engine, the hoses and wherever else the gas would be stored. i wouldn't worry about the guage...you aren't going to stall when you hit 0. you have at least 2 gallons left.

and you only get 300 miles?? i usually get 375 or so. only once i got 405. every other time....375.

 

Don't believe the gauge-I have driven it to "----" numerous times without the engine even sputtering once. This isn't the first time Nissan has done this-My 300ZX's fuel light comes on about 100 miles before it needs fuel, and I have only run it out of gas once in two years-last week, in my driveway, because the line at the gas station was too long on the way home. So ignore the damn flashing dte thing, if you can. It bugs me when it starts, and I know that it has plenty left. But in the overall scheme of things, the car has enough positives to outweigh stuff like that. (especially now that I've got the Audiopilot override!)

 

Think about it. Put yourself in their shoes. Wouldn't you program it "conservative" so that even the biggest idiots don't run out of gas out there and sue them all over the place?

And anyway, it is based on an estimate, according to the avg MPG you have gotten recently, so it is assuming many things...

I don't think it was ever meant to be a scientific measurement of the actual number of miles you have for every drop of gas in your tank. I thin is more of a "when it gets to 0 you better start looking for a gas station"... which is also the way the needle works anyway.

Story : My son got up and his 240SX won't start. After some argueing, he decides to SELL IT TO ME for $850. WHen I go outside I ask him if he has gas in it, the needle is below E. He states "it has a few more milimiters to go". (!)

A fuel filter and a tank of gas later, I have a running 240SX.

Going back to above : running the car to the last drops is not good since ou pickup any sludge/sand from the bottom of the tank, which clogs up your filter and fuel injection in the worst cases. Just FYI.

 

for consideration tho, the tank is 20gallons, meaning 1/4 tank is 5dallons, at about 20mph thats 100 miles left.... so at 1/8th you still have 50miles... you have farther left to go than you might expect.

also someone put an informative post about the pump being submerged, and as such, it uses the fuel to cool itself, a low tank could hurt the pump, so they give it a little excess to ensure you dont go too low, and its unlikely anyones gonna complain that they didnt run out of gas when the gauge hit empty. you also dont want to suck up anything that might be floating safely on the top of the gas.

 

Almost all new cars are conservative on the gas gauge, the fuel cools the pump so you don't want to get down to the last drop. The Z has a bigger than average tank for this class of car so it has better range than a lot of cars. The flashing DTE display can get a little annoying.

 

It took an hour of driving when it said empty to pull this off.
I also needed my sensor replaced because my gauge was off and now its doing the same thing again!

 

on another note... 2 weeks ago, i knew i had at least 1/8th of gas left judging from the gauge. so i pull into the cemetry and shut the car off. about 5 mins later.. i get back in my car and the DTE is flashing and the fuel light goes on. says i have 40miles left when i could have sworn i had around 80 - 90 miles left before i turned off my car. weird? I checked around if i was leaking gas, but nothing. i primarily use Shell.. but get 76 once in a while. Cheveron is just too expensive. Hasn't come up since then

 

What is Audiopilot Override??

 

I have tried to run low to test the gauge. At 40 miles indicated, I still only took 16.9 gallons, so I would say my gauge is very conservative.
On the highway from Phoenix to Tucson at ~80MPH I get 27MPG indicated. Best tank with mixed driving in first 17000 miles is about 450 miles

 

I've had the opposite experience, when i park, it says 38 miles left and DTE flashes, but then when i get back in, the flashiung has stopped. I'm guessing it depends on the angle you park the car at for the sensor to read more or less fuel than it really has.

 

When the -- signal starts to flash, I usually can drive about 100 miles before the tank is really empty.

 

Regardless of how much gas is actually left, its best to fill up as soon as possible when the guage starts to flash. All the crap thats in the gas ends up at the bottom of the tank, and you dont want to suck that up all at once.

A buddy let is Passat run almost to empty....as in the car was practically stuttering. A day later it started to idle really rough. From what I recall the fuel filter was all jacked.