Bimmer32

This thread is about justifying procrastination. Period. It won't be so cool when you see a guy with a BMW on the side of a road/highway with a tilted portable gas tank in hand.

Heelsonwheels

I have seen where people would drive until the trip computer read minus 10 -20 miles.
I guess it's reading when ur in the reserve.

JayJay

Dad (well more precisely mum) let his Porsche 911 get to 'silly low fuel'. As a result of this minor occurance it completely fucked about with the engine which resulted in more than 1 trip to the garage. All the crap at the bottom of the tank clogged things up and ended up costing a small fortune to fix.


Incidently I didn't think you were mean to switch it into Neutral in an auto. I was told this puts serious amounts of strain on the autobox when you reengage drive?

Allen

Actually I think this thread is about educating people about how far past "0" you can drive your car. Who cares WHY people do it...what does that have to do with anything? I personally think that it is very useful information to know how far you can drive past the "0" indication. Do I plan to do it...no. Do I feel the need to justify it to anyone if I do decide to do it...no.

I did, however, have occasion to drive about 5 miles past "0" on the RANGE indication...I should add that I was EXTREMELY nervous Luckily, I had no problems, and filled the tank to the top with 18.0 gallons...so I guess I had 0.5 gallons (about 10 miles to go) before running out. I am very happy to know this information.

On the fuel pump. I doesn't matter how much fuel is in the tank, the pickup point for the fuel is in a small "trough" at the bottom of the tank (at least it is on an E34...may be different of E60). This why when you have very little fuel in the tank, the sloshing around of the fuel does not starve the pump...the small trough remains completely full until you get below about 1 quart or so of fuel. It is in this trough that debris will gather and be filtered before be sucked into the pump...as the pickup for the pump actually has a very fine filter/screen on it. Again, I can't speak specifically to the E60, but the E34 pump is mounted inside the fuel tank and uses the fuel as coolant for the pump. On the E34, the pump is actually mounted in a bracket, which is loacted towards the very bottom of the tank, so the pump doesn't begin to get uncovered with fuel until probably about 2 - 3 gallon left in tank. Does anyone know how the E60 pump is mounted...is it also towards the very bottom of the tank.

Like most, I prefer to stop for gas as infrequently as possible, but I will do as I did with the E34, which fuel pump lasted 155,000 miles...drive it until 1/8 tank or less...the fill up...repeat.

Lastly, related to all this discussion...not to insult anybody...but I'm sure you all realize that when the fuel pump stops working, your car stops running...you've essentially "run out of gas"...something to keep in mind.

radjpat

Doing a risk/reward analysis... the risk of running out of gas is way beyond the reward of passing an extra gas station or two before filling up. Especially if it's 5 degrees outside, out of a cell service area, raining, on a highway with no breakdown area, etc.

boukehj

Did nobody notice the flaw in Russ's calculation?
If I fill up 3 times a month, taking me 45 minutes, how often would you fill up?

I suppose that for every 36 fill-ups I do a year, you'd do 10/11 * 36 = 32.73 fill-ups. So you save 3.27 fill-ups a year. Time saved is 49 minutes a year, not 45 a month! Or 1.6 days per lifetime. I'm sorry, but out of the 17.6 days you'd hoped to save, correct math just cost you 16.
The time saved really does not weigh up against 1) the risk of running empty and 2) the risk of damages to the car.

steve_gus

Dont forget to add to that the time spent waiting for a tow truck, and taking your car for repairs if you fook it up!

1esquire

also don't forget the time spent doing advanced calculus on a BMW message board. You'll never get those hours back...

Bimmer32

I can probably speak for most people who live in a US cities that there's at least 2 gas stations every 2 miles square. Why would anyone want to "run on fumes" unless they just want to "feel nervous?" The underlying reason is that they're too lazy to get out and pump gas and waste some time in their "too busy" world. So, they push the limits to see where it gets.

What's the reason for this information? It's good fun discussion, but this information will be used for "oh . . . I got a couple of more miles, so I'm not nervous. The pump can wait until I get to the next gas station." To me, that's procrastination.

No, no one has to justify anything when it's subliminal or unconscious.