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Running out of fuel, upon fill, tank only takes 16 gal.


DonutHands
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Happens every time, the fuel gauge is just shy of touching the 'empty' white line and the car starts sputtering and surging as its running out of fuel. The low fuel light never comes on, but when i go to fill the tank up, it only takes 16 gallons.

 

Where the hell is the rest of the gas? 

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It's a flat-bottomed tank and the pickup doesn't come out of the bottom like on a lawnmower gas tank. It'll suck air before the tank is fully empty. I'm not sure much usable fuel capacity the R50 has, but I don't think I've put more than 17 gallons in the 21 gallon tank in my '93 (though to be fair I haven't run it completely empty). If you check the pump and don't find anything obviously amiss, you might be able to get a little more out of it by messing with the height of the pickup (measure the tank depth and compare to see if it could go lower), or make the gauge more accurate by bending the float arm a little.

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Pretty sure the fuel filter is new-ish. Its located somewhere above the pumpkin right? If so, it's the only shiny thing under the car at this point. Ill have to check the fuel pump.

 

I don't expect to get every last drop of gas out of it, but being starved for fuel at 16gal without the light coming on sure sounds wrong to me.

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13 hours ago, DonutHands said:

Pretty sure the fuel filter is new-ish. Its located somewhere above the pumpkin right? If so, it's the only shiny thing under the car at this point. Ill have to check the fuel pump.

 

I don't expect to get every last drop of gas out of it, but being starved for fuel at 16gal without the light coming on sure sounds wrong to me.

 

But doesn't seem too far off, either, though.  Although I've not gotten to the point of stuttering, but my fill-ups from the E line are normally in the 16-16.5gal range.  I don't think I've ever exceeded 17gal, even when trying to push below the E.  I don't have much faith that there's any useful reserve there.

Edited by hawairish
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My 97 doesn't sputter as if running out of gas until somewhere around 19+ gallons consumed. I have a Scan-Gauge II which has a "fuel tank capacity" setting to help compute "distance to empty". Even though the fuel tank capacity is technically 21.1 gallons, I set the tank capacity to 20 gallons, because I've actually sputtered to a total stop 2 miles from the gas station when it registered a little over 20 gallons consumed. Even though the low fuel light had been glowing for a good 30+ miles, I thought I could make it because of my trust in the SGII display. Although it's usually pretty accurate, I have to remember that the Scan-Gauge II fuel consumption display is calculated by other OBD2 sensors, not actual fuel use.

 

Anyway, if you refill an empty* tank after pumping only 16 gallons before auto-shutoff, that is much different than my experience. This is why I think it's worth checking the fuel pump pickup or fuel filter.

 

*"empty" means the engine stalled and would not restart because it ran out of fuel.

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I concur with [mention=1343]XPLORx4[/mention]. I’ve put >19g in my tank more times than I can count over the past 18 years. I believe I’ve even hit >20 a few times. That said, it’s probably not best practice for all the reasons mentioned by [mention=39745]stpickens[/mention]

 

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It sounds like you may have a fuel vent breather issue or the fuel pick up has dislodged.

I can attest that these will use 20.1 gallons before they start to sputter. Tested it out last week to be exact, not on purpose.


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