Low Petrol Light

[Leon.]

through bits of metal, rubber etc flaking of the inside of tubes etc in the system. Its similar to how you get crap in your oil system........

[Goto10]

How does "crap" get into my tank though. Not like I throw mud in when im bored.

You'd be surprised - I rebuilt a mini from the ground up a few years ago, whilst doing this I had the fuel tank out and cleaned it - seemed to be full of sand! Was a good handful or two of cack in the bottom.

[L0rdMike]

I take it sand would be from the petrol its self?
Bit of sand didnt hurt anyone.

[Sidewinder]

Fuel filters anyone?

[Leon.]

The sand is probably dust and dirt from the original piping and also bits of stuff that have flaked off, and been broken down into little bits.

The result of this just getting into the rest of the system means that your injectors and system won't work so well (as they'll be coated in crap) so when you put your foot down your pistons aren't getting as much fuel as they should. It probably means you loose bhp over the years, and fuel efficiency. Just depends how you wanna treat your '2 I guess

[Leon.]

Fuel filters anyone?

yeh but they won't pick it all up

[Lauren]

Actually it doesn't matter if you run it down into the red so as to speak. I've just about always done this and never had any problems. There is 5-9litres in the tank when the light is on, so you can be guaranteed of 35miles with the light on. I've managed 60 motorway miles @ 55mph before, no problem. The guage is very conservative.

Lauren, Lauren, Lauren

Surely Miss knowledgable knows that if you run the fuel line low you run the risk of pushing all the cr@p that's sitting in the bottom of the tank through your injectors and everything else. This surely cannot be good for the system, particularly if you do it all the time, and if your tank is 18 years old!!!



I'd be interested to know if you disagree with this??



P.S. It occured to me I didn't mean 40-50 litres, nor did I mean 4-5 litres, I meant 40-50 miles - as Lauren confirmed

Well the thing is that even when the light has been on a while there's still a gallon in the tank at least, plus there's a little pot in the tank so any crap wouldn't get in there. Then there's the fuel pump gauze filter. After removing mine which i frequently ran down till the light was on on many occasions over 50K miles, the gauze did not have one bit of dirt on it.

So i think its a bit of an urban myth in all honesty. Modern fuel contains a lot of detergents, you would not believe how clean the fuel pump and tank were. The fuel pump looked like it was brand new after 16 years of use.

I don't disagree with you but i think that saying that not to go under a quarter of a tank before you re-fill through fear of dragging crap through your fuel system is a little OTT. I agree its probably not the brightest idea to run your car until it runs out of fuel or always drive till the light comes on, but if you do on occasion it really doesn't matter all that much. I usually tend to refill mine once its halfway between a quarter and empty, or i fill it depending on what kind of journey i'm going on. Usually if its a hundred miles or so i'd fill the car up the night before or first thing, just so i don't have to stop and pay motorway prices.

[Leon.]

wondered where you'd got too!! Fair point, the proof is in the pudding I guess! Its just what I heard before and could understand the theory......... The other reason I try and fill up at a 1/4 tank is because I don't often visit the area which has cheap petrol, and there aren't many Shell garages near me!!

[Lauren]

wondered where you'd got too!! Fair point, the proof is in the pudding I guess! Its just what I heard before and could understand the theory......... The other reason I try and fill up at a 1/4 tank is because I don't often visit the area which has cheap petrol, and there aren't many Shell garages near me!!

Ah okay. Well i just didn't want the impression given that you must not run under a quarter of a tank, some people get worried when they hear stuff like that. So thats what i was worried about.

I was making lasagne it always takes forever to do...

[Leon.]

Ah okay. Well i just didn't want the impression given that you must not run under a quarter of a tank, some people get worried when they hear stuff like that. So thats what i was worried about.

I was making lasagne it always takes forever to do...

LOL! Did Mark like it?

Well I was under the impression it was advisable to keep above 1/4 but maybe not.

Didn't mean to cause heart attacks though!

[Jon Bradley]

maybe if you run your tank to empty every time, you'll stop grime from building up in the first place....

[Shmed]

(I was jibing about a Mark 1 petrol light, not the car. Just palying on the wording )

p.s. gAUge