For the first time ever in any car, I ran out of gas in my MCS today. I had one light left and it said I had 31 miles left. I thought I could make it but ran out on the freeway. Luckily a HP officer I knew pulled over and helped out.
Just a caution to all of you so you wont' be embarrased like I was. When it says you have that many miles left, you don't.

 

I've always been a little nervous about the miles left -- I tend to fill up when it goes to the two red lights, which is about 80 miles left. How far down have people gone safely?

 

When it switches over to the number of feet you have left, start looking for a gas station! Just kidding, I took mine to about 40 miles last year at the dragon, only had 1/2 gallon in the tank, if the gas pump was right.

 

I did that once after being at the track and hitting the empty light.
Drove home about 8 miles and going uphill in the last 1 mile before the gas station but never made it.

Called AAA and got a gallon of gas after my wife refused to help me.
She was "busy" at home about 4 miles away.

Now I stop for one gallon of gas before heading home after showing empty at the track or at autocross.

 

I used to let most of my non-mini cars run down to the fuel light coming on. Last year I attended a disaster planning conference and someone made a comment that they never let their gas fall below 1/2 full. When they explained the logic, it made a lot of sense. If you live in a part of the country suseptible (sp?) to black-outs or power failures, the gas stations usually don't have power to run the pumps. So in this kind of situation, or even an evacuation, if the gas stations aren't pumping, you can only go as far as what's left in your car's tank. I have lived through a few major northeastern US blackouts to start filling up half way.

During the last northeast blackout, my wife was in a gas station when the power went out and ended up not getting any gas. I ended up having to drive up (one hour away) and pick her up and then return the next day to get her car when the power was back on.

 

I'm a nervous wreck when it comes to filling up gas with plenty in the tank, and only discovered today, that the car dings at you and goes red with two bars left. I filled up with 71 miles left.

 

There are two things that happen frequently enough in my area to make 1/4th tank full or more a good rule.

Both have happened to me this year (more than once).

Power outage (state wide- due to earthquake or name your local natural disaster of choice). We get tidal waves and hurricanes.

Freeway/roadway closure- we have many full closures- any accident or event resulting in death, hostage situation, or landslide causes immediate and complete shut down of our freeways/roadways. Sometimes the wait on the freeway (little or no movement) is 4 to 12 hours. Running your engine, creeping or idling requires some gas so don't run it down too much. Hybrids are good in such a situation.

I usually like 1/2 to 3/4 full most of the time.

 

this is when i got to the gas station
at one point it said 2 kms left on the way

 

I have taken it down to 16 miles.

 

Very weird. I've taken mine down to about 20 miles left without a problem. It only happened on one occasion and it's not something I at all plan to make a habit of, however. Generally I fill it up as soon as the gas light comes on at 2 bars left.

 

Sadly, as it really doesn't reflect well on me as a sensible driver, I've taken mine down to 3mi left (as claimed by the OBC). I was sweating it, but the MINI just kept chugging along and got me to the gas station of choice.

Admittedly, I almost had a Seinfeld moment and wanted to keep going, but reason and fear of gas-can-carrying embarrassment got the better of me.

 

The OBC that tells you the amount of miles left uses your average mpg to estimate how far you can drive. I don't know where you live, bur around here, the weather's gotten colder lately and that means that the pressure inthe tires drops 1psi per degree C. Depending on which TPMS you have, the pressure warning thing might not have alerted you. When pressure is low, mileage drops and might have thrown your avg mpg off and caused your car to miscalculate how far you could go.

 

i've taken down to 11 once and thought that i could make an 8 mile drive to church and I HIT TRAFFIC ON THE WAY TO CHURCH, good thing i thought better of myself and went and filled up before i got to the freeway. even though MINI's get great gas milage their no mircle workers.

 

Sadly i have to say ive beaten you all with my '05mcs...but first please note, i only live 5min down the street from work (its a flat road too, no hills) otherwise i wouldnt run with so little gas.

While going to work one day I noticed I had 1 mile left, no sweat, kept going got to work fine. Leaving work, it now said zero. Ok, better get gas (from one of the 3 stations on the way home). On the short trip to the gas station, it went from "0" to "---" and stayed there! I took it as my MINI telling me to "GET SOME FREAKIN' GAS!!!"

 

The miles left also depends on the levelness of the car. I've had mine say 50 miles left when I parked it on unlevel ground and when I get going level it says 70. Or vice versa if the other end is higher.

 

Yep I remember that story

 

Another risk when running low on gas is fuel pump damage- the gas running through them keep it cool and lubricated. Running the tank too low on gas frequently can make for extra wear on the pump.

 

I've gone over 30 miles on (---) while on a trip.* Still had over 1/2 gal in the tank when I filled-up. I read in one of the pieces of literature that it uses the weighted average of the MPG for the last so many miles to calculate DTE, and if you drive really hard near the bottom of the tank then take it easy for a while you can actually watch the DTE number increasing as you drive.

*On road trips I refuse to stop every couple hours to put 6 gallons into the car. I do carry a 5L BMW spare gas can, though, just in case.

 

Hostage situations pretty common in Hawaii?

 

This is true as I've noticed it a couple times. Especially when I switch from city driving to highway driving, the OBC either increases my miles to empty by a pretty large margin or just stays 'static' for multiple miles.

 

More common than you think. Three times recently, one on a mountanous road (three killed), one in a home on a main street into a large valley residential area, and one near a school- closed down a major route into and out of the west coast of the island- very very very bad. People were stranded for miles and miles headed home afterwork to the coast and had to abandon their cars (not able to turn around once on the freeway).

I lived on the mainland for 12 years and never once had to get caught in a complete shutdown of a major road or freeway.

I've got caught now quite a few times in Hawaii. When it happens you will wish you had a full tank of gas. The last time, my speed was one hour to move 100 yards.

 

At the end of a track day the OBC read 4 miles. At the track entrance, it read 2. In the 10 miles to the gas station it increased a bit, then dropped to the dreaded "--". Made it to the station though.

In normal driving the lowest I've reached is 10, and I was sweating bullets and thankful that I had the Nav to direct me to the nearest Chevron. Thus mine is accurate, or maybe a touch pessimistic.

Had a friend in a Cooper who ran out with 20 left on the OBC, so most definitively, YMMV.

 

Back before I realized how far you could drive in the California desert without seeing a gas station, I let the OBC get down to about 20 miles before I started looking for gas. It ended up getting down to about 2 miles, but then it hung there for another 5 or 6 miles until I finally found a station.

 

You can always drive around with a few gallons in a fuel container and see the computer judge how much further you can go - just for fun.

 

This sounds like grounds for divorce.

I don't understand people letting the gas tank getting so low. Everybody gets caught once in a while, but when I hit a quarter tank and I'm looking for a gas station. Most cars (the MINI included) these days have the fuel pump in the a tank and use the fuel to cool the pump. Letting the tank get that low is inviting a pump failure not to mention sucking up whatever dirt that may be at the bottom of the tank.