How Empty is Empty?

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RacerZX
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How Empty is Empty?

Postby RacerZX » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:15 am

As I do with every new car I get, yesterday I ran the tank way way down to see how much fuel Nissan holds in reserve on the R51 Pathfinder.

In my Z32 300ZX it's huge, nealry 4 gallons, almost 1/5th of a tank.

On my Murano, the DTE display would plummet very fast from about 50 miles to ****, far faster than it should, and then would have roughly a full gallon after it starts to show ****.

On my 2006 Pathfinder, the DTE's fall from 50 to 8 was very slow, felt much more realistic than the Murano considering the driving I was doing at the time. From 8 to ---- was just a couple minutes, yikes, don't count on those 8 miles! However, I hit a gas station just a couple miles after the DTE started showing ---- and put in just over 19 gallons in a 21 1/8th gallon tank.

You always have to leave a wee bit off, as the fuel pump may not be able to reach all the fuel down at the very bottom, but it looks like the Pathfinder has about a 2 gallon reserver after the DTE hits ----

-Carl


potsyboy
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Postby potsyboy » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:08 pm

That sounds about the same as all my other vehicles.

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mtbpath
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Postby mtbpath » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:35 pm

I filled up once at 20.142 gallons. my milage was 336.
I don't recall how many miles I traveled after DTE came on.
but I can tell you that I was pretty nervous. I don't know this car well enough to go the distance.
but if I had to guess, I think I drove maybe up to 30-40 before filling.
I won't be doing that again. :lol:

jerry6
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Postby jerry6 » Mon May 07, 2007 2:05 pm

i put in between 65 and 70 litres when dte reads o , this on an 80 litre tank . i get about 550 km on that 65 litres of mixed city highway 35% city rest highway. so empty means 10 to 15 litres left in reserve

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Postby Gray » Sun Apr 13, 2008 10:53 pm

Just as a general rule I try to keep the fuel tank above 25%. When allowing something less with current intank pumps I've had to replace a couple of fuel pumps.

YMMV

.

coom1986
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Postby coom1986 » Fri Aug 08, 2008 1:05 pm

Hi all, im new here and ive got a 2008 pathy SE. I love the car but for some reason, the fuel gauge i feel actually shows less fuel than that actually in the tank, Like for Eg. i usually pump gas when the meter reads just below the quater mark. I would then only end up pumping around 55-60 liters of pertol. Is it bcos, Nissan has a reserve of nearly 20 liters!! or is my fuel gaugereading wrong. But for a full tank my DTE reads aorund 450 KM.
What'd you guys think??

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Postby NVRDONE » Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:40 pm

Hey - I ran out of fuel in my '06 LE when the display showed about 50 miles to empty, and the low fuel light wasnt on. Seems there is a service bulitin about this & the pump / sending unit was replaced under warranty.
Now when the light comes on I find I have about 20 miles left until it dies.

coom1986
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Postby coom1986 » Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:52 am

i know there used to be a problem of some sort for the 06 models but has it been carried on to the 08 models?? I need to know what could cause this before i could go speak to my service advisor about this. Its not a problem as such but i'd like to know that i could do a 450 km drive with one tank o gas..cos the familys plannin on a road trip next week so jsut wanna make sure..

ppl any ideas at all??

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Zen_master
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Postby Zen_master » Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:18 pm

coom1986 wrote:Hi all, im new here and ive got a 2008 pathy SE. I love the car but for some reason, the fuel gauge i feel actually shows less fuel than that actually in the tank, Like for Eg. i usually pump gas when the meter reads just below the quater mark. I would then only end up pumping around 55-60 liters of pertol. Is it bcos, Nissan has a reserve of nearly 20 liters!! or is my fuel gaugereading wrong. But for a full tank my DTE reads aorund 450 KM.
What'd you guys think??
I've only owned my 2011 V8 for a couple weeks and I am experiencing the same thing. The owners manual says it holds 22 gallons. However a full tank, topped off a couple times, will give me a DTE leaving the station of around 290 miles at 16.6 avg MPG on the computer.

I also reset the manual tripometer on the instrument cluster and find that I'm not getting anywhere near 300 miles per tank before the fuel light comes on.

My previous vehicle was a Jeep Cherokee. Somewhere along the way over many years of ownership I learned the fuel light would kick on when there was 2.2 gallons of fuel remaining.

I've put two tanks of gas in the Pathfinder thus far and I think the fuel light comes on with a heck of a lot more than 2.2 gallons in this thing. If I fill up to the brim with the fuel light on I can't get more than 17 or 18 gallons in the tank. I'm thinking the fuel light must indicate 5 gallons or more remaining.

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Postby Zen_master » Sat Apr 27, 2013 7:23 am

Does anyone know specifically how many gallons remain in the gas tank when the low-fuel light comes on?

I filled up again yesterday and topped it off to cram another gallon in the tank. Total fill up was ~18 gallons and change. I drive an '11 LE V8 and the owner's manual says it's a 22 gallon fueld tank. I drove the vehicle for approximately 20 miles after the fuel light came on. The Nav/info center was reading **.** for distance til empty for probably 7 or 8 miles. I reset the trip odometer at the previous fill up and received somewhere around 280 miles on the previous fill up from Full to presumable "E" on the fuel gauge and my average MPG is somewhere around 15.9 per the vehicles nav/info center.

I don't want to be stranded on the side of the road but also as a fuel club member I like to get the most gallons per fill up so I'm maximizing the discount on the fuel. It would be nice to know how far I can drive once the low-fuel light goes on. Clearly it seems there's several gallons in the tank at that point, perhaps 4 or more. Thoughts?

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Postby skinny2 » Sat Apr 27, 2013 10:41 am

Well according to my experiment...once the DTE goes to *** there should be about 3 gallons remaining. So probably about 5 when the light first comes on? Mine usually shows about 50 miles remaining when the light comes on but never counts down below 10-15...jumps straight to ***. I posted a thread on this last summer http://www.thenissanpath.com/viewtopic. ... hlight=dte

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Postby Zen_master » Thu May 16, 2013 2:30 pm

I'm trying a little experiment using GasBuddy fuel log. About a week ago I literally topped off the tank to the point I could see the fuel in the filler neck and it did not bubble up and displace anymore air in the tank. It was filled to the brim at 19.1 gallons. I ran a weekend inter-city road trip and ran it down until the fuel light came on. I probably drove no more than 15 miles after the fuel light came on before stopping at the gas station.

When I again topped it off to the brim this time the total fuel dispensed was 18.254 gallons.

Ergo, if the R51 does indeed have a 22 gallons fuel tank the math seems pretty clear:

22 - 18.254 = 3.746 gallons when the light is on.

One may assume Nissan didn't intend for the filler neck to be filled when determining the 22 gallon capacity of the fuel tank. I'd guess the filler neck is somewhere between 1 gallon and 1/2 gallon in capacity giving us the following calculations if we back this amount off the fuel I put in the vehicle:

22 - 17.254 = 4.746 gal when the fuel light is triggered.
22 - 17.754 = 4.246 gal when the fuel light is triggered.

Averaging 1 gallon and 1/2 gallon for the filler neck yields the following:

4.746 + 4.246 / 2 = 4.496 gal when the fuel light is triggered.

Can anyone else think of a way to discover how much fuel is left in the tank when the fuel light is initially triggered?

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RacerZX
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Postby RacerZX » Thu May 16, 2013 3:01 pm

Well...drive it until it stops. :wink:

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NmexMAX
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Postby NmexMAX » Thu May 16, 2013 3:23 pm

Mine is different in that the fuel light wont come on until I'm down to DTE 22-25 miles.

Strange because every other vehicle I've owned seemed to like the 2.5 gallon mark, where on average the fuel light would come on when DTE was around 40-50 miles.

Double crappy when I only get 12.5-13.5 MPG in the first place.

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doctahjones
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Postby doctahjones » Thu May 16, 2013 3:40 pm

in my experience and experiments, i've found i have about 3 gallons from the time the light comes on, and about 2 gallons left once you hit the E line.

only once did i go under the E line. put 19.5 gallons in it that time. that's as close as i ever want to get.


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