Fuel Light Bingo - Do you play?

LostinBlanch

peasant wrote:

useless morsel of information ...

If you break down on a German motorway because you ran out of fuel (and get caught) you will get fined !

Wasn't there a truck that did this on the M50. It ran out just before the toll bridge and caused a huge tailback. The guards came, got yer man some diesel then charged him with careless driving. Proper order too.

DermoMIO

i leave it to very last moment get paid once a month so fill up once a month dnt put any petrol in it until the needle is as close to the bottom as the red i can get it.

Savman

Crazy habit you people have. I never ever wait for any red lights to appear thank you very much, precisely what you gain from doing so is a bit of a mystery.
Vehicles needs fuel. My refill point is usually when the needle gets to the 20% mark.

rebel.ranter

Used to do it quite a lot when I was a student. Not any more though, I normally fill it up once it dips below 1/4 full. The cost of a fill is less scary that way too! Also agree that it is getting harder to get petrol as well, lots of my regular haunts with the VW Beetle are now closed, well gone.

I normally find that it's the times that you let it slide, i.e. not bother to fill up & light is on, these are the times you get caught out. e.g. You are on the way home in the evening, pass the petrol station, think "ah sure I'll get it in the morning". Then the next morning you are normally running wildly late & are delayed even more getting bloody petrol
These days I normally fill it up completely. I know some people that will only put, say, €35 in regardless, i.e. they will not fill it, ever. Even someone I know with a fuel card from work does this! Another odd one I guess.

prospect

I was always told not to run the car low on fuel, something to do with contaminants settling to the bottom of the tank??

As said before, if IO see a station selling fuel at a lower price than average, i will top up, even if it is only a fiver.

jhegarty

I have gotten to 64.5 miles so far... never lost (yet)....

wet-paint

I never let it get below a quarter of a tank. Sin é.

stovelid

Undercoverguy wrote:

Felt guilty calling the AA out for something this silly but ah well!!

Don't feel guilty. What else would they be doing otherwise except looking after genuine...oh

Stark

You're wasting AA time when they could be out jumpstarting cars that were parked with their lights on!

Pherekydes

Two years ago I was going to France via England. The petrol prices in England are pretty ridiculous, so I filled up in Palmerstown with the intention of driving from Holyhead to Folkstone and filling up in Calais after getting off the Train.

Well, the light came on at about the Dartford Tunnel (London) and I still had 60 miles to go! This was real gambling. I went for it! The needle seemed to bottom out about 20 miles from the tunnel, but I kept going. At this stage I was doing about 50 on the (empty) motorway. Got to the tunnel and killed the engine at every opportunity, no idling whatsoever. Coming off the train, I was the last to start up, and I drove straight into the first available station. Wheeeeeew! Balls of steel, I tells ya.

I put 66 litres into my tank which holds 65 according to the manual.

Never again.

Except I did the very same thing on the way home!! :rolleyes:

Our man in Havana

Slow coach wrote:

Two years ago I was going to France via England. The petrol prices in England are pretty ridiculous, so I filled up in Palmerstown with the intention of driving from Holyhead to Folkstone and filling up in Calais after getting off the Train.

Well, the light came on at about the Dartford Tunnel (London) and I still had 60 miles to go! This was real gambling. I went for it! The needle seemed to bottom out about 20 miles from the tunnel, but I kept going. At this stage I was doing about 50 on the (empty) motorway. Got to the tunnel and killed the engine at every opportunity, no idling whatsoever. Coming off the train, I was the last to start up, and I drove straight into the first available station. Wheeeeeew! Balls of steel, I tells ya.

I put 66 litres into my tank which holds 65 according to the manual.

Never again.

Except I did the very same thing on the way home!! :rolleyes:

Did you win on the way home?

I would have just put a fiver in the tank in England which would have been a good insurance policy. Or else the gallon in a can in the boot!

bjmotors

the petrol light bulb in my car blew from constantly being in and out of the reserve.:D so now i just guess it. i never have more than a 1/4 of a tank but hav never run out either. but im sure il be caught out 1 day.

tc20

I have played this game in the past... I found out that on the previuos model Corsa, when you get to your reserve tank, the little red light comes on, no big deal there i hear you say..i got approx 60miles on the red light before the
light starts to blink!! then you're onto vapours!!

Also happened in my old merc, a '72 with a low fuel light, and the usual old merc 'wobbly fuel gauge needle' syndrome. Now i wasnt playing the bingo game with the merc, but i did run out once, on the N11 south, just before the Belfield flyover. Luckily enough theres a petrol station there, so i bought a petrol can and keep it in the boot. I usually reset the trip switch to zero and gauge on mileage how soon i need to top up.

Pherekydes

Bond-007 wrote:

Did you win on the way home?

I would have just put a fiver in the tank in England which would have been a good insurance policy. Or else the gallon in a can in the boot!

Yes, of course. I was confident at that point. :cool: I was so confident I drove home to Lucan and got petrol there, rather than straight off the boat. It was a Sunday morning, so I picked the shortest route, rather than the quickest, and had loads of fuel to spare. (At least 0.5l )

Blitzkrieger

Bond-007 wrote:

Or else the gallon in a can in the boot!

Not allowed bring those on a ferry. Even if it's empty for some reason.

R.O.R

Managed to snap the gearbox mounting on my car one night so got a lift in to work the next morning and borrowed a demo Zafira 1.9CDTi (150ps of course) we had for a few days. Trip computer reckoned there were about 65km left in the tank and it's about 70km home - all Motorway so I don't pass a fuel station until the Applegreen in Gormanstown. No Choice on the M50 but to inch forward, but stuck to 90km (56mph) all the way up the M1. Managed to get to the fuel station with 8km left on the Trip Computer!

Funny thing was that after I'd put some fuel in the trip never re-set itself and kept counting down. Was expecting it to come to a shuddering halt when it hit 0 but it just kept on going and stayed at 0 for the next 3 days - another quality Opel product ;-)

mik_da_man

I play a game with my trip computer and GPS
Mainly when I am going somewhere I don't know I let the tank run low and use GPS to a find petrol station nearby.

I got the trip computer down to 1KM left once on the way to portlaoise
Was pretty Sh1tting it all rite that time

Gatster

Played a few times when I had a big engined car as a younger man, and lost on a few occasions, but the bug for the game has stuck with me - had a scare stuck on the M50 the other day and pulled off at Liffey Valley with my prayers answered :rolleyes: Probably the closest I've got it 10 years, but for some reason I never play when in large engined cars nowadays...