600 mile club

[murphy]

What is DTE?

Distance To Empty. It's a guess based on how the car has been driven.

[Larry Riley Jr]

Hmmm ok so I'm in the 600 mpg club, but only if you define it as "how far you went since you last put gas in the tank" (which seems to me like a fair way to define it). Over the last few tanks, for some reason I've been able to consistently get a bit more gas into the tank on every fill. I use the lowest latch on the pump, and fill 1 gallon at a time before stopping, pulling the pump out of the tube halfway and waiting 30 seconds before putting in the next gallon. It takes a while, but at my last fill up, I was at 10 DTE and I got 13.94 gallons into the tank, which was a record. I just wanted to see how much I could actually get in there, since I'll never be able to do much more than 42-43 MPG here in Atlanta. I'll try to record a video to document my next fillup so that folks don't think I'm full of s#$t on this.

 

[mike72]

2 fill ups so far.

 

1st fill up I did 678 miles with 12 DTE

2nd fill 681 with 20 DTE.

 

Not bad bad but I was doing well over 750 miles with my 2013 FFH.

My best was 828 miles with 31 DTE

 

I need to break this 2014 FFH in.

[md13ffhguy]

I use the lowest latch on the pump, and fill 1 gallon at a time before stopping, pulling the pump out of the tube halfway and waiting 30 seconds before putting in the next gallon.

 

Note to self - Do not pull into the gas station behind Larry Riley Jr! ;)

[wreckedcar]

First post ever. 6th fill up and we made it into the 600 mile club.

 

I do have a question about the gas tank. Every time we have filled up so far we have been over 500 miles and it has taken between 10.25 and 12.5 gallons. This last fill up took 13.92 gallons. Now I am not doing the Larry Riley Jr. stop/start every gallon fill up process, I just let her go until it clicks off and I do not top off. So how did I manage to pump 13.92 gallons into a 13.5 gallon tank?

 

[hybridbear]

So how did I manage to pump 13.92 gallons into a 13.5 gallon tank?

A defective gas pump perhaps?

[ptjones]

A defective gas pump perhaps?

Probably that is how much the tank actually holds, CMAX holds 13.9-14gal. :)

 

Paul

[Pghpete]

New 600 miler, requesting permission to join the club. Next up, the 1,000 mile club - not 1,000 miles per tank of course, but 1,000+ miles travelled while maintaining 50+ MPG.

 

[hybridbear]

Pghpete, on 14 Oct 2014 - 2:31 PM, said:

New 600 miler, requesting permission to join the club. Next up, the 1,000 mile club - not 1,000 miles per tank of course, but 1,000+ miles travelled while maintaining 50+ MPG.

 

Great job!

[BoomerGer]

You people who go to "almost" empty just so you can see how far you get on a tank.......tsk tsk tsk! Here is a possible scenario for you......what if an earthquake (or some OTHER disaster) occured that would cause you to not be able to get gas so you could get back home? Earthquakes have that nasty tendency to be strong enough to cause electricity to go off, thereby making it awfully hard to pump gas from one of those stricken gas stations. And in order to get back home, even if you are across town and have enough, do you have to go under or over a bridge? If the quake were to disable bridges enough to warrent not traversing over or under them because you could get SQUISHED at the wrong time, would you have an alternative to going around them to get to your destination and enough gas to accomplish that? And this is just from a Californian's point of view. Others elsewhere have the Tornado problem, which could cause the same set of circumstances, and others still, the Hurricane problem. Then again, there is the major traffic accident. You might have to backtrack, go alternate routes, etc, just far enough cause you to run dry and run out of juice. That is why I try to fill up when my gas gauge gets to half way, or just a smidgen lower. That and the sticker shock of filling up an almost empty tank over filling up half a tank. Thank you for considering these thoughts.

 

Ger - Your friendly, neighborhood, Southern California Connection

Edited October 19, 2014 by BoomerGer

[md13ffhguy]

Like most things, it's a trade-off. Me? I like spending less of my time at gas stations. My previous car had me there every 4-5 days. Now, it's more like every 8-10.

 

600 mile tanks have been the norm for me since May.

[higheroctave32]

So I'm close to making my first 600 mile tank and I have one question. I'm sitting at 575mi. with 7 showing on the DTE and my fill ups so far have stopped at 11.5 gallons. The DTE display has increased with each fill up (only 4 so far). Do we think I am fine rolling on past 0 to get that 600? My lifetime average right now if it makes any difference is sitting at 45.9.

 

Thanks

[Texasota]

Do we think I am fine rolling on past 0 to get that 600? My lifetime average right now if it makes any difference is sitting at 45.9.

 

You are risking damage to your car and the inconvenience of being stranded with an empty gas tank. You can find all kinds of information on-line about damage that may result when you run the gas tank dry. This is a choice you have to make and should not be a collective decision from the members of this forum.

 

Here is what your owner's manual says about running out of fuel:

 

 

 

RUNNING OUT OF FUEL

Avoid running out of fuel because this situation may have an adverse effect on vehicle components.

 

Your vehicle is equipped with various emission control components and a catalytic converter that will enable your vehicle to comply with applicable exhaust emission standards. To make sure that the catalytic converter and other emission control components continue to work properly:

• Use only the specified fuel listed.

• Avoid running out of fuel.

[higheroctave32]

I only ask because at 11.5 gallons for each fill up that supposedly leaves me with 2 gallons left in the tank. Just looking for a consensus from the people that have done 600 and above if they went beyond 0 and into what the car leaves as the reserve. If I remember correctly, someone even said that going beyond that 11.5 will force the car to a give a more accurate DTE for each fill up.

Edited November 3, 2014 by higheroctave32

[Texasota]

I only ask because at 11.5 gallons for each fill up that supposedly leaves me with 2 gallons left in the tank.

 

Seems like there are a few possible explanations why our FFHs are leaving around 2 gallons of reserve in the tank:

1. To leave enough fuel in the tank for lubrication/cooling of the fuel pump inside the tank. You can find lots of discussion about this within this forum and elsewhere on-line.
2. To provide a buffer to save the motorist that ignores the DTE.
3. To provide a margin for error in the trip computer's MPG calculations and DTE calculations. Most of us experience around 2-4 MPG inflation in the trip computer's MPG calculation so we know it is not 100% accurate.

If the goal of achieving 600 miles on a single tank of gas is very important to you, then the choice is yours. The risk of damaging my FFH or being stranded would not be worth it to me but that is only me.

[acdii]

Calculate how many miles you actually get, and use that as a buffer zone when hitting 0 DTE. If you use 11.5 gallons, and get 45 MPG, then you have a 90 mile buffer, split that to be safe. IOW, you can go about 45 miles past DTE before filling is a must. My car routinely gets to 0 DTE at 10.5-11 gallons, and using the buffer of 44 MPG, I usually get about that much more depending on when the car yells, Fill ME.

 

I wouldn't go past 1 gallon though, the accuracy of the gauge and trip is always questionable, and could be off as much as a half gallon. If my trip reads 11.5 used, max I would go is 40 miles. Even at that my nerves are on edge since there are too many variables at play. Beyond that and you put your car at risk like Texasota says. To date I have never put more than 12 gallons in the car. And that is a LOT of fills over the past 35400 miles.

[hybridbear]

How many gallons does your trip meter say you've used? If you put in 11.5 gal last time you know that you have at least 11.5 gal in the tank. If the current tank doesn't show 11.5 gal used yet then you know you can go farther. If your trip meter says you've already used more than 11.5 gal then I would be more cautious because you don't know how much gas is left in there.

[higheroctave32]

I chickened out with the DTE showing 1 lol. I pretty much knew I had more gas on there as I over filled it on the last fill-up.

 

[jeff_h]

I chickened out with the DTE showing 1 lol. I pretty much knew I had more gas on there as I over filled it on the last fill-up.

 

1103141037.jpg

 

Oh so close -- my rule of thumb is that I take the number of gallons the display says I've used on that tank and add 1 gallon as a fudge factor and use that as my threshold to how much gas I should have left.

[wreckedcar]

I chickened out with the DTE showing 1 lol. I pretty much knew I had more gas on there as I over filled it on the last fill-up.

 

1103141037.jpg

With 1 DTE and that many miles, I would have went for 700. No guts, no glory...but then again no walking to the gas station a half mile up the road either.

 

So how many gallons did you put in when you filled it up?

[higheroctave32]

I didn't go for an exact fill-up, but put in $35 which gave me 11.2 gallons and was most of the way full. About 95% I would say.

[md13ffhguy]

I didn't go for an exact fill-up, but put in $35 which gave me 11.2 gallons and was most of the way full. About 95% I would say.

For a guy who's tracking his fuel economy, that doesn't make any sense!

[tclemmer]

After 18 months of ownership I finally had a 600+ mile tank. It was a lot of work staying off the freeway. When I filled the car up I was able to put 12.2 gallons in so I could have gone a bit further.

 

[OneSpeed]

I have gone over 500 each fill up (so far just 2 of them) but have only put 10.8gal back in. How much usable fuel is left?

I could just take a gas can with me and run it dry to see?

[higheroctave32]

I hereby do humbly request entry into this most esteemed club. :worship: Having fought slow and steady, I bring forth evidence of my noble deed. :happy feet: