Running out of petrol

Once in 35 years. Turned out the electronic petrol gauge had failed and was stuck at 1/4 tank.

Driving ten years. I've never run out of petrol but there was one occasion where it got so low that the car grumbled quite a bit about starting.

I do have a story from working in lorry breakdowns. Company called saying they wanted a patrol out. Reason for breakdown - ran out of diesel. Location of breakdown - the motorway services.

When I asked if they were certain they wanted a call out, which they would have to pay for, they got very irate with me and insisted they wanted someone out.

We had a call an hour later to cancel the call out because they'd discovered it's actually quite easy to find diesel at the motorway services.

Never in a car in 27yrs.

Once on a 125cc motorbike when it turned out the garage had opened the emergency supply and my gauge was sticky. Fortunately my DH was with me so he rode home on his bike to get the car and a petrol container. Learned that lesson the hard way!

DH- 50 years and ran out once when he was 18. Never run out since.

Me- only when we lived overseas, 12 years and never ran out due to DH’s habit of filling up before down to 1/4 left. Made sense to me so I did the same.

Over 30 years and never.
Stretched my luck a few times though 😬

it would never happen now because my car uses so much more petrol once it drops below half that I try to fill up at th ehalf way point).

Eh? How would that work? Your engine doesn't care how much fuel sits in the background. If anything you should be using less fuel because you don't have to use energy to move the weight of the fuel. You need to get a garage to look at your fuel gauge.

An interesting thread!!

32 years of driving here and have run out 5 times - to be fair the last 4 times have been in the past few months as the fuel gauge was no longer accurate after some work was done on the fuel tank, and no warning light ever came on. That car is now no more.

My DH would be person A!

22 years. Once, when the petrol gauge broke and it looked like I still had a 1/4 tank left but it was empty.

37 years never ran out

DH 43years ran out once on the M4 when the kids were a baby and a toddler. I was absolutely bloody fuming. Fortunately it was in the days of the RAC attending within about half an hour of your call.

My father taught me to monitor my mileage. So even if my gauge was broken I'd know beause I'm always keeping an eye on the mileage (also, it would never happen now because my car uses so much more petrol once it drops below half that I try to fill up at th ehalf way point).

No but I have come close on a couple of occasions. I would not judge anyone that did. If you are distracted or have a lot going on then I can see how it might happen.

Older cars fuel gauges weren't nearly as comprehensive.
In our 56 plate that died recently, a clio, it was just four lights. Being on the last light meant 100 miles left!

20-odd years and my light came on twice.

30 years and never run out. My DH likes to moan about how driving the car when the petrol is very low is bad for the engine so I try not to let it drop below a quarter tbh. Something about sludge, I don't know, I didn't listen.

37 years and only came close once.

Never run out. There's no excuse for it, there's a gauge and a warning light in your car. In Germany, and possibly other countries, it's illegal to stop on the Autobahn. Which means you get fined for running out of fuel because it's preventable.

I have memories of a family holiday as a child of running on fumes on a Sunday in France desperately trying to find an open petrol station so we could fill up before going to catch the ferry 2 hours away. We made it, but it cured Dad of not filling up soon enough.

Once in 20+ years. It began juddering on the retail park where the petrol station is located so I pulled over safely into a parking bay and was back with a can 10 minutes later.

I don't like going to red and I normally fill up in passing when I'm approaching that zone but just hadn't co-ordinated doing it very well that time over a series of short journeys and ended up going lower than usual. I didn't know the warning light flashed at critical. Fortunately that was as I was turning off the main road into a safer area.

25 years of driving, never run out. Get antsy when I'm under a quarter of a tank to be honest

30 years, never run out of fuel.

I somehow managed to fill a diesel car with petrol once, I'd owned the same car for 10 years.

Once when I bought a car.
They claimed it had enough fuel in it to get to a petrol station. They lied it ran out in half a mile, which was about half a mile from the petrol station.

28yrs and never. Although I've ran on fumes on more occasions than I care to admit 🤣

Once in 35 years. In my defence the gauge was broken.

It was years ago so had no phone or breakdown cover. On a busy B road. A motorist stopped and I had to give them my boyfriends phone number and ask him to come out with some petrol. Amazingly it all worked out, I didn't even know if he would be at home.

29 years driving and I have never run out of petrol but have been close a couple of times.