Driving till my tanks empty

[DrR]

will it damage the car?

 

[Aluco]

nope, best to top up it before it splutters to a halt tho..

 

[DrR]

wanna see how far i can go on the red light.

 

[Aluco]

Its not going to break it tbf, go for it but keep a can of petrol in the boot while you do it

 

[nth]

on mine the light comes on when it gets to 36miles.
may differ on the 182

 

[kenny172]

wouldnt do it personally, will end up dragging any crap you have at the bottom of the fuel tank through the system and cn cause some nasty problems

 

[Dafthead]

fuel filter will get clogged quicker, but not for years unless you're doing it all the time

 

[cat171]

I wouldn't do it either. No chance at all.

 

[DrR]

ok how bigs the tank, as when i filled up from light on last time only put 40.3 ltrs in.

 

[kenny172]

apparently 50 litres

 

[Aluco]

bear in mind theres hardly going to be any "bits" in your fuel tank the only stuff that could get in is petrol and anything on the nozzle of the petrrol pump. Plus the tanks arent like they used to be with bits of metal and crap floating in them, arent the clio tanks plastic or plastic coated or something anyway ?

 

[182-racing-blue]

wouldnt do it personally, will end up dragging any crap you have at the bottom of the fuel tank through the system and cn cause some nasty problems

fuel filter will get clogged quicker, but not for years unless you're doing it all the time

I wouldn't do it either. No chance at all.

+1

 

[kenny172]

bear in mind theres hardly going to be any "bits" in your fuel tank the only stuff that could get in is petrol and anything on the nozzle of the petrrol pump. Plus the tanks arent like they used to be with bits of metal and crap floating in them, arent the clio tanks plastic or plastic coated or something anyway ?

would surprise you mate, got a claim in work for a 2007 clio dci who let it run down to empty but it dragged all sorts of crap through the system at a cost of £3200 from renault to be repaired. they were trying to blame the fuel they bought but it was actually the fact that they let it run out of diesel

 

[Vish]

I thought all clio tanks were 50L but mine only seems to be about 41/42L roughly 9 gallons. When my light comes on, I fill up with about 40L as well.

 

[DrR]

I thought all clio tanks were 50L but mine only seems to be about 41/42L roughly 9 gallons. When my light comes on, I fill up with about 40L as well.

So should in theory be able to do another 60 miles?

 

[182-racing-blue]

Dont you look at your fuel computer? When you are getting low it usually displays 30 - 35 miles when the light comes on, then after that its dashes on the display and a good idea to fill up. By all means run it out once as it wont do it any harm, as you run your car lower and lower on petrol and as the remaining petrol is sloshing around the fuel tank, there will be moments where there is no petrol actually reaching the fuel pump. As a result of this, the fuel pump will be running dry every so often. Though this isn't at first continuous, this does do it damage. Especially as fuel pumps actually heat up as they run dry so when you do finally run out of petrol, you'll be significantly reducing the life of your fuel pump. If you have an old fashioned turbocharged engine, a sudden lean mixture may detonate and blow a headgasket or shatter a piston. This is why race cars run with secondary fuel tanks or a fuel cell that won't slosh fuel around the tank and cause intermittent feed to the fuel line. Damage can only be expected from highly tuned and precision made engines.

For a diesel engine, the fuel lines must be bled because air bubbles will cause knock and detonation in the engine. The air to fuel mixture for a diesel demands more precision because it has no spark plugs.

Anyway, I wouldn't do it cos I keepmy tank at least 1/4 full all the time.

 

[sean_d]

A wouldnt do it either

 

[Aluco]

i do about 25 miles before i fill up once the light comes on,

Oops whatever

 

[LegoHead]

will it damage the car?

Yeh I reckon the gearbox will probably go first.lol.

How many miles do you usually get between repairs?:rasp:

 

[Hoppy]

wouldnt do it personally, will end up dragging any crap you have at the bottom of the fuel tank through the system and cn cause some nasty problems

+1

 

[Vish]

I thought all clio tanks were 50L but mine only seems to be about 41/42L roughly 9 gallons. When my light comes on, I fill up with about 40L as well.

So should in theory be able to do another 60 miles?

If it is a 50L tank. I've had my red light on for a while once, just to see how many miles I could scrape out of the tank and when I filled up, I think it took around 41-42L iirc, and I brimmed it up to the nozzle.

I norm fill up when the needle is in the red but the light is not on and I get about 39L in it.

Don't want to run the risk of an emergency or whatever and no petrol.

 

[Timmay]

ive unfortunately done it with my 1.6 and my first 172 - both ran out of petrol - just put some more in and waited couple of mins - never any problems

 

[-Leigh-]

Doesn't the fuel come from the bottom of the tank anyway? I thought the pipe from the tank was situated at the lowest point?

 

[Vish]

Doesn't the fuel come from the bottom of the tank anyway? I thought the pipe from the tank was situated at the lowest point?

Would renault makes things so easy??










I don't know if they do or not

 

[-J-]

I drove from Uxbridge to Oxford yesterday on empty and the red light came on about 1/2 way up the M40. No ill effect on my car and I managed a Total of 346miles on £60 worth of Tescos finest 99ron so was pretty happy.

 

[Fred@BTM]

crap can't be dragged through the system, the pick up point is in THE BOTTOM of the tank anyway where "any crap" as you all put it would be

there's a fuel filter on the end of the pickup

 

[-Leigh-]

crap can't be dragged through the system, the pick up point is in THE BOTTOM of the tank anyway where "any crap" as you all put it would be

there's a fuel filter on the end of the pickup

Yeah, thought so.

 

[Michael172]

i find on my 1.2 itl come on when theres 60 miles left, ive dont about 30 miles tops with the light on.

 

[AlexG]

diesel:nono: , petrol will be fine just fill it up and leave the ignition on for a min before starting. once you have runit empty then fill it up and tell us how many litres it takes

 

[martandem]

they used to say that going to the bottom of the tank means that sediment then goes through the filter and can damage the fuel filter.... how accurate this is i don't know... but its clearly better to fill up when the fuel light first comes on than take it to empty!

 

[SkidMarx]

crap can't be dragged through the system, the pick up point is in THE BOTTOM of the tank anyway where "any crap" as you all put it would be

there's a fuel filter on the end of the pickup

+1

 

[DannyR]

My fuel light comes on depending on how hard I'm driving and works it out from the MPG I think?!

Valvers used to have a separate reserve tank for some reason (as do R5 GTT) which activated once the light had come on. I don't know why they did, anyone else?!

 

[The Chubby Pirate]

Id maybe recommend putting in an additive along with petrol when it does eventually cut out thus meaning itll clean the injectors and so on when you do fill it back up.

although in saying that i dont fancy trying it anyway especially if your on a dual carrigeway with no where to stop?

 

[ForceIndia]

bear in mind theres hardly going to be any "bits" in your fuel tank the only stuff that could get in is petrol and anything on the nozzle of the petrrol pump. Plus the tanks arent like they used to be with bits of metal and crap floating in them, arent the clio tanks plastic or plastic coated or something anyway ?

Thats not always the case. Have a gander at a site like pheads, plenty of stories of people running till dry, and probs surfacing soon after. It could cause problems, end of the day, is it worth the risk?

 

[Ian_182]

I thought this was a bit of an old wives tale in this modern age

 

[Sarah]

i can get to work and back on the red light thats 40 miles.....been caught out once

 

[Griff]

I thought this was a bit of an old wives tale in this modern age

It is a myth.

 

[Sparky1983]

Umm i'm suprised nobodies mentioned this but doesn't it damange the CAT convertor??

 

[DrR]

good job i have a decat

 

[172bagss2]

wanna see how far i can go on the red light.

LOL! :lolup: