Miles to empty

[Daka]

It happened, whithout realising I ran the car down till the yellow light for gas came on...reading 30 (I think) miles to empty. It was at night northern FL on 95 where the exits are not very close together...panic...
Should I get off the highway at one of the smaller exits? Better wait for a sign, well, it got to 15 miles and took 23.5 gallons...
My question is....have you had the "miles to empty" go below zero, how far?
I WILL NOT PASS A GAS STATION WITH 1/4 TANK AGAIN....

[caisson12]

Once i t reaches 50 +/- miles it becomes very unreliable. I once had a situation where I had a reading of about 30 miles. As i was looking for the nearest station the miles started dropping like a rock. In the course of two +/- miles the reading dropped from 30 to 15...12...8. This was in a E39 5Series. Scared the livi'n $hit out of me...............

[JCL]

I've seen 10 km, but I usually don't go below 20 km. And if there is a gas station handy, I pull over after the yellow light comes on at 50 km. My vehicles have all been very linear down to 20 km remaining or so.

[daveycrocket]

Originally Posted by caisson12

Once i t reaches 50 +/- miles it becomes very unreliable. I once had a situation where I had a reading of about 30 miles. As i was looking for the nearest station the miles started dropping like a rock. In the course of two +/- miles the reading dropped from 30 to 15...12...8. This was in a E39 5Series. Scared the livi'n $hit out of me...............

Two weeks ago my light came on and it showed 30 miles to empty, then dropped to 8 miles almost immediately and that was in my '01 E39 540i. I broke into a sweat! I blame it on the damn M sport steering wheel. It's not designed to see the whole cluster gauge.

I fill it at half now.

David

[motordavid]

I can't recall my post on this old topic; I might have posted a pic, and sort of recall I got to '10' on the readout. We have run it into the yellow light many times,
watching the number roll down, w/out problem.

My guess is there is more left than what the number says, at highway cruise, but am also aware that every one's X is probably slightly different.
One usually gets to 'know' how far they can push low fuel, in their respective and different cars.

[Naz24]

Coming back from tristate meet...won't do that again!

It seems to be most reliable if you stay with the same driving habit. Like highway driving will make the range different than city.

[Daka]

I WILL NOT let that happen again, I'm sure it AINT' GOOD..
I didn't get a chance to check the manual but doesn't it hold about 26 gallons?
In which case full to the brim at 23 isn't too bad.

[motordavid]

Originally Posted by Daka

I WILL NOT let that happen again, I'm sure it AINT' GOOD..
I didn't get a chance to check the manual but doesn't it hold about 26 gallons?
In which case full to the brim at 23 isn't too bad.

The on line manual, on this site, shows 24.6 +/- ...
You had some left.

[sturach]

Hi all

I've had mine down to 10 miles on the range

only because the garage had ran out of diesel so i had to go elsewhere

Your range will change depending on driving style (go up and down)

as said above i bet each x5 is different but speaking about mine i think 10 miles was pushing my luck

regards

stuart

[Isambard]

My 4.4 had 17 miles left and ran out of petrol!