I've been pushing my gas tanks nearly to 0 Miles to E, but have never gone below 0. Who out there has done that and what happens, does another light come on, a buzzer, or ? Does the Miles to E go negative? I'm also curious how far anyone has pushed beyond E as well, in other words how much "reserve" is there? Thanks...RayP PS I have an '09, I assume they all have similar display and algorithm but if not, let me know.

 

The health alert/emergeny system automatically dispatches a tow truck with three gallons of gas to your gps notified location.

(humor)

 

I know from experience in my 08FEH, that there is less than a gallon left (3/4 maybe) and the alert light comes on and you can drive in battery for a little bit. Luckily, I was about 1/4 mile from the gas station so I just drove on in. It kind of scared me because I wasn't expecting the gas to run out so soon. In my 06FEH, I could go further on MTE=0 so they changed it at some point.

 

As I read the owners manual... there "should" be the 2 gallon reserve in the tank. Real world experience says be careful with this.

I track fuel mileage on my cars. I noticed that the average mileage the computer uses to calculate this is not necessarily the right number.

This past summer I towed a small trailer across country. Mileage dropped from ~30 to ~21 while towing. The mpg calculated and shown on the readout only slowly dropped from its long term average to the towing average. So I quickly realized I couldn't trust the miles to empty.

Similarly when I dropped the tow, the mileage on the readout came back up only slowly.

So be careful of what that readout says. Its usually pretty good, but if something changes in fuel consumption your readout could be way off.

 

The manual for my 09 MMH says the tank capacity of 15.0 gallons. Two weeks ago I needed to full up and wanted to get to a station that I know sells E0 gas. To do so I got it to a "1 mile to empty" message when I rolled into the station, and filled up.

Total volume added was 15.502 gallons according to the pump and the CC printout. I had a gut feeling, but couldn't confirm (nor did I want to try), that I could have driven some more before the gas ran out.

 

GaryG has been on record as stating the 05-07 FEH have 1.3 gallons of "fuel" left when Miles to E is Zero. In his 09, he found out there is 0.8 gallons of fuel left when Miles to E is Zero.

GPSman1 has stated one can get more than 15 gallons into the tank and he claims a best of something like 17+. If you look for a thread on "lateral bumping" you will obtain some additional information.

 

In my 2006 I get a beep at 50 MTE, a beep at 25 MTE, a beep at 10 MTE and a beep at 0 MTE. I have driven 15-20 miles after "0". The tank is supposed to be 15 gallons but I have never been able to put more than 13.7 gallons in no matter how empty I was.

 

This is only partially true. The computer calculator also looks at tank level. Sure, right after a fill-up and before a tow, you will have a very high MTE number. But that number will re-calculate based on tank level, so mine, by the time I'm near empty, is very realistic.

Example: Say previous tank ave was 35 MPG.
The computer uses 13.7 gallons.
The MTE at the start of the tow will be 480 miles.

At first, say, the first hour, MTE will drop by 1's per mile driven.
During the second hour, MTE will drop by 3 per 2 miles driven.
During the third hour, MTE will drop by 4 per 2 miles driven.
During the fourth hour, MTE will drop by 5 per 2 miles driven.

Answer to the original question? You hear a beep at MTE zero, get a low fuel message, and keep on driving for as long as about 1 gallon will take you!

 

That's simply not what I observed.

It took nearly the whole trip of over 2,000 miles for the readout average to drop to near the average I was seeing in each fill-up calculation.

Then it took several weeks (really a couple thousand miles) of normal driving to get back up to the expected mileage.

What I saw was:
Started with only 12 miles on the 1st tank, so it was full for all intents & purposes.

1st tank towing mileage was still showing around town mileage minus one mpg or about 27 mpg.
2nd tank showed about minus 1.5 mpg on around town mpg
3rd tank showed minus 2.2 mpg on around town mpg
etc

When the trip was done I was still showing calculated mpg plus 1.2 mpg.
Distance covered 46376-43988= 2388
trip ave mpg =23.4
lowest leg mpg =21.6
lowest readout 23.1 mpg

Observed a sliding average that progressively dropped toward 23.1 over the ten fill ups of the trip, then climbed back to our "high altitude" average of about 30-32 mpg similarly slowly.

Bottom line: the moving mpg average (& therefore miles to empty) changes only very slowly. If you have a major change in mileage, such as towing, trust it at your peril.

 

You're not understanding what I'm saying.
Yes, the "moving ave MPG" changes only slowly. True.

However, the MTE number makes rapid corrections based on tank level.

If the tank level drops faster than "average", say you had a leak, the MTE number falls faster than average.

Moral of the story: You can't trust the MTE on a full tank if your driving habits radically change. It's about as trust worth as any other time, when the number gets close to zero.

What I'm saying is, it is impossible to run out of gas with a positive number of miles showing on the MTE. I can ALWAYS drive past zero, even when towing.
I just did this Monday. The MTE number is simple math of gallons left x moving ave of MPG. The error will be large on a full tank (200 miles?) and small on a nearly empty tank (10 miles).