I think I read somewhere that the number one cause of air polution in Los Angeles County California is gas evaporating from all the gas cans in people's garages.

Just don't let the tank get very low.

 

Remember in middle school the firemen visited the gym. Had this little pipe they put a drop of gas in and put a cork on top of it. Put it on the table, ignited the sparkplug in at the bottom of the pipe. Like a ping-pong ball it hit the ceiling three stories above and down again.

 

IIRC, gasoline in liquid form does not burn, gasoline vapors do (hence fuel injection, otto cycle, etc.). An empty gas container is actually more susceptible to explosion than a full one. So an empty fuel container is typcially full of vapor which is more volatile than a full can of liquid. Unless of course the can is punctured then of course the spilling fuel will vaporize and become combustible.

Personally I wouldn't carry a fuel container empty or full in the vehicle other than the tank built in the car.

 

Ohhh! I'm off to Home Depot! Sounds like fun!

 

The jug was quite safe. I don't recall the specifics of it, but it was hard to ignite. The possibility of it causing an explosion in your car was far less than a fire extinguisher, can of fix-a-flat, etc. I haven't seen it lately either. Maybe it damaged the engine in some way and they had to pull it?

What was it even made out of?

 

No car is good to run out of gas. It pulls all the sentiment and junk from the bottom of the tank thru your engine and can cause serious problems later. At least if you can always fill up before it gets that low.

 

It does burn, but it doesn't explode. You've seen movies where someone pours a trail of gas on the ground from a gas can and lights one end on fire. The fire travels along the path; it doesn't simply explode. That is of course not CGI; you're really seeing liquid gas being burned.

 

Sigh--my fuel warning light came on with 2 bars left on the fuel gauge, just as I arrived at work.

I'm a new driver of my 06 HCH-II--this is its first tank with about 425 miles on it, a current 42mpg reading, and I have a 22 mile freeway commute to get back home where the gas is much cheaper. Do you think should I put in a gallon before heading home to be safe, or risk the drive home? I hate to muddy up my first couple of tank calculations...

I didn't think the warning light would come on till there were no bars, and from what I've read here, it sounds like I should have PLENTY of gas. But then again it's not a great neighborhood between work and home and you never know when a freeway jam will happen. Should I worry?

 

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

 

I'm going by memory, but I think the owners manual says there's 1.7 gallons from the time the light comes on, and a little bit beyond that even. My experience shows that the light comes on at 10 gallons used; it's spec'd as a 12.4 (12.1?) gal tank, so you could safely figure you'd be running on fumes 2 gallons from now. That means you would have to 'achieve' 11 mpg on your trip to the gas station in order to run out. I don't 'do' traffic jams, but that seems a little far-fetched to me.