Out of gas at 90 MPH
 

Hi all. I pulled a pretty awesome manuever the other night on the way home from a friend's place. I had let my friend drive my car to a party and on the way the fuel light came on. I normally drive my car right down the fumes cause I know how far I can go. Well, she was driving very aggressively and burned up more fuel than I expected. When I headed home later that night I ran out of gas on the highway at about 90 MPH.

I pulled off to safety and got it taken care of no problem but now I feel like there is a slight hiccup now and then as I'm driving. It's just something I can kind of feel as I throttle up.

So, am I just imaginging things cause I am worried, or is it possible I did some damage by running her dry at speed?

Thoughts?

I've heard people say you can damage the car by letting it run out of gas, but I'm not sure if that is correct or not. The main you thing you have to remember is if you are low on gas, the faster you are going, the quicker you are going to burn gas. So if you have had the gas light on and know it, you should probablly go no faster than 60 so you can save your ass.

I know that if you let a diesel engine run out of fuel, your in trouble and have to do a lot of work getting things back to normal.
And I don't know specifically about rotary, but I've always heard that if a gasoline engine runs out, it just runs out. Although I could imagine air getting into places that it shouldn't and then messing with the pressures in the engine and the combustion cycle.

And its not so much speed as it is RPMs. 35 mph in 6th is a lot better than 35mph in 1st with regards to fuel consumption. :P

Where's rotarygod on this one?

it prolly though a knock and gave you a hefty ltft.. clear the pcm by unplugging the battery, then dump the KAM by hooking it back up, turn the key on stomp the brake pedal until the oil gauge moves then turn key off. When you start it if the abs and tsc/dsc lights are on turn the wheel all the way left and right. it will reset when you turn the car off.. but let it warm up so it doesn't flood.

I ran out of gas a few months back and I haven't had any problems since then.

90 mph in 6th gear would be about 4500 RPM. When turning off their car, some people rev the engine to 4K or 5K RPM and cut the ignition switch, would be about the same thing as running out of fuel.

Can't see a reason why either would harm the engine, but I am not an automotive engineer either.

Could have picked up some stuff from the bottom of your gas tank when it went dry...

Yep. You could have moisture or rust (not likely though). If you didn't screwup your MAF sensor (I've done that before running out of gas) you may just need to purge the system. You can try those bottled cleaners from Pep Boys, but if it keeps happening you'll need to have the fuel system flushed.

Typically running the gas dry can cause two potential problems:
One: any sediment in the bottom of the tank can get pulled into the pump or filter and clog it up.
Two: the fuel pump is is usually cooled by the gasoline in the tank, if you run it dry, the pump can over heat.

One is usually found in older tanks and/or those without liners.
Two is more about cumulative damage: the pump won't be significantly damaged by any one event but the more you do it, the more damage you do.

When the motor runs out of gas at speed under load the lean misfire can take out the coils. How is it accellerating hard from 5k-9k?

I read somewhere (and I'll try to find it) that running a rotary engine dry is potentially quite damaging. When I get to a quarter tank I refuel.

Explain your proble in more detail, please

Damn it saturn, you're supposed to say something hilarious. I was thrown off when you said something serious. :mdrmed:

I'm wondering why you're going 90 with the low fuel light on, vonn. Do a bit more thinking next time :nono:

Little off topic, but since you mentioned it... who runs thier car at 90 mph with the fuel light on? Did you honestly think that was a good idea?

Back when i was a youngin I ran my second gen rx7 dry a few times with no ill side effects. But second gens didnt have all this new fangled computer stuff on them. I would try reseting the computer. Fuel pumps usually do not reach all the way to the floor of the tank so its very unlikely you picked up any crap from the tank.

My vote goes here.

Aside from the aformentioned problem of possible damage when running out, I'd imagine that it's dependant on how old/miles you've ran on your car. If you've had your car for years and logged, say over 40-60K miles, you may get a lot of sediment and other crap gathered in certain parts of the gas tank that would normally never be injected.

However, when you run out of gas, any and everything in the fuel tank drops down and it collected then sent to the injectors. If you haven't guessed yet where i'm going, you could possibly have a clogged fuel injector from collected gunk in the fuel tank. For example, you can imagine when a sink is near empty, no matter how little is in it, there is still enough water to let stuff move freely on the bottom. Let that water COMPLETELY out...and watch how everything in the sink is sucked into the one spot.

Although a gas tank is shaped differently, it's general analogy of how liquids react is still the same.

Is it a sure thing? not really. Just another thought to keep in mind.

if you still under warranty, take it for service. after all thats why you buy a new car so you dont have to worry about whats broken. just dont do it again i guess.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. Didn't see all these responses, so thanks all for the information. It's very helpful. I haven't driven much since it happened, so at the moment I can't describe the problem better. I'll take it out tonight and run around a bit to see if I can get a better description of what's going on.

As for what I was doing driving 90 with the fuel light on... Like I said, I know my car pretty well. Only thing that threw me off was letting someone else drive which I normally never do.

Sure, it was stupid, but then again I was on the highway and the highways here are 70 MPH with traffic normally running at about 80 MPH. It's not like I went out to the track on a low tank or something :) If I hadn't run out at 90 where I did I would have run out at 70 a few more miles down the road.

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll see if I can get it to happen tonight and give a better report.

prolly just a lifter tap.