andy levy <andy-dml@levyclan.us> wrote:
[...]
: I don't see how you can consider gallons left in the tank with the
: needle on E as "unusable" gas. The fuel pump is still pumping the gas to
: the engine. The truck doesn't shut off. It doesn't drive itself to a gas
: station. No one ever claimed that having the needle on E means that the
: tank is bone-dry - if DC did that, owners would be stranded on the road
: daily. I definitely didn't push my truck to the gas station to put that
: 21.23 gallons into it - so I would say that at most, you might have half
: a gallon of "unusable" gas in there at that point.
I can see what Barry is saying - basically that the "empty" indication
comes "too soon" on the 22 gallon trucks. While it is true that when
the gauge reads E, you don't have to get gas right away, most people are
going to fill up. If you fill up every time the needle hits E, the extra
gas in the tank is only useful as a "reserve" in an emergency perhaps; if
you fill up as soon as the gauge reads E, you might as well have the smaller
tank for all the good the larger one is doing for you - its 30lbs of extra
gas that you're dragging around with you but never actually "using".
To make the example a bit more extreme, assume that the gauge
read E when the tank was still 3/4 full. That would be a pretty
useless gauge. Its the same thing, just to a lesser extent, to have it
read E when there are 5 gallons left in the tank. Its just not as
useful of an indicator as it should be, and the net result is that
the vast majority of people are going to be filling up somewhere around
80 miles before it is actually necessary. Having the low fuel light
come on once there is perhaps 2 gallons left is fine, but to have
a gas gauge which is so wildly inaccurate would be pretty annoying.
Sure, you can always say to yourself, "ok, I've got about 80 miles
left once the needle hits E", but who wants to deal with that? Even
when you know reality is different than what the gauge is telling
you, its still extra stress and something else to think about; might
as well just fill up and be done with it. I'd much prefer to simply
have an accurate gauge; garbage in, garbage out - we shouldn't have
to be second guessing our instruments.
--
-Jon-
.- Jon Steiger -- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
| '96 Kolb Firefly, '96 Suzuki Intruder, Miscellaneous Mopars |
`-------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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