Warning light warning....

[wolfie308]

Do you check all the warning lights on the dash each time you start up?........me neither!

Do you run your fuel down till the warning light comes on, then think about filling up soon?.....I often do.

A couple of days ago, the car would turn over fine but wouldn't start. Although the light hadn't come on, the needle was
at the bottom of the red, so I knew it was err..pretty low. Decided to get a gallon from the local garage just in case, needle cleared
the red zone, and after a bit of coaxing, engine started and ran fine. I switched off and when I started again, I happened
to notice the low level lamp wasn't lit.

Doh!....I then realised I had actually run out of juice.....luckily it was outside my house. Moral of this story - do check to
see that your lamps are all working.

 

[944Scott]

I'd never run my tank that low, you don't know what crud could be in the bottom of it given the age of the car.

 

[Riverside]

ORIGINAL: 944Scott

I'd never run my tank that low, you don't know what crud could be in the bottom of it given the age of the car.

The pump takes it's feed from the lowest point in the tank [8D] If there was any 'crud' in there you'd find out pretty quickly []

The pump is lubricated with petrol though so repeatedly trying to start an empty car could shorten the life of the pump.

 

[944 man]

Following on from what Malc has said, have you ever seen the inside of a petrol tank that wasn't super shiny? Crud indeed.

 

[Eldavo]

Plastic tank too so less able to make crud

 

[wolfie308]

Interesting about the low pickup point, which would mean that any 'crud' would be picked up no mater what the fuel level.

Agree it's not good practice to run the pump dry, but I'd have expected to the hear the pump clicking if the fuel was right out,
but I didn't.

 

[944Scott]

Mmmm just think about those times when you go to fill up and the tanker is there delivering, there's crud in them there tanks too!

 

[Riverside]

Petrol is a solvent, there's not much that doesn't dissolve in it, and anything that does survive is picked up by the station filter. Anything that survives that will get picked up by the fuel filter in your car.

If someone managed to drop something into the filler neck of your car then yes, you should probably worry about that []

The tanks in a petrol station can become contaminated (most likely with rainwater). Petrol doesn't mix with water, it floats on top so any water in the system (station or car) will be sucked through first and your car will conk out very quickly. You will know the water came from the petrol station because you will have successfully driven there but be unable to drive away. Water does no damage this way, it simply won't burn (obviously!) so drain the water out, turn the car over until the petrol reaches the injectors & all should be well. Change the filter as soon as you can but it shouldn't need to be done to get the car started.

Note that if you put diesel (or any other contaminant that does mix with petrol eg sugar) in it can take longer for the car to conk out, and may well damage a lot of stuff on it's way through.

A couple of years ago I had an intermittent fault with my 944. I eventually traced it to a faulty fuel pump wire but in diagnosing the problem one of the things I did was drain the tank to see if it was contaminated (it wasn't). One of the other things I did was a lot of research into fuel contamination (needlessly as it turned out [])