Gas tank size.

[Quailane]

Hey, in the bentley manual it states that later E30's had 16.6 gallon tanks as opposed to earlier ones that had 14.5 gallon tanks. The thing is my fuel gauge says the tank is completely empty at just before the 14 gallon mark. My car is 1992 production, so I'm guessing it has the larger tank, so could this be that the fuel level sender is malfunctioning or what? Is there any way I can tell what size the tank is? Right now I'm filling up at about 280 miles on the trip meter, but theoretically with a 16.6 gallon tank I could do 350 miles with some margin of safety.

[x68monkeyx]

well my owners manual says my tank is 16.6 but ive never put any more than 13 gallons in it

[e34john]

Was your fuel light on?

[E30_fiend]

IIRC, the late models had 16.1 gallon tanks. Everytime I full up its always between 14.3 and 15.4 depending on how far I push it. I get up to about 330 before my gas light turns on.

[tonytony]

OT: but i once drove 62miles home with the gas light on, i was flat broke haha. It was a very stressful 62miles.....

[CrazyGhost]

Im in the same boat... my car 323i only gets 11.5 gallons in the tank. F***** annoying

[Quailane]

No, the low fuel light wasn't on, but the gas guage was at the very bottom of the red mark. I guess the guage or the sending unit might not be 100% all there. I'll use the odometer to guess when I've used 15 gallons or so or the low fuel light comes on. In my E36 I could keep going even when the needle was a few mm below the lit up low fuel light. Thanks.

[itsbrokeagain]

my low fuel light used to flash on from time to time..then I pulled the cluster out and fixed the bouncy needles...now I get down to the E line, sometimes nudging past it, yet the light still never comes on. I think Im going to dump the sender in the tank when I get the chance.

Or run it til I think its empty, then pull the seat and have a looksee in the tank and see how low she really is.

[itsbrokeagain]

I put 11 gallons in the other day, and the thing was reading full...and I was dead empty (or so I thought)

the car has been burning up gas at an alarming rate, but nothing has changed. I suspect my coolant temp has gone bad, its been a little sputtery on cold mornings...gotta get the odo gears replaced so I can see what Im doing on a tank..

[Quailane]

So apparently my '92 only has a 14.5 gallon tank. I ran it out of gas last night on my way to work. I thought I had the 16.6 gallon so I assumed the gas gauge was faulty. It apparently is not. The car started sputtering when I gave it gas, but if I went real easy on the throttle it seemed ok. I did not know what was going on but then it was sputtering continuously. I was trying to reach a spot where I could pull over safely but I was stuck in the middle of the road for an hour.

Could running the car bone dry cause any problems?

[kenika65]

yes it can burn the fuel pump up from running it dry...

[napabavarian]

As long as we are at it, are all fuel tanks the same? I might need to swap the tank from my '91 318is into my '92 325ic.

Also...what year is the separation between early and late?

[xLibelle]

just an fyi for those that dont know, when you run your tank dry on a regular basis, your in-tank pump is likely to have a short life. It's cooled by the fuel and if you starve it, even to the point where the refuel light comes on, you run the risk of being stranded one day soon.

[strad]

M42 cars had the smaller tank (14.5 gallons). Don't go around thinking you have 2 extra gallons now!

edit: I should mention this information is sourced from the owner's manual.

[asubimmer]

I think one thing you guys are forgetting is that even when the light comes on the tank is not empty. The pump can't get every drop out of the tank...

But the sad thing is running your car low a lot is very bad for your car for several reasons.

1st the gas actually cools the pump, so when you run low on gas the pump gets hotter. This dramatically lowers the life span of the intank pump.

2nd and more importaintly, running out of fuel can kill your motor. When you don't have enough fuel you motor runs hotter. Why? Because your motor is running leaner which means a lot more heat. There are countless problems that can be caused by this, but the most common one is destroying your valves.

Don't blow hundreds/thousands of dollars because you are too cheap to put a few dollars in the tank!