In high school, I drove a beat-up 1986 Pontiac Parisienne station wagon with a rear-facing third seat, fake wood grain on the sides, and the foamy ceiling fabric that fell in. It got 10 miles to the gallon, and the gas gauge didn’t work, so the only way I could tell that it was time to fill up was by using the trip odometer. When that odometer hit 200 miles, it was time to refuel. One night my dad was driving and it hit 200; I told him to immediately pull over and get gas. “Oh, we’ll make it home,” he said. I didn’t believe him. At 205 miles, the car began to sputter, and we coasted into a nearby gas station with me singing “I told you so” the whole way.
My next car was a 1997 Nissan Sentra that I drove for seven years. It was my college car, and took me from Charlotte to Atlanta to Houston to California, and everywhere in between. That car saw the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf, and many of the states in between. It got 25-30 miles to the gallon and I could go at least 40 miles even after the gas light came on. I completely freaked my mom out once when we were driving from Houston to Charlotte; the gas light came on, we drove a little farther, and when I got off to get gas, the station was miles away. We never found it, and had to get back on the highway to go one more exit. My mom was so worried that we’d run out of gas that she still tells the story today.
(You know where this is going, right?)
My third car, bought two years ago next Sunday, is a Nissan Xterra. It gets crappy mileage, 15-16 miles to the gallon in town. The gas light comes on later than it did in my Sentra, and means I’ve got 20-30 miles to go before the situation becomes dire. I went to class last night and meant to stop on the way home, but I didn’t because I thought there might be cheaper gas in League City and I was headed that way. Then I forgot to check. Then I didn’t get gas this morning. And I went out to run errands at lunch. And as I drove back on-site, my car sputtered. Just for a moment, and I thought I had imagined it. I drove another half mile. I pulled into the parking lot sputtering and as I pulled into the spot, I ran out of gas. I freaking RAN OUT OF GAS.
I am an idiot.
It’s bad for your fuel pump if you go under a quarter of a tank consistently. My sister and I always waited to the last minute on the neon we drove…and it needed the pump replaced after like 70,000 miles.
Jacs
I think that could have been because it was a Dodge 😉
Way to pull a Kramer Sarah!
You’d really be in trouble if alarm clocks were gas-powered! 🙂
I agree with Jacs as I’ve had similar issues with my pickup truck for those reasons.
My husband hate the fact that I never put gas in my car. We get in to go somewhere on the weekend and it always needs to be filled up. Coincidence?? ha!! I hate pumping gas, this way he has to do it.
How do you figure out how many miles you have left once your gas light comes on? The only way I could figure that is to consistently let it run with the light on and figure the mileage and that would freak me out. The light comes on and I fill ‘er up.
A post near and dear to my heart! How many running out of gas stories do I have? Far too many to remember. Passing a semi on a 2-lane highway once (not cool). Another time my car ran out of gas on the railroad tracks. Another time just yards from the gas station. Once at work on the main road (very embarrassing). Those are just the highlights. I haven’t run out of gas since that last one 8 years ago. I should do it again just for the adventure of it all.
I told you not to buy an SUV!!! 😉
Heh… At least you didn’t get stranded on the side of the road! I’ve only run out of gas one time; I was in high school, driving a 1977 Ford pickup. I was only three or four miles from the house (but nowhere near a gas station) so I just started walking home, but a neighbor happened to drive by and she gave me a lift.
444 words…. that’s death 3 times over in far east asian cultures. Not a good number.
That’s awesome.
You look good in that gas station photo.