Maybe someone can explain gas tanks to me a little better. Why does it seem like the car gulps gas down at an unusual rate when it gets less than half full?

I was running late for an interview and was revving it harder than normal, but nothing over 3.5k and used a gallon of gas in less than 10 miles. This was when the tank was a little under half.

What the ****?

 

yea i notice that too with all cars

 

well, the sender isn't perfect.

it isn't using gas at a faster rate, it's just dropping faster.

for example, you may put gas in it, and for the first 2 gallons, the level doesn't move at all, then it drops a little, the last bit, it moves more. it's just not as linear as it should be.

 

LOL, reminds me of my brother in law freaking out when the Trim guage on the boat wasn't perfect.

No guage is 100% accurate. Hell my Bonneville used to fluctuate a lot when i got in and out of the throttle

 

exactly. mine will stay full, or almost full for a day or 2. then it will start dropping, faster and faster.

 

the trifecta tune fixes that issue. in my coby it did the same thing now i can watch it move with my mileage. another great plus for the canned tune.

 

well on all vehicles you will go through gas faster on the lower half as the lower half is smaller then the top half of your tank. go and take a look under your car and you will see what i mean.

 

Right, it's not a linear pattern.

 

im getting 30.5 mpg in my ss/sc im trying for more tho lol

 

LOL, this happend to me.... I got soo pissed cuz i shut my car off with a gallon left. turned it on, it was freakin empty.. I said,, **** this and refused to get gas. 2 days and 67 miles of driving while it was on empty i filled it up.

And sometimes it will say empty and gas for 4.11 will be like 44 bucks and other times it will be 46 but once it was 35 bucks. Its the craziest tank i have ever had. It will make you freakin happy when it takes two days to get off of full, but it will make you cry when it jumps to empty. Its a true woman.. I call my car=Coballah.. i have a black one. if i had a white one id call it cindy

but anyway. yea. the tank is crazy

 

the gauge is linear with the trifecta tune, i had the same problem before but now i know exactly what i have left. the guage trick is programmed into the ecm it has nothing to do with the sensor.

 

to combustion heaven of course silly!!!

 

well atleast it doesn't make slosh around in the tanks anymore like it did on my tempest, have half a tank then take a corner...it's full lol

 

in my formula firebird, it would hit empty when it was half full if I went around a corner too fast.....a right hand corner that is. If i turned left hard it would go to full. Just the way the f-bodies of that time were.

 

That's how my Camaro is.

The float...floats - everywhere.

Stop really fast and it'll go to empty - accelerate, and bam, full.

 

yep, it seems like Chevy is notorious for have innacurate gauges. My cobalt does the same things as listed above. I also have an 82 Z28 camaro....if the car was sititng still, it would start going down, but if I floored it, it shot up like a rocket...kinda funny actually if you have consistant driving habits, you will be able to determine when you will need gas

 

Yeah, when you'd come to a stop and let it sit there, I'd watch the gauge go down, then up...and back and forth till it finally evened out.

If I parked in my driveway forwards (car was facing uphill) as opposed to parking backwards (facing downhill), my gauge would read a bit differently (more if I was parked uphill).

 

it also has to do with revap and evap. my aveo got 34 mpg constantly when i filled from half tank, when i let it go to empty it would get 30-32 mpg no joke.

 

man im barely getting 27.2 city and highway...i cant seem to get more than 28, and im not a heavy driver, i dont rev past 3k...i shift at 3k into 2nd, after that ishift a 2.5 all the time...and my mileage sucks

 

It's the shape of the gas tank.

 

driving 80mph on highway will drain a lot more gas then driving 55 or 60 too so keep that in mind when you're cruising the highway

 

yeah my car gets like 38-39mpg at 50 and then lower as you go up, at 80 i get like 27 or 26

 

AC seems to play a decent factor, too.

 

yeah, my balt has been averagin 45mpg at 55mph..if I draft tractor trailers I get 54mpg...keep in mind though I have a fuel boss on my car..

http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/P...?Ntt=fuel+boss

....and it really helps! City driving hurts though...I'll get about 30mpg rollin' around town...so far the furthest I have gone on 1 tank of gas is 460 miles....I'm trying to make it to 500!! lol

 

ive gone more that 460 miles on a tank and i dont have a fuel boss or whatever. i can make the 400+ mile trip from my house to dallas and stil have just shy of a quarter of a tank