I wouldn't push it more than the afore mentioned 40 miles.

I actually drove for a while when the gas gauge orange bars were completely gone- that was kind of funny. Well, it was funny after I made it to a gas station to fill up.

 

^ Same thing happened to me...I was in the middle of nowhere and thought I was not going to make it to a gas station. I was VERY lucky I did. Don't let it get that low now!!

 

As the car talk guys always say when you buy a new car is to reset your odometer after you fill up and keep a spare gas tank in your trunk. Drive the car til you run out of gas and keep note how many miles you put on when the gas light comes on. I've noticed that when my light comes on I have about 3-4 gallons of gas left--so if I'm getting 20mpg, that should be ~70 miles. I know this because when I goto fill up and my light is on, it almost always takes 9-10gal to fill up.

A good practice is to always reset your odometer everytime you fill up your gas tank--I've noticed several of my friends neglect to do this and will drive hundreds of miles without resetting.

 

He he he he.
'Too soon junior'
'Nooooo!'

 

I drove mine for a few miles after the last bar disappeared, and the low fuel light came on.

It took 10.93 gallons to fill it, and we have a 13.2 gallon tank (I think).

So there was 2.27 gallons left, which would give you 45 miles at 20mpg.

I'm not going to test that theory anytime soon, though

 

Unfortunately I tested the limits and lost out. I would say I went between 30 - 40 miles (of course it all depends on how you drive and what type of gas mileage you normally get) once that light came on, which in my car I still had at least one bar showing (it was varying between one & two bars depending on the slope of the road). I decided to drive on to a nicer station rather than fill up @ a 7-11 (being the gas snob I am). I ended up sitting on the side of the road for over an hour (mind you no one stopped to see if I was okay...gotta love America) in freezing cold temperatures.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you drain the tank it takes a little over 2 gallons to get gas back into the fuel lines...I found that out with a one gallon tank and two trips to the gas station. After going through that I feel like it can't be good for the car. The way it shakes and sputters not only when it is stalling, but when you try to restart it. There is the old theory that 'junk' settles in the bottom of the tank and when you run it that low you run the risk of pulling the 'junk' through your injectors & fuel filter. I don't know if that is true, but I do know I will try my best to never run the car out of gas again.
-j

 

I've put 11.9 gallons in once. I was trying to make it to Costco where gas is about $.15 cheaper than everywhere else.

 

i thought about doing the driving till the car stalls thing, and see how many miles i can squeeze out of the car....

but then i think i'll let someone else do it.

 

The last three bars disappear real fast.

A wiseman once told me....

"Its just as easy to keep the top half of the tank full as the bottom half"