I Want to Determine How Much Fuel is Left With One Flashing Blin

Throwing my $.02 into the ring as one who also tracks all tanks, and now with our PIP it has become fewer tanks, currently at 1800 miles on this one.... With our '04 and now with this one I aim to fill within 10-20 miles of when the gauge starts blinking and still only get in between 7 and 8 gallons. On one hand I would like to know how far I could go and on the other I don't want to take the risk. My brother goes 200 miles consistently with his after it starts blinking and has not run out yet. He drives about 50k a year for work and is happy not to fill up so often. Pumping the gas out and weighing it does not seem helpful to me. Just because the gas is there does not mean it can be accessed by the car.

 

I would suggest trying Waze. It is now owned by Google and shares the same map database, but has a very important distinction from Google Maps. It has real time warnings logged by users of things such as police presence (uh-hm speed traps and such). I find that invaluable when traveling on highways. Very, VERY useful feature.

Waze, Google maps (or the other iThingie navigation app) are SO much more superior to a dedicated navigator gadget, it's not even in the same ballpark. Real time traffic (with very reasonable re-routing in real time), updates to the database that are free and behind the scenes (no need for action on part of the user), updates to the app itself that is constantly improving (most of the time). Just super-awesome killer app for your smartphone. If you are still using a dedicated navigator gadget and own a smartphone, you are missing out for sure. Navigation apps are free, give them a try. You will not regret it. I am not even sure why new cars come with navigators in them anymore. They are clunky, expensive (compared to free if you already own a smartphone), need updating, etc. Most people have a smartphone these days, so spending money on a navigator gadget that is inferior to the smartphone app is just silly.

 

I keep thinking back to my parent's 58 VW: no gas gauge, nada. There was this lever under the dash: if the car started to die you turned it 90 degrees, and it release a little reserve quantity of gas, maybe opened up some baffle in the tank. The tank was just beyond the firewall (yikes!). My dad would check the gas by taking off the filler cap and dropping a stick in, see how many wet inches it had.

That maybe gives me a different perspective, regarding driving with the last little splish-splash of gas sloshing around in a big gas tank.

 

That is kind of how my 2004 Harley-Davidson Sportster works. I have no gas gauge at all. I do have two trip meters, however and use one of them as a gas gauge. No bladder to worry about, so the trip meter is very consistent (I have about 150+ mile range on that bike). The "reserve" on my bike is built into the petcock. Turning to "reserve" simply allows the fuel to be drawn from the lower portion of the tank. So when the engine starts to sputter and cough on low fuel, I simply turn the petcock to "reserve" and know that I have about 0.6 gallons left. No fuel pump to damage (gravity fed carburetor system), so even if I do run out of gas, the only pain is from pushing the bike, no mechanical damage results. I love this machine and it often, but not always beats my Prius in gas mileage

 

And some people spend money every month on expensive data plans, which to some of us seems quite silly too. Waze uses a lot of data, at least compared to my Garmin. I know this is about as volatile as religion and politics!

 

Limited data plans are largely a thing of the past. Most are unlimited these days. They do throttle you after a certain amount (usually 20MB/month or so), but they do not charge extra. If you do not want to use Waze, you can use Google Maps which uses much less data, but really data usage is really becoming a non-issue and will be a non-issue for most in the near future. But for the data you use you get a lot of benefits (already mentioned). I have a cell phone plan with 4 lines (me, my wife and our two sons) for $100 with unlimited data (throttled after 20MB/month/line). I don't remember the last time I bumped against a data limit on my smartphone, really, and I use Waze all the time.

I don't think it is like religion. It is about facts and developing technology that you may be behind on, but it's out there (unlimited data, that is) and it is here to stay. If you don't believe it, then it's more like the flat Earth movement than religion (though the two sometimes go hand in hand).

 

What are people paying nowadays for these unlimited, no-extra-charge data plans you speak of?

 

We're not unlimited, but fairly high, 6 GB, for $50~ CDN monthly. We just use a flea bite's worth.

 

I use Cricket Wireless (AT&T re-seller, which means great coverage) I pay $100 for four unlimited lines. One unlimited line is $55. Beware that this version of unlimited means 20GB of data is fast and then it's throttled to slower speeds until the monthly period renews. But you never ever see an additional charge on your bill. I've been with them since 2015 and started as a 1GB unlimited, then they upgraded it to 2GB unlimited, then 5GB unlimited and then I saw the 20GB unlimited and switched to that. All for the same price of $100/4 lines. Never saw a penny over that and never exceeded the throttle limits, though my kids certainly did. I believe this is becoming the norm and similar deals can be had with many providers.

 

Some choose to "keep up" with this technology, and pay for it, and that is fine. Keeping up with phone technology doesn't interest me, so I pay $100 for my Tracfone service per year. If I upgrade to a newer phone I can get the year of service and upgraded phone for $80.+/- This is also fact. I spend my money on things that others probably wouldn't. I feel it is a matter of choice, or opinion. So that's what I was thinking when I said this is sort of like religion or politics. Or maybe I'm just a bit disgruntled today because of the the political results in my area from yesterday.

 

I bought my iPhone 5 outright, over 5 years back. I feel like a luddite now, lol. but it's still fine, and I don't much care for the new models: too cumbersome.

 

My 5s battery is slowly giving up the ghost .

So it’ll get replaced here soon.

But phones are expensive .

More than I want to pay anyway.

 

New batteries are around $100 CDN installed (while you wait, at apple store), up here. Beats a grand (and up...) for the new, gigantic ones.

 

I never knew about that.
My Aunt owned a 1969 or 1970 VW bug.
I for a short time owned a mid-60's VW bug.

Like many I have a real admiration for that vehicle.

They were surprisingly spartan in a lot of ways, but beautiful in how they ultimately- just worked.

I remember the heating system in my Aunts bug....was just this baseboard that would heat up and actually give you a hot foot, if you kept your foot too close. Flawed? Yes. But did it work, for it's ultimate purpose? Yes.
There was something almost Wonka's Candy Factory magical about the total package of a vintage VW bug.

 

Here I've uploaded the Owner's Manual. It's amazing what they stuffed in, and it's under 100 pages.

'58 Volkwagen Beetle Owner's Manual | PriusChat

 

i totally understand and respect the choice of starting with a “dumb” phone. This is why I wrote that’s it’s silly to buy a dedicated navigator IF one already has a smart phone. If you don’t and don’t want one, great! Then what I wrote does not apply to you. Again, not a religious argument. It’s features and services vs. price.

 

Back in the day I had a friend who carried a spare engine in the back seat of his bug. He claimed he could swap engines in about 15 minutes.

 

I was serious, and I think he was too. He said he was stopped by the police at one point and asked "Why the engine in the back seat" His response, "You've heard of a spare tire...? The one he was driving when I knew him was a baja conversion, including levers to pull the left and right rear brakes individually. Now that would have been fun!

Heckocopter, that is a new one.

 

Yeah that was the other thing.
For as inexpensive a vehicle as they were...they were so easy to work on, people kept them running indefinitely.