First time it's ever done this.

Had it pretty low on gas. Around 10 miles till empty. Go to has station (Sams Club). Fill it up. Drive 30 seconds and park to go pick up some stuff.

Come out 15 minutes later. Car starts fine. Drive about 30 seconds. Come to a stop sign. As I'm approaching the sign, car stalls out completely. Dash lights all over the place. Doesn't feel like I have brakes.

As I'm coasting, I turn the ignition off and in and it starts up. Drove home fine.

Previously it had sat in the garage for about a week on almost empty with about 40 miles till empty. I drove it about 3 times to work and got it down to that 10 miles from empty that I referenced earlier.

It's under CPO but don't really feel like going to the dealer just yet. I would also rather not have this happen again in a more in opportune moment.

I'm thinking either water in gas, fuel pump didn't like being that low on gas and sitting, sams club gas sucks, maf or just a really really weird glitch.

Thoughts?

 

Why get down to "10 miles from empty". Sounds like your problem started with the low fuel issue. Who knows what you sucked up from the bottom of the tank. Here's a warning from the owner's manual:

Caution!
To prevent damage to the emission control
system and engine.
f Never drive the tank completely out of fuel.
f Avoid high cornering speeds after the warning
lights have come on.

 

My BMW 128i manual says not to let the fuel level get down below 30 miles range remaining or risk engine damage. I'm sure that's just fuel pump related but modern cars are so complex I wouldn't risk going down to ten miles.

In the old days before you had a display telling you your miles remaining would you have let the gauge get that low?

 

Seriously? You can't drive a car to E?

Why bother telling you how many miles you have left. May as well give you a little reserve switch like on old motorcycles.

I've always driven my cars to low amounts of gas and in 20+ years of driving both cars and motorcycles I've never had an issue.

Seems the newer the car the more finicky.

All that being said, what's the suggestion? Run it hard and fast. Put some fuel injector cleaner in there. Light it on fire and start over?

Didn't realize I was going to have to both refuel every 10 miles. That's good though, I'll do my mobil 1 oil change at that interval too. I'm golden.

 

Yes. I know how many gallons are left in a tank once it hits reserve or red or whatever it called and I'll usually drive it pretty low.

 

Sounds like you're comfortable driving with the gas gauge on or near E - that's cool. I'm not, though.

I was surprised that my 128 manual said as high as 30 miles (!). That seems like a lot even for guys that don't mind getting low on fuel. But today's cars are finicky like you said.

 

Modern fuel pumps are inside the gas tank. They use the liquid fuel to cool the electric pump itself. Running a tank completely dry opens the possibility of fuel pump damage. Replacing the fuel pump on some cars is expensive because you have to drop the gas tank to get access. To prevent this many car manufacturers fudge the fuel gauge so you actually have some gas left when "empty". It also helps the driver when they think they are empty and try to stretch it to the gas station in an emergency situation.

Next time you are in a non-German car, look at the analog fuel gauge. Notice the space between 1/4 and 1/2 is the same as 1/2 and 3/4, and the same as 3/4 and full. But the space between E and 1/4 is smaller. They move the E mark up a bit so that when you are on empty you still have a small reserve. The same goes for digital gauges, but you can't see the actual amount left. This is how the modern fuel reserve is implemented. I've found German cars to be more precise, or rather less fudging where the empty mark is. When they say 'E', they mean 'E', or at least the built in reserve is a lot less. The space between E and 1/4 is often smaller than non-German cars.

So technically yes you can run to "Empty" as the car reads. But you shouldn't run the tank to E regularly, and should completely avoid running it dry.

In your case your digital fuel gauge still showed 10 miles to E. Could be water, air bubble sucked into the fuel pump, fuel level sensor slightly off calibration, distance to empty calculation off, or so on. If it were me, I'd fill the tank, put in a bottle of dry gas, and monitor the car for rough idles, rough starts, stalls, or so on for the next couple of tanks.

Personally I refuel soon after the low level warning comes on. I'm just not comfortable trusting the distance to empty gauge as accurate.

 

I misstated what I said earlier. What I meant was 'what? U. Can't run close to E?'

It never ran dry. I put a full tank in it. Drove it 500 feet. Parked it. Came back. Drive it 500 feet and then it cut out (with a full tank of fuel).

 

Not water in gas. The one time I encountered this years ago in a pick up truck I owned -- with a steel gas tank -- once water hits the fuel filter the filter element absorbs the water and will not let gas through. I had to remove the filter and blow the water out to resurrect it.

Besides it is unlikely there is any water in the gas anyhow. With the gas tank ventilation systems and plastic tanks and how the fuel pumps are designed -- in tank and designed to circulate fuel around themselves to help them keep cool -- any water gets blended with the gas (and if one is running fuel with ethanol the ethanol combines with the water) -- water in gas tanks is rare.

I see two things accounting for the behavior. You ran the fuel level so low the fuel system got some gasoline with air in it and the cut out was due to this air coming out of the gas once the fuel pump was shut off.

Or the fuel pump suffered a momentary failure. If the fuel pump did this the odds are it will do it again as it is on its way out.

From reading your posts I note you are a fan of running the fuel level way down but I would advise you to reconsider this behavior. The fuel plays a vital role in helping keep the fuel pump cool. Dare I say if the fuel pump proves to be going bad your running the fuel level down real low frequently could be a contributing factor to the fuel pump's demise.

Years ago when fuel pumps were not in the tank but mounted on the side of the engine block one could run the fuel level pretty low though there were other problems associated with this -- mainly the fuel tanks being steel would have some water in them along with some nasty trash/sediment/rust that would or could overwhelm the relative small fuel filters typical then.

But nowadays with the fuel pump mounted in the tank -- at least the low pressure fuel pump the high pressure fuel pump that is used with DFI engines is mounted in the engine compartment -- running the fuel level real low on a regular basis is best to be avoided.

If it was air this means air made its way to the high pressure fuel pump and this pump relies upon fuel to not only cool it but to lubricate its working parts and any air is an opportunity for wear/damage to occur.

It is your car and you can treat it as you want but my advice is you consider avoiding running the fuel level down much below "1/4" tank and certainly not to the point the low fuel level warning light comes on.

 

why are you buying gas at sams club?!

 

Workhurts, you say "Why bother telling you how many miles you have left. May as well give you a little reserve switch like on old motorcycles.". So what I can pick up from your "style" is that if your car a little reserve switch/tank, you would probably run that dry also.

Your also mention that "I've always driven my cars to low amounts of gas and in 20+ years of driving both cars and motorcycles I've never had an issue". That's cool and that's OK! Although personally I see it a playing Russian Roulette with a whole bunch of bullets in the cylinders.

I've had cars and been driving for 50+ years and for reasons some of the other members expressed, I always fuel up when the fuel level drops to 1/4. Why? Because I'm too old and too proud to be stuck on the side of road in a Porsche because I ran out of gas. But hey then again, that's just me.

 

Gotta have something left over for the car payment. lol

 

Let's try this based upon the other comments here: As OP turns into the driveway of the gas station the car rocks and the little fuel remaining sloshes around enough that a bit of air gets into the beginning of the line just as the car as turned off. Tank is filled, car is driven 500 feet, air bubble moves along lines closer to the injectors but doesn't make it there before the car is turned off again. Car is started and begins moving, air arrives at injectors and car stalls. Air quickly clears and fresh fuel right behind it allows it the car to start again with no more problems.

 

Just an update. No fault codes found. Tech said there was a bulletin out about cars cutting off when decelerating/coming to a stop. DME refresh with new software is supposedly the cure.

Who knows.

 

did you check battery?