JOEJANOLO

Just this morning, I ran on empty and my car stopped in the middle of the road. A friend took me to the nearest gas station to get some gas. All is good now. BUT I'm worried if I damaged the engine or something internal that I should know and/or take care of. Also, I ended up filling up my car with CHEVRON Plus 89 Octane rating because the Supreme 91 wasn't available. Yup, quite a day for me!

c4004matic

Absolutely nothing to worry about.

JOEJANOLO

c4004matic, thank you for your quick reply! >>sigh of relief

rbrylaw

I'll second you have nothing to be worried about. The worst thing that could happen is your enginer might not be as happy on 89 octane, but even that is unlikely. This is why I don't particularly like electronic fuel gauges. I'd much rather the C class came with an old fashioned needle gauge as opposed to little LED's. My mind has a tendency to not notice them.

JOEJANOLO

Thanks rbrylaw! I know, right?! BUT I will definitely switch to Supreme 91 on my next fill.

VividRacing

What state are you in?I've never seen a station that did not have 91oct.

JOEJANOLO

VividRacing, CA. We do but the station I was didn't at the time.

StanNH

It doesn't matter if the fuel gauge is analog or digital ... if you pay any attention to the gauge or the warnings you know you're low on fuel and will be out if you do nothing. It happens, but it's not the car's fault if the driver pays no attention to the instrumentation.

rbrylaw

My comment was from my perspective. And from my perspective, LED fuel gauges don't seem to register well in my brain. But duh, thanks for telling me that if someone's low on fuel and run out it's the drivers fault. I would never have figured that out.

ept55

It's not a good idea to let your fuel tank run dry the engine injectors are designed to run on a mixture of fuel and air and ergo no petrol the injectors suck just air also a layer of sediment can form at the bottom of your fuel tank it was likened to me like a good red wine that forms a thin sediment layer you wouldn't drink it so why let your car do the same.
The best advice is to never let your car fuel tank dip below a quarter full.

RTX

To my knowledge, modern cars don’t actually run dry. Otherwise, they’d require manual intervention to restart after filling up again.

It will though stop in the middle of the road as a preventive measure.

I normally do a full tank as soon as I reach 25-30%.

You could also anticipate your next fill-up slot using the on-board “range” indicator.

c4004matic

Not a bad idea. However the cars that run the biggest issue are diesels. Many people don't know that diesel is actually quite tasty to some fungi leading to nice, bottom of the tank, slime colonies.
With gasoline, the issue is ethanol which is hygroscopic and can lead to water contamination, though this is only an issue for cars that are infrequently used.
Running out of diesel can be a major pain, but running out of gas is almost always harmless.

c4004matic

One question, I too pay less attention to the LEDs but the nice yellow low fuel indicator is hard to miss. Not to mention the low fuel message on the information screen

rbrylaw

Since I don't yet have my C Class, I don't know if the LED gas gauge will catch my attention better. My experience with them in past cars, wasn't too great. I never ran out of gas, but certainly came close. The low gas warning light finally got my attention. With analog gauge's, I seem to notice them better. Perhaps it's my age, but some things, IMHO are better left old school.

c4004matic

The reason the fuel gauge doesn't call attention to itself is that the segments are white and the same as all other things in the cluster. It looks great but doesn't standout.

rbrylaw

My current 2012 E350 Coupe has an analog gas gauge and my mind pays attention to it. We're also getting a MY16 GLA250 Sport. The first thing I noticed on the GLA is it has an analog gas gauge.

nbkvig2

Where was your gauge at? I've never ran out of gas completely but always felt like I came very close couple times in my 2013 C250 and other car. Would like to know where the limit is on the 2015 C300. I know Mercedes will show you miles remaining down to like 30miles then it becomes "go to the nearest gas station" or something along those words. Anyone have a ballpark idea how many gallons the car may have remaining when the message shows up and no longer displaying miles remaining?

gfmohn

The COMAND system in my C300 does everything but set off fire works. Not only does the entire display in the center of the instrument cluster light up with "Low Gas," the COMAND screen replaces Radio or whatever else is showing with "Do you want route guidance to the nearest gas station? (Yes or No)" These displays can be turned off, but the traditional amber fuel pump warning light stays on until I fuel up. These annoyances repeat every time the car is shut off and then turned back on. I guess if you have already decided to ignore all this, then the little LEDs going out one after the other might indeed not be as attention-getting as the fuel gauge needle creeping toward the post of the gauge. The cure for this problem is obvious: don't ride the little white lights.