ran out of gas for first time

43 years old and I ran out of gas for the first time in my life today. Computer on the RT said I had six miles left to reserve....nope, engine cut out in the middle of rush hour traffic. Coast to side of road, push for a few minutes into McDonald's parking lot, walk 5 minutes to nearest gas station. Purchase enough 93 octane to fill an empty soda bottle (I must have looked like a lunatic in all my gear, filling a soda bottle I pulled out of the trash, and then walking down the road with it).

Gee - that was fun!

Could have been worse.

I ran out of gas on my first day of owning my GS. On a scenic hill side on California Highway One, just south of Stinson Beach.

Picking the bike up I was told I had a full tank, so 25 miles into ownership I didn't question the bar gauge saying I had a full tank.

Learning by experience never to trust those BMW gas gauges. Even with all their fancy stuff, you need to still do the miles in your head like a bike without a gauge.

At least the weather was nice.

AMA MoTow guy showed up in a early '60's Lincoln Continental convertible, with a huge St. Bernard riding shot gun. He had the top down the rear seat was full of 5 gallon gas cans and other emergency roadside assistance gear.

I got a new sensor unit and an apology the next day

Very true - I was in Canada, north of Lake Superior two weeks ago on the RT. That could have been an adventure.

Pretty idiotic to run out of gas on a 26 mile commute when you have a seven gallon tank!

That is probably the only good thing about owning a carbed bike, switching the petcock to 'reserve'.

Now that you've experienced the grief of running out of fuel, you probably will develop a new habit of watching your fuel gauge and getting paranoid about it.

I wanted to see how far my Rebel would go until reserve, and it stalled out on me in the worst possible place & time. In the middle lane at a 10 lane intersection with a green light, while everyone else was flying by me at 45MPH.

Now I fill up the bike when the odo hits 120, period.

I ran out of juice recently testing a VFR1200. Gauge started flashing shortly after I set off; a look at the handbook said I had 4 litres left, which I roughly guessed would give me 40 miles riding steadily. 30 miles later, just having passed the turn-off to the last petrol station before a long hill up to Wimbledon Common, it coughed and died.
Pushing the brute down an underpass, up the other side, onto the pavement and along to the filling station on the other side of the road was made easier by a man in a van who got out and pushed for a bit. He announced that he rode moto, looked at the Viffer and said it was nice to see one "being ridden". I think he was serious.

Happened to me once in the middle of the western Utah desert. The fact that I had a petcock didn't help because when I went on reserve I was in the middle of fricking nowhere. The problem was it was a new bike at the time, and I failed to understand how badly my mileage would suffer when trying to keep up with a VStrom and a KTM 990 with a pair of speed demons on them. Turns out that at 90mph, the Triumph ran completely dry at 130 miles.

Here's me putting gas in. You can't see the FF's giving me crap:



Here's the KTM, which fortunately was able to act as my tanker, and here you CAN see the FF's giving me crap:


Fun day.

Shoulda taken the /6. With 3 reserves it's harder to blow it.

People are fallable, always. Computers are more than fallable, always. Put the two together and it's a recipie for disaster.

It's not fun, my first time out of gas was on I-95S between Cape Canaveral and Melbourne at about 10:30PM. Thank goodness Florida is flat because it was a long push to a gas station. On a funny note, 2 or 3 months ago I saw a guy attempt to take gas back to his truck in a styrofoam cooler because he didn't have a gas can.... you can imagine how well that went.

-Patrick

Just this last weekend I put some mental math to the test.

I'd guestimated that my nighthawk would make it about 200 miles before hitting reserve, turns out it's closer to 175 when going everywhere at 80-90mph. I knew what was happening, pulled over, flipped the petcock and hung out for a second. Hit the starter and she fired right up.

I'd been keeping a running tally of mileage and fuel pumped at fill ups so I made a note of what it was when I ran out and was back on my way.

When I first bought my DR, I filled the tank to the brim and did my usual mix of street and freeway driving until it died. Without switching to reserve, I got around 145 miles and with switching to reserve, I got around 165. I now reset the trip meter after every fillup and fill it up at 125 miles. I get a little bit better gas mileage only on surface streets and a little bit worse only on the freeway.

I like to run all the bikes dry when I first get them so I have a good sense of my range.

Happened to me too the other day... but I'm only 23 so its ok right?

Anyways I was lucky enough to flag down the Truck with a trailer that I had passed only seconds earlier. They guy and his wife were great. They helped me load up the bike, strap it down... had to take of my shirt to act as a barrier between the strap and the body pieces.

So we get going down the rode, big ol guy driving, big ol wife in the middle, and then shirtless me with their shotgun squeezed in between me and the wife. Got talking to the guy... he had recently lost an eyeball on a get off... guess the goggles got pushed when his helmet hit the ground and it literally popped his eyeball out... yikes! :eek1

I will never forget that ride! Give me faith in AMERICA!



Glad you made it out ok! keep on truckin!

Edit> oh, and the reason for running outta gas? The damn choke was stuck about 10% on for one cylander... all day! so yeah it surprised me when i cut out of reserve like 40 miles too soon.

Still... its good to be an Airhead!

Twice last summer.

Turns out the sending unit on my bike was WAY off. It showed I still had 30 miles left when it went dry.

I had the unti replaced.

It's equally worthless now, but on really long rides when I'm not paying attention to mileage, at least it's not optimistic anymore.

Happened to me last year heading into Missoula MT; we'd stopped for a rest, I told the guys I was good for 100 kms (60 miles). I was following the guy who knew where we were going and sure enough 102 kms the bike wasn't happy, pulled the clutch and it died. I coasted to the shoulder and waited for my partners to bring me enough to get me to the next station. We'd ridden past several exits advertising gas, but the leader wanted to get to the right one, which was only about 3 kms (2 miles) further along. That was the first time to run out completely, came VERY close in Area 51 when high winds cut our gas mileage in half.

It's happened to me a couple times. The worst was on my way home from work on the freeway on my old TDM 850 in the #1 lane and the bike starts to sputter. Switch to reserve but it dies anyway. I make it across 4 lanes of L.A. rush hour traffic to the right shoulder (barely) as it rolls to a stop. I push the bike off the freeway and to a gas station, about a mile, in South Central L.A. (aka Watts). The TDM had a PIA gravity fed fuel system that would take 20-30 minutes to trickle down when it had been run dry. So I get to hang out at a gas station in the hood for a half hour waiting. Meanwhile I figure out why I had run out of gas. I'd had the bike in the shop a couple days before. Some ham fisted neanderthal at the shop had crossed the fuel lines so when I thought the petcock was switched to "on" it was actually on "res".

This is one of the main reasons I now work on my bikes myself.

I nearly ran out of gas in rural Finland last summer. The fuel gauge was on empty on my borrowed Honda CBF1000 for miles and miles of winding roads through the forests of between Jyvaskyla and Ahtari. I kept the RPMs low, tried to coast a bit and hoped I could find a gas station. I pulled into one place and it turned out it hadn't had gas in years...I lucked out and managed to find a place with gas in the end. I'm glad the CBF is a 6 speed and can cruise at a decent clip at low RPMS. Since then I usually fill up when there is a 1/2 or a 1/4 of a tank left. This way I never have to worry about running out of gas and deal with the stress of trying to make the next gas station. Also, I find just a quick 5-10 min gas stop does wonders for me when I' sore and tired. It usually buys me another 100+ painless miles.

I've not run completely out but I've hit reserve just once down in Nowhere, NV due to a head wind cutting my mileage from 48-52 down to 30 unbeknownst to me.

Somewhat more experienced now, I make an effort to ride in the top half of the tank when at all possible despite running an IMS tank.

At the time I was getting sort of concerned how long I cranked the bike, waiting for the gas to re-enter the fuel/air mix necessary for combustion after switching to reserve.

Fortunately, I haven't run completely out of gas in a very long time. I have, however, come very close a couple of time recently. Out in the middle of nowhere in south central Oregon, at a "bit more" than legal highway speed, fuel consumption caught me by surprise, and I had to limp into a station on fumes, after cruising below the limit in 6th for too many miles after realizing my situation.

Same thing in Nevada, where triple digit travel for too many miles left me in dire need of fuel. Again I was lucky to reach a station after having to take fuel economy to the extreme for the last bit.

Funny how mid to high 40's mpg can drop to high 20's when you're in too much of a rush.

1st time was over 20 years ago with my CB550. I pushed it a little over 2 miles on a country road to the nearest gas station. Wife #1 was on the back at the time and was of little help with the pushing.

2nd time was today in fact. Was only 18 miles into the reserve and figured I had enough to get home from work and then to the gas station in the morning. I only have a 3 mile commute and about 1 mile into it the KLR sputtered and died. What to do? I pushed the bike to a safe spot off the street and layed it over on it's left side to get at the fuel on the right side of the tank. Picked it up and it fired right up.

Straight to the gas station before going home, scratch gassing the bike off the to-do list for tomorrow.