There have been threads about this in the past. As I recall, the consensus was that the manual was poorly translated and that the tank plus reserve totaled 10 gallons.
The manual and the spec sheet at the smart website both say 8.7 including the reserve. I've never added more than 8.5, even when the little pump was flashing. - sheureka
I tried a search, but couldn't find a thread on this. Having had the car for eight months now, I always thought it was bout 8-8.5 gl.
This am, with .1 on the reserve indicator I put in 9.015 gl. Then with a little top off, 9.20.
That seems like a LOT!
Was your fuel pump symbol flashing?
The poorly written NA W451 OpManual reads thus: "All models 8.72 US gal including a reserve of 1.32 US gal,"
and thus: “Reserve fuel indicator
You are driving on reserve fuel if there are no more than 1.0 US gal of fuel in the tank. If this occurs, the fuel pump symbol in the fuel level display flashes. The reserve fuel indicator shows the fuel level in the tank at exactly 0.1 US gal.”
If your symbol wasn't flashing, that argues that you were +/- 9 gal down on "service" gas, but not into your 1.32 gal reserve yet. The filler neck holds a significant amount of fuel by itself as it runs from the right hip to the cabin footwells.
If the symbol was flashing (you didn't say), and you had a "0.1" on your gauge, then I would say you were on reserve fumes. In that case, you were probably working with a 8.72 gal total tank plus a little "neck."
I tried a search, but couldn't find a thread on this. Having had the car for eight months now, I always thought it was bout 8-8.5 gl. This am, with .1 on the reserve indicator I put in 9.015 gl. Then with a little top off, 9.20.
This has been a contentious and mostly academic issue. I have had my car at 0.0 with the fuel pump symbol flashing and drove another mile or so to a gas station. No topping off, the tank took 9.3 gallons. I agree with most that it doesn't matter, fill up it when it's low. For the sake of argument, I am in the "10 gallon tank" camp and I believe there was a post from a smart technical manual that stated this.
How many miles have you all driven before you filled it up?
For me, it was around 275 miles.
I gotta tell you my funny story.
I was in a hurry,saw the little flashing symbol, pulled into a gas station. I had stuff on my mind, wasn't paying attention. I put the nozzle into the tank, washed the front window, go back to the pump, it says 8.7 gallons.
I thought "that's weird", so off I drive.
The guage still read empty - I figured the guage must have broke.
Went shopping with the wife. I told her - look - I refilled the car, but it still reads empty. I will take it to the dealer in a few days if the guage doesn't start to work.
So, driving, I see the guage count down from 0.9 to 0.1 !!!
I thought, the guage can't be broke if it's still counting down !
So - at 0.1, I pull into a station, and it takes 8.6 gallons, LOL.
I guess during the previous gas stop, I did not take the time to reset the pump, LOL.
Oh well, I guess I know my fuel guage works !!!
thanks for the posts.
First point, the search. here were the search strings I tried.
"tank size" "gas tank size" "gas tank" "how big tank" "fill tank"
Granted, THREADS did come up but nothing with anything like this in the title, so searching through 25+ random posts, trying to find the THREAD that had relevant info seemed quite a waste. Trust me, I've beta tested this SW YEARS ago, and everytime the ASP files get updated, something happens to the search index, or the thread indexes. Some sites don't care (i'm not saying that is what is going on here) but searching sometimes is just off.
as I noted in the first post, I was on .01. Everything was basically flashing at that point. When I filled it up (no topoff) it went to 9.15. I thought I would see WHAT more could go in, so I did a little further clicking and it only too, .05 more. With that, I always lift the hose and get the remainder out of the hose. So, it was all in.
I think there is clearly more than 8.7 INCLUDING reserve in the tank (which was the basis of the question really) since what I put it was about 5% more than that and I don't think the pumps would be off that much, at least the DOT inspections don't allow it to be off that much. I haven't really had an issue at this location before, but of course I haven't been THAT low in the smartie before or with the other toys.
I think I/We can rest assured that the actual capacity including all hoses, inputs and whatnot might be close to 9+ than 9-.
It was an interesting exercise.
p.s. email updates for posting updates don't seem to be working at the moment either.
yes, I have logged in daily.
yes, I have checked the spam filters
yes, I am subbed to this thread.
Saw the thread title, started to hyperventilate. Really doesn't matter how big it is - fill until full, drive until the little gas pump icon starts flashing, refill. Repeat as needed.
That's a great answer for normal driving. But it is not a sufficient answer if you are trying to program a ScanGauge or if you are in the middle of nowhere and need to decide if you can make it to the next town or if you need to turn around and go back to the previous town. In the end it is not wrong for someone to want to know the answer to this question.
That's a great answer for normal driving. But it is not a sufficient answer if you are trying to program a ScanGauge or if you are in the middle of nowhere and need to decide if you can make it to the next town or if you need to turn around and go back to the previous town. In the end it is not wrong for someone to want to know the answer to this question.
Most of us have learned that 250-300 miles is about as far as it'll go on a tank. Why not simply acknowledge this before entering a "dry" part of the country.
But some of us are maths oriented and wish to know exactly... If that's the case, run dry (), fill up (), and share (! Thank you.
Even better than just running dry. Hook the fuel system to a separate tank to get you to the fuel station then fill up the regular tank. Mythbusters' style!
Most of us have learned that 250-300 miles is about as far as it'll go on a tank. Why not simply acknowledge this before entering a "dry" part of the country.
Well hopefully you'll see that you are telling the original poster how to drive instead of answering the question, which is what the tank size is.
This really is a reasonable question. Apparently the true answer to it is not absolutely clear which is why it keeps coming up. Some of the questions related to this seem to be:
- Is the so-called "reserve" part of the tank or in addition to the tank?
- What exactly is the reserve anyway? Is this actually a separate part of the tank or is it just a logical concept (the last 1.3 gallons of the tank)?
- When the Smart tells me that "0.9" is remaining, is this 0.9 gallons or 0.9 of the reserve (which is 1.3 gallons)?
- Does the "neck" of the tank hold an appreciable amount of gas? Does this explain some of the discrepancy?
Sure, someone can run dry and then see how much gas goes into the tank, but certainly there is an absolute answer out there that doesn't require direct observation?
Personally I really question the 10 gallon theory. Recently there was a PDF manual posted here that said the tank was 8.72 gallons including a 1.32 gallon reserve. Next to this it gave the size in liters -- that being 33 liters including a 5 liter reserve. So while 8.72 + 1.32 does roughly add up to 10 gallons, since this is a European car it is not surprising that the *real* size is in a round number of liters. Unfortunately adding the two liter values together does not add up to anything special (33 + 5 = 38 liters) so it doesn't help to answer the question of what the reserve really is.
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