Gen 2 Tacoma out of gas at 1/8 tank

$21 a gallon! I didn't realize that was not a full gallon can, hahaha!

 

The first gas tank I ever drained was on a quad with a steel tank. I was amazed what was inside. It was like sand, dirt, and even like large pieces of loose paint/coating from inside the tank.

Edit: and rust. lots of rust.

 

water, rust deposits maybe, contaminates.. but I've literally never seen "dirt" maybe cause I've never worked on one from the 40s, even in my 05 there wasn't dirt, it was cleaner than a nun

 

guess your lucky than you never had to clean a gas tank
pretty much every time i had to change a fuel pump always had to clean the gas tank because of stuff in it

 

OK, but the fuel pump always pumps from the bottom of the tank. Water, dirt, rust settles to the bottom. If the dirt and water floated, then your theory would hold water.

 

I've been noticing this recently on my 2012. Fuel light won't come on and there would be like 325 miles on the trip odometer which worries me because it used to come on at 300 or less. Ran completely out today on the highway and was able to coast into a parking lot with 335 miles on the trip odometer from last fillup. Walked to a gas station to grab a can, returned, gased up and was on my way. Will need to gas up at 300 miles from now on.

 

The only helpful post in this thread, Thanks

The rest of you are worthless ^ (AusRunner that sucks I hope we don't need fuel pumps anytime soon but that may be the deal. Good luck)

 

Dont let your truck run down to fumes thinking it will keep running,keep at least 1/4 tank at ALL times.

 

Same thing happened to me recently too

 

Just had this happen to me last week. Truck conked out at 1/8th of a tank. The low fuel light didn't even come on. My buddy that also has a 2nd gen said the low fuel light comes ON when you've got 5gal left. For the meantime, I'm keeping a gas can in the bed and will be monitoring mileage much more carefully.

So what's the (long-term) fix for this? Gotta replace the fuel sending unit?

 

Yep. It happened to me more than once until I fixed it…..the sending unit is not that expensive either

 

Alright. So has anyone figured out is it:
A) Overtime the sending unit starts reading more and more wrong, just as it naturally ages.
or
B) Running the tank low on fuel causes the sending unit to read incorrectly little by little over time.