Does Running Your Gas Tank on Empty Hurt Your Car? [Original]

Daniel Grill/getty

I’m the type of the girl who likes to wait until the last minute to do things. Planning, cleaning and cooking for a party, catching a plane, driving to work, etc. I rarely give myself any room for error or the unexpected to happen. Don’t think I can drive to the airport, park, check my bags, get through security, grab a breakfast sandwich and get on the plane in 1.5 hours? Challenge accepted!

You may call this procrastination, I call it: living on the edge.

Part of me living on the edge is waiting until my gas tank is on E… for a while… before I get gas. Hey, I only ran out of gas one time so I feel like I’m winning with living on the edge when it comes to my car’s gas. But this former auto airhead turned auto mechanic learned keeping my gas tank on E was damaging my car.

When you are pumping gas, it goes into a large fuel/gas tank. The tank is located in the rear, under car (directly below the back seat). This is why the fuel door to pump gas is in the rear of the car. The tank has a pump that propels fuel to the front of the car so it can be injected into the engine. This fuel pump must be working efficiently to get gas to the front. The fuel acts like a lubricant/coolant for the hard working pump. Running your gas tank on empty will cause the fuel pump to work harder to propel fuel up to the engine. With less gas to cool and lubricate the pump, it may burn out. Now you can’t get gas to the engine and your car will not start.

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words by: @girlsautoclinic

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