How far can you go after the gas light in your car comes on?

Kramer and a car salesman vow to drive a Saab 900 "into the slash" just to see what would happen, in an episode of "Seinfeld," Kramer said he had made it once but blacked out and wakes up in a dike with a full tank of gas. At this time there is a website that would have benefited from Kramer's experiment. Tank On Empty is collecting stories and experiences of how far each model of car can go past the slash before running out of fuel.

Well, so let's say you drive a Dodge Intrepid. Based on the Tank on Empty, the most mileage after the low-fuel light has come on is claimed to be 99. The smallest amount is zero and the average is 36.4. Unluckily, there are no distinctions made for any difference in engines, model years, options or geographical location. And, it turns out, 99 is the most miles users are acceptable to enter and drivers are not required to push their cars until they're dry.

The Tank on Empty site has a good idea trying to compile this kind of data. But it's fatally faulty methodology offers results that are, unfortunately, completely worthless.

As a replacement for light, what we need is to go back to the system Volkswagen once used. Until 1962, VW Beetles didn't have a fuel gauge. Instead, when your car's tank ran empty and sputtered to a stop, you flipped a lever that activated a small fuel reserve that would hopefully give you time to find a place to refuel. Classic VW owners fast learned how to calculate their remaining travel time.

Source: tankonempty.com and wikipedia.org