Breaking the fill-up habit

I am unable to break the fill up habit. In the service stationed in remote Nebraska it was ingrained in us to always drive with a full tank of gas in case we ran into problems in the winter getting to different remote sites. To this day I still don't feel comfortable unless the cars are at full in the garage. I can give no logical reasoning for this other than the explanation above.

 

Been "feeling" this for nearly a decade since buying our first PHEV.

 

Seems to me -- and don't take this "wrongly," I am not implying that people who don't fill their tanks are guilty of this --

But, people, in general -- certainly not everyone -- seem much less self-reliant than they used to be and don't worry as much about being able to fend for themselves if need be.

Maybe part of it is the cell phone culture where help is only a quick dial away.

I tend to keep my tanks full. Even before the pandemic I was not driving as much since retirement. But, I used to drive cars that got 10 mpg and running out of gas often meant a trudge of some length in weather that may or may not be too pleasant. Walking along a highway in 98-degrees is not winter, but not too fun.

Just an old geezer's observation, true or not.

 

The former and the infrequent trips. I've never under filled except when I was kid with little money and an F150 with twin tanks (and gas was crazy expensive back then).

 

"Self Reliance" is like living in a tiny house.

It looks easier on TV than it is in real life.
Most people (myself included) prefer to live in town.

HOWEVER (Comma!!) you don't have to go 'full crazy prepper' to become a little more resilient to life's little adventures........and sometimes---It can all start with a full tank of gas, a few extra cans of food in the house, some water or a filter, some handy folding money or even a change jar.
When I lived out on the left coast, I seem to remember a 3-days, 3 ways phrase....which now is more than likely to be a magazine article featuring plans for a holiday weekend.

MY exposure to natural and other events informs me that this should be more like a week or even two, and you should make plans to have a few extra cans of beans for your neighbor......

YMMV....

 

Yeah I just enter the odo value, let the formula (of the highlighted cell) do the subtraction of previous odo value. Do check against the trip meter, but no great loss if it's messed up, say due to battery disconnect.

Not sure if still the case, but I like that when you turn the car off, the odo value hangs on the display for about 30 seconds. Then at the pump, the mental exercise is to enter your credit car PIN and still remember the odo number, lol. I don't always succeed, and then have to turn the car on/off one more time. Then pencil the info on the gas receipt.

 

Odometer vs trip meter (to me at least) always seem analogous to steel fabrication measure method. Taking a beam for example: along the length there might be various bits: holes, clip angles, stiffeners, notches. The left end of the physical beam (prior to weld-on of end plate or clip angle) is designated "zero", for running dimensions, and all positioning of items along the length is tied back to that left end. In other words, no string of dimensions, just everything tied back to that left end zero point. One exception might be a close-pattern of holes; there the first hole might have a running dimension, and then (for example of there's a second hole 3 inches over, it'll just have a local center-to-center dim.

I'm rambling, lol.

 

My pilot errors in not remembering to zero a trip meter until a few hundred feet to yards beyond the service station, add up to more than that. Though this error is of the opposite polarity.

 

Gas does get old, even with stabilizer. iirc - it gets oxidized by the atmosphere. If a tank is filled, doesn't that lack of atmosphere in the tank slow the process down? Similarly, just a couple gallons in the tank because you seldom - if ever use it, wouldn't more atmosphere in the tank speed up the oxidizing process? plugin cars ARE programmed to use it up within a certain amount of time. Soooo ... who knows.
.

 

You can't win? Unless they went back to some variation on the gen 2 bladder tank, that completely collapses down as the gas is consumed. And that might not be a hot idea...

 

The amount of oxygen in regular air trapped in a sealed fuel tank is too small to be create an issue. The oxygen density of fresh air is about 0.03% of the liquid fuel density. Once the trapped oxygen is consumed and depleted, the oxidation process stops.

The issue arises in unsealed tanks, where normal diffusion or circulation creates a regular exchange with the outside atmosphere, continually refreshing the available oxygen supply. Then the oxidation process never stops. Typical gasoline-powered home / yard / garden appliances and pre-CARB fuel cans fit into this category.

EPA evaporative emission regulations for passenger cars require them to be much better sealed, and these rules have greatly tightened over the past several decades. While these tanks are still not completely sealed, their air exchange rates with the outside atmosphere are very greatly reduced. And PHEVs reach an even tighter sealing standard than regular gassers.