Hey, OK4450 may have invented Just In Time Purchasing … 
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I used to drive 108 miles round trip on my commute for 3 years. I almost always ran it down until the refuel soon light came on. I didn’t want to fill up near work; it wasn’t a good neighborhood. As it was, I gassed up every 3 days. I could have refueled every other day, but come on, that’s just too often. I never had a problem with the fuel pump, and sold it a 187,000 miles.
I spent the good portion of 36 years on a daily 120 mile commute. I would just fill up every night when I pulled into town. I did tend to run a few vicinity miles during the day though and also there were a few years when my gas gauge didn’t work. I think with my diesel though I did every other day 'cause it had a 24 gallon tank and about 25 mpg. I think my record though was four hours to get home in snow and traffic so I filled up again half-way home. The extra weight helped with traction and of course allowed a mens room stop. Geez I’m glad I don’t work anymore.
@BillSemanision
Running “near” empty will only risk you running out of gas. But why do it? There is little upside and lots of downside risk.
As noted, running “out of gas” is not good for the fuel pump. It may lead to imminent pump failure, or earlier than normal pump failure, or no failure at all. Some who run out never see a problem, but I have no clue how to find out the percentages.
That is what people with good sense do, but not everyone has good sense.
Many decades ago, when I worked in a gas station, there was a guy who drove a Mustang who would zoom into our station every morning, and who would YELL, “Just give me two dollars worth! I’m late for work!”.
After a few of these incidents, I had to wonder why he never seemed to see the predictability of needing gas… before he was running late for work. At some point, one would think that he would have come-up with the idea of filling his tank on the way home from work.
That’s what you would do. Don’t confuse what you would do with good sense. People have different ideas of what is important, and just because it is different than yours doesn’t make it wrong.
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I generally fill up after 1/4 tank but before the light comes on. I’ve never had a fuel pump fail (except for 1 mechanical pump), but now that I’ve said that out loud, I probably will.
With other cars I usually filled up before the light comes on, but my 2012 Camrt come on with over 3 1/2 gallons in the tank. On a trip, that is way more than enough reserve for me because I try not to drive 525 miles at a stretch anymore. Around town in the winter I fill up sooner. I am puzzled by the poster who left there car running for hours when stopped at a standstill to keep the windows defogged. What did you have to see?
The “whether to stop and refill or continuing driving” reminds me of a mathematical theory I read about. It is used to determine when to stop dating new candidates and marry. The theory says to stop when you have dated and rejected 37% of your potential lifetime candidates. Then the optimum strategy is to marry the next person who’s better than the best candidate you’ve seen to that point.
So if you thought there is merit to this idea, and you need gas and think there’s 10 stations to get gas up ahead before you run out, then the best strategy is to drive past 4 of them, and get gas at the next one that looks decent.
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I use the top half of my fuel tank. Running it near empty only saves a small amount of time. Since I am retired that is not a factor. I am a former Boy Scout and 3 decades of military. I tend to be PREPARED.
Heh heh. I just replaced all the tortion springs on my 3 garage doors, plus I bought a spare set for stock. Why? Ever had a door spring break with the cars in the garage and can’t get the door open? Or 8:00 at night try to find a spring? I just can’t help myself.
We are definitely different personality types. I enjoy reading your posts anyway. Of course I have never seen a single garage door I couldn’t lift up anyway, without the spring.
OK but they are 200 pounds. Wooden ones are even heavier than the metal ones. Single doors are 100 though.
Although I predate Pearl Harbor, I can still pick up 200 lb I can get right next to.
I am a 1952 model. I am restricted to lifting more than 50 pounds due to a hernia.
Bing’s also the only person i’ve ever hear of rebuilding an auto trans as preventive maintenance. He must be very risk averse.
And possibly a hoarder with all those spare garage springs, transmissions and what not laying around 
Hmmm. I don’t know about risk averse but I don’t like getting locked in when a spring breaks or paying someone $500 on Sunday to come get me out. More like contingency planning and having some parts on hand reduces the wait time and the hassle of running around from place to place trying to find the right part. If you haven’t been there though just remember a spring is good for about 10,000 cycles which depending can be about six years. I’ve broken about three springs in 20 years.
Like I said though, I had 350,000 miles on my original transmission and my job required driving Minnesota south to north and east to west. I just didn’t feel comfortable when it was 20 below out being 400 miles up north for a $2000 trans overhaul. I’ve probably put in about six or seven transmissions over the years and always drove them to failure. This is the first one I ever got to 350 M so figured it was a matter of time. I suppose I could have just bought a new car but I was paying off an $80,000 college bill at the time.
I really am risky though. Sometimes I stop at the mail box and don’t put my seat belt on again when I drive into the garage.
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Me neither. One of the major local hardware stores in the San Jose area , been in business since the 1930’s, got involved w/Sears a few years ago, and promptly went out of business, fall 2018. Big clearance sale. Garage door springs which were normally $45 ea, on sale for $8 ea. Only problem is they only had two left. I bought both of 'em. Earlier this spring , sproingggggg … two of my garage door springs gave way. Never had two fail at the same time. But I had two ready to go. More proof of the Scouts motto: Be prepared.
Installing the springs was pretty easy. Lifting the spring-deficit’ed garage door to the “up” position in order to install the replacement springs, I have to say, that was a pretty difficult job. No way could I have done that without taking advantage of Archimedes leverage ideas.
Ok, there’s a funny story that goes with this. I had finally figured out a way to lift the door to about 3/4 of the way to the top. A neighbor had been watching me struggle and came over to ask if I needed some help. I said “thank” I just need to lift it the rest of the way. I explained this was a really heavy lifting job so I had ropes and ladders and stuff as backups to prevent the door from crashing down in case we couldn’t complete the lift working together. We each get positioned, ready for a heavy lift, I say “ok, lift now” … and the door pops to the top with about as much effort as it takes to lift a marshmallow … lol … apparently when the door is near to the horizontal position at the top, it doesn’t take much more force to get it the rest of the way. The neighbor kind of gave me a weird look as it turned out his effort wasn’t really required at that point, but I said “thanks for the help” while he walked away…
Ah ha I suspect you have the extension type springs. I have the torsion springs on a bar that you have to wind up. They’ve got about 50 different springs so I’ve finally accepted the fact that I needed to go back to the original.
A word of caution on those extension springs. I had them in our other house. Maybe it’s code now or accepted practice, but back then there were no safety cables to hold the spring in place if they broke. So I heard a big racket in the garage and the spring had broken, sailed across the roof and hood of my new car and put a big divot in the cabinet on the other side of the garage. Getting hit by one could kill you. So I took the steel cable and strung it through the springs after that and anchored the cable. Sure enough the other one went some time after that. It stayed in place but had so much force it broke the 2x4 track hanger. So if you don’t have safety cables, put them on.
Yes, extension springs. They have a safety feature, an internal rod that runs down the middle, connecting to both ends. Whenever they’ve broke – which has always happened in in the middle of the night, nobody there – I always found them the next morning hanging attached as they were installed, only broke in half. There is a huge force on those springs in the closed position so I could see how they might fail in an unfriendly way. So far , so good is about all I can say.
I seem to recall that the ones in my parents house in the 1960’s didn’t have that safety rod down the middle. I don’t think their GD springs ever broke. They upgraded to torsion springs later on.