I post a LONG time ago and spent over 15 minutes trying to search but didnt find anything. I found
HERE that a 99 sunfire has a 57 liter gas tank. so i went
HERE to convert the liters into gallons.
it come up with 15 gallons!?!?!! noo way!! are our tanks really 15 gallons?? i always thought that it was closer to 12.... if so then ive been way off on how much MPG's ive been getting.
what made me investigate this was tonight i filled up and i put 11.8 gallons in which is the most i EVER remember putting in!! this made me curious as to just how close i was to running out. (my gas gauge doesnt work, used to get over 300 miles to a tank (highway) but now im driving more city.
do i really have 15gals in a tank??
yes...they have a 15.2 gallon tank. it actually says it in your owners manual if you still have yours.
so sunfires have bigger gas tank than the cavie? i read the cavie hold about 13.2. correct me if im wrong lol. just currious
Silly ricer, useless wings are for penguins.
i have a 98 cavy and in my owners manual it says it has a 15.2 gallon tank so they have the same size tank. i remember reading that when i first got the car.
wow..... i guess i dont have to fill up as much as i thought i did!!
so when i was going about 300 miles (closer to 260-280's range) and was only putting about 8 gallons in.... then i still had half a tank?? which would mean that i get 500 miles a tank?? thats sounds REALLY high!
yeah i think i usually put between 11-12 gallons in from around 1/4 of a tank.
there are multiple tank sizes...a metal 15.2 and 14.7 i think. plastic 14.7 13.8 adn 12.3 IIRC...those numbers could be way off but you get the gist
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there is no way my tank is 15 gallons....i have never been able to cram much more than 12.5 - 13 in my tank
Brian
ok, so which is true?!~?!~ this is pretty important to me. I have to have an idea of how much gas in in my car and how much i use in 200 or 300 miles....
also..... i accept and understand that over the years it may have chanved in size.... but i have a 99. so the sizes of other years are not important for me; not saying that there isnt anyone else with a different year wondering the same thing about their car.
thanks for all the post thus far!!
Just run yourself out of gas once after you do a full tank and you'll know how many miles you can get
haha... I've done that a few times in my Blazer when my wife doesn't keep track of things since our gas gauge doesn't work either
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according to the comparison on autotrader.com
a 96 cavalier has a 15.2 gallon tank
a 99 cavalier has a 15.0 gallon tank
a 02 cavalier has a 14.1 gallon tank
a 04 cavalier has a 14.0 gallon tank
there ya have it. go check the autotrader.com comparison if you don't believe me
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There is a 2 gallon reserve, IIRC. So in other words, If your putting in 13 gallons from E, you have a 15 gallon tank.
i just put in 14.8 gallons in my 96 sunfire last night. the highest i've put in my 99 cavalier at a time was 15.1 after i ran it dry.
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When I had my '03, I was able to put in about 16.0 gallons from a completely empty tank and got on average 450 miles a tank.
I sometimes miss that mileage.
but you cannot fill a vehicle's gas tank to full capacity. there has to be room left over for expansion due to heat.
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I've done it on more than one occasion, so either the tank is larger than what Chevrolet has listed or I've been perfect in running my car as close to bone dry as possible without running out. Hell, my 06 Mustang is rated at 16.0 gallons and it regularly takes a little over 17 gallons easily without coming close to being full. So, either something wrong is listed in the manuals of these cars, or these tanks can hold more than what most people expect, or I'm just good at running my car close to bone dry before I need to refuel.
**shrugs** Don't know, I'm just going by personal experience here.
Oh and I never had a problem with the Cavalier, as far as filling the car to max capacity.
ive definitely put more than 14 gallons in my car on more than one occassion
both in my 96 and when i had my 00
so the answer basically is yes...you have a 15 gallon tank +/- a few tenths depending on your cars specifications. you do have a reserve and if you do run it completely dry...its hard to tell the exact amount of gas you will have to put in becuase like FReQ Z said...your fuel tank has to have room for expanding fuel vapors. if you can find a manual for your cars year...like i said it says it right in there. im sure someone has a manual that you know that could look it up on here for you. as a matter of fact...an original replacement for a 1999 sunfire is a 15 gallon tank on all the websites i have found.
Godspeed wrote:ok, so which is true?!~?!~ this is pretty important to me. I have to have an idea of how much gas in in my car and how much i use in 200 or 300 miles....
i thinkyou are making it harder than it needs to be, just fill up and drive 200 miles and fill back up, the amount you filled back up is the amount it took to drive that far.
haha the age old question......the ranges i've seen over the years have been 12-15 gal tanks, and its actually really hard to figure out which is which.
the simple fact is this - run your tank until you're a line above E (this is the safest you should ever drive your car, at max, in reality, you should fill up between 1/8 and 1/4 for fuel pump purposes). When you go refill, the amount of gallons you fill up is what you used in the recorded amount of miles you drove.
for freqz, i could be wrong, but i've NEVER heard of gasoline in liquid form having an expansion coefficient.
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i actually just watched them make gas tanks on how its made about 2 weeks ago and they mentioned how the tank has to have room for the vapors(the fumes you see when pouring gas) to be able to move around. when the fumes reach the nozzle when filling up...that is what causes the pump to stop when done. that is why on the pump at the gas stations always say never top off(even though we do it anyway). its because there is no room left in the tank for those vapors to go. thats also why the gas cap on your car is a vapor lock...not to let those fumes escape and let air in.
Backpressure is what causes the pump to sut off.
And if you have a 15.2 gal tank, it's normal to be able to fit 16 in it. The filler tube isn't counted as part of the gas thank, and if you've ever payed attention to how long the filler tube is on our cars, you would notice that you can fit about a gallon of gas in just the filler tube, wich is what your doing if you "top it off".
Running the pump after it has clicked off isnt good for a car anyway, you can flood your charcoal canister (if you have one), and it can cause exessive pressure in the tank.
Most of our cars can go about another 60 miles (highway) after the needle hits E before they run out of gas, if your driving in town, it's anyones guess.
If your gas gauge doesn't work, you can always do what people that ride motorcycles without fuel gauges have done for years. Figure out how far you can safely go on a tank, and reset your tripometer every time you fill up.
