snagitseven

Don't let that happen again. It could ruin your catalytic converters and cause other expensive repairs. See your manual for the warning.

truthknown

I didn't plan on it. My experience with my prior 2 A4s have been that i would get at least 40 miles once the gauge said 0 miles left. I don't even think I got 15 miles before the A6 died on me. Figured I could make it to the gas station by my house and barely made it. I know better now though... Not trying to cause damage to the vehicle at all! Love the car otherwise. Now to try and get that MMI updated! Anyone have luck with that in the Dallas area?

newmoon

I pushed a tank pretty low and this is how it went:

1. Hit the bottom 1/8 LED and it also changed from white to red. The distance to empty said 50 miles (based on me getting 33 mpg at the time) and the message to fill up popped up on the DIS. Kept on driving.

2. Distance to empty hit 0 miles. Bottom LED started flashing red.

3. Drove a further 5 miles to the gas station and filled up:

617.8 miles on this tank (my record)
/ 18.096 gal (also the most I've ever put in)
= 34.1 mpg

It's supposedly a 19.8 gal tank, so there should've still been 1.7 gal left. Or that could've been just air...

In any case, I'm still very impressed with the 600+ mi range and the 33+ mpg of my A6 2.0T CVT.

Inyoury

I have consistently filled my car with 17.5 to 18 gallons after the car has hit 0 to empty on my car. I've had the 2.0T in Seoul and 3.0T here in the US and they both had similar results. I am finding I am getting better gas mileage here in the US since there is much less city driving regardless of the larger engine and more up and down hills.

Acuransx

As a youngster (17 or thereabouts) I managed to run out of gas in my Dad's BMW Bavaria as I pulled into our driveway. Needless to say, my Dad was not too impressed and since then I rarely let things get to the point where the low fuel light comes on. FWIW I was also told (not pertaining to the A6 but if I recall correctly to one of my Acuras) that letting tank run dry not good for fuel pump since it is in tank and is cooled to some extent by being immersed in gasoline. No sense tempting fate if can be avoided so I tend to keep tank half full at least at all times while in City and fill up on trips before the "stress" light comes on.


Best,
Jeff

schalliol

On my 2005 A6, which BTW is listed as a 21.1 gal tank, I've very frequently run for a few miles past 0 miles but have never run out. I've never filled up much past 20 gallons (slightly above). It's a bummer that the C7 only has a 19.8 gal tank, as that's definitely less range on the S6, even though the S runs 3 mpg more on the highway.

Based upon Inyoury's comments and mine, I'm wondering what's the usable capacity of the tanks. If the tank is 19.8 gallons, can you put 19.8 gallons into it, or is that the theoretical volume of the tank if all of the volume were filled? truthknown, when you did fill it up, how much did you put in before it clicked off? I suppose that would give us some idea since you ran it dry.

Inyoury

When I had a 2012 A6 in Seoul, the dealer told me the fuel tank capacity is a little over 75 liters. That would give you a little over 19.8 US gallons. Maybe about .2-.3 gallons extra. When my A6 in Seoul hit 0 kilometers to empty, the dealer also told me to expect 80-100 kilometers before totally being empty. That seems to align with the current A6 I have in the States 50-60 miles.

dicktahoe

I've also heard it will damage the Fuel Injector system.

snagitseven

As was pointed out in post 5.

To the OP, I guess the best answer to how much fuel is left when the gauge is at empty is "a little bit more, but not a whole lot".

And in answer to the OP's second question - no, I have never seen find a way to recalibrate the gas gauge to reflect E as actual empty. Not sure of the benefit to that since you would want to avoid running the tank almost dry either way. At least now at E, you know you have that "little bit more" to hopefully get you to a gas station.

schalliol

Reading about all the potential issues makes me think Audi really needs to detect when the car is OUT of fuel and just shut the engine down. It shouldn't happen, but it can happen. We had it happen once (not to an Audi) on a cross-country trip in Wyoming. Literally there were no stations for 100 miles. Apparently there was one in 104 miles though…

If they can't do that and it would provide major harm, Audi should do what Tesla does with the navigation when you get low and give you nav directions to a station it knows you can reach as the last one.