A few times in the last month, when I run my gas tank down to about 1.5 gallons left, my car starts up, but then kills right away, because it is not getting sufficient fuel/fuel pressure. My tank is 11.9 gallons, and I have never filled it up with 11 or more, so I never get down to a gallon or less, but yet it does this when I am at 10-10.5 gallons to fill up. Is this normal to do this when fuel is this low, or is my fuel pump getting weak and on it's way out? Car is a 98 Civic with 110k. My old DAs or other Civics and Accord never did this when I got down to 2 gallons of gas. As a matter of fact when I bought my eg and filled it up right away, it took 10.7 gallons and it never stalled on me. I will change the fuel filter soon since I have owned the car for 25k; maybe it is clogged.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Uncle Ben’s &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">A few times in the last month, when I run my gas tank down to about 1.5 gallons left, my car starts up, but then kills right away, because it is not getting sufficient fuel/fuel pressure. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Do you know this as a fact, or are you guessing?

As long as the pump pick-up is sufficiently submerged, there will be no difference in fuel pressure between a full tank or a nearly empty one. A partialy clogged fuel filter would cause problems during high fuel delivery demand situations, and starting isn't one of them. I would look elsewhere for the starting problem.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Perfectionist &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Do you know this as a fact, or are you guessing?

As long as the pump pick-up is sufficiently submerged, there will be no difference in fuel pressure between a full tank or a nearly empty one. A partialy clogged fuel filter would cause problems during high fuel delivery demand situations, and starting isn't one of them. I would look elsewhere for the starting problem.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had a DA that had a main fuel relay that wouldn't work when hot sometimes, and I confirmed that. That car did the same exact thing when that happened; it would start, but immediately die because it was just running off the fuel in the cylinder and at the end of the line. Today when this happened, I turned it over after it died, and then it started up, sputtered and almost died, but then recovered to run perfectly while I drove to the gas station. I filled up 10.3 gallons. Is the fuel pump at the front of the tank? I have noticed the last two times it has done this, I was on a slight incline.