I seem to remember the injection pump was starting to make some odd noises though. It must have been running on air when it got to London.
If the trip computer said 'empty' at Milton Keynes, I think I would still have carried on as well ;-)
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Yes it was an A8 4.0 TDi V8 with a 20 gallon tank. He filled up with fuel from a station within London, drove to Edinburgh and back to the same station - 800 miles on one tank. He hit the reserve fuel at about Nottingham and all indications were the fuel tank was empty and computer read '0' miles range for many miles before he got back to the starting point. Whether it was truthful or TV magic we will never know.
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Cheers guys,
So for the sake of TV or maybe not, were saying he DID make it back to London. To be fair he's no reason to lie I suppose? unless he's got a nice A* 4.0 TDi in his drive ;)
Thanks guys
Lee
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After a quick websurf this is all I can find in the way of "proof", about three quarters of the way down the page:-
www.artofwealth.net/2005/01/doing-everything-to-st...l
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LEEF, you gonna go out and buy an A8 4.0 Tdi now then?
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Haha!! I wish I had that kind of money fella!! I'll be sticking with my X plate mondeo... maybe one day though :) what kind of money are we talking for a an all singing all dancing fully spammed up A8 4.0?
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I was loaned one of these for a weekend this time last year, the guy from the garage reckond it cost £68k.
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I was loaned one of these for a weekend this time last year, the guy from the garage reckond it cost £68k.
I'm curious as to why an individual or company that could afford to buy ONE car for 68 grand would be concerned enough over fuel economy to buy the diesel option? If you can afford a car that expensive, surely you've got way above average income..
Depreciation from new would be far more costly on the A8 than fuel costs.
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why buy a diesel. i dont think its fuel economy that you buy a car in that price range for?its having a rocket up your ----
compared to a petrol variant,thats why you would buy a diesel.and as a brucie bonus you get more mile to the gallon thrown in!!
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That's what most people would think, but next time you see a luxury barge made by the Germans look how often it has a 'D' on the back of it - in my experience it's quite often.
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It's not about saving a few quid* it's about what the neighbours and the other folks at the golf club have got.
* - though if I'd spent 64k on a car I'd be looking to save money everywhere.
----
Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
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2004 on an 04 plate 18500 miles 4.0 tdi on AutoTrader now at £34K.
2004 on an 04 plate 19200 miles 4.2 on AutoTrader now at £31K
How much fuel will £3K buy with a 5p litre difference and maybe 20mpg less for the diesel?
I'd rather have the 4.2.
Bill
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Not in the same league at all in terms of the car, but I did have a similar experience recently in terms of wondering "how long have I got?"
I got into my Passat TDi in Belfast's rush hour, turned the engine on and the low fuel alarm bleeped at me straight away. Fuel indicator said 25 miles to go, so I decided that I would stop at the first roadside filling station, nearly 25 miles north, clear of rush hour traffic (I had a deadline and didn't want to delay around the city centre). However, traffic on the motorway was much heavier than usual due to an accident and after 45 minutes I was still on the motorway just outside the city, with no filling stations nearby that I knew I could find before running out of fuel. By the time I finally pulled clear of the stop-start traffic the "miles remaining" indicator read 0. I had to trundle between 40-50mph all the way in a cold sweat, convincing myself that the needle hadn't quite reached the end of the dial, but eventually pulled into the filling station, coasting in neutral. Phew!
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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According to AutoBild, here in Germany 57% of 7-series BMWs are the 3 litre diesel version. Moral: if you´re going to be mad enough to throw that much money at a luxury barge, better that it save you a few ??? at the pumps.
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And don't forget that diesel is 14p a litre cheaper than petrol in Germany - 78p as opposed to 92p for unleaded
Phil
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Yes - he DID make it, but only just.
I saw the article aired on US TV, about a month ago.
The ride up was uneventful, but he got caught in traffic on the way down and was seriously contemplating chuckin in the towel.
The car started making fuel starvation noises when he was 100s of yards from the finish point (fuel station)
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By 2009 a 5-6 year old new shape A8 with 80k or so on the clock will be easily found for 7-8k max.
FWIW in my experience the old (95-03) A8 is very pessemistic with fuel range - on a 90 litre tank they start bleating about fuel when there is still 30 litres left.
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Now correct me if I am wrong but I thought that modern high pressure diesels had cut out switches if the fuel got too low - this to prevent damage to pumps.
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RF - currently 1 Renault short of a family
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What happens if you do run out of fuel in a diesel - does it do any damage?
I have a similar thing to other posters - running low, think you can get to a 'favourite' garage and then chickening out and buying £10 worth at an undesirable garage.
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Not a good idea really - the system can become airlocked and need to be bled before it can be started (kind of like a radiator I guess!), and I think any sludge/dirt in the bottom of the fuel tank is more likely to get sucked in and partly clog the fuel lines or fuel filter. That's why I was so on edge at the time it nearly happened to me. Probably not good for the fuel pump either. I don't know about the PD/common rail type engines, whether there's any additional risk or not. Usually I try to put fuel in as soon as possible after the light comes on, but in my own situation described above it just wasn't an option at the time.
A few months ago, my other half rang me in a panic to say that the car wouldn't start. I ran through a couple of possibilities over the phone before it dawned on me to ask "Is there any fuel in it?"
Apparently, she had run out because she "knew what the bleep meant but it just didn't register ..." Fortunately she was safe at a friend's house, who was able to run her into the town for a container of diesel. Still wouldn't start, so ninety minutes later the AA man arrived and sprayed some Easy start into the air intake, which did the trick. The thing is, she did exactly the same thing in the other car about three weeks later! Nice man at the hardware shop gave her some red diesel to get it started (wasn't too happy to hear about that) and refused to take payment - possibly just as well, in fact he even went so far as to write her a note explaining the circumstances of having the red fuel in the car in case she got dipped. No need for the AA that time though, might be that the first time round the car was parked facing downhill? Thankfully, no problems with either motor since (both VAG TDi 110 engines).
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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Andymc, doesn´t cherry diesel stain the fuel lines permanently? If so, HMC&E will surely throw the book at you if it gets dipped. I don´t like the sound of this at all, for you guys I mean.
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Not sure if it's permanent or not - I understood that the effect would fade away in time, plus she filled up to the brim as soon as she got to a pump just a mile away, so hopefully the few litres of red will have been well diluted. Not sure if it's the fuel lines themselves that get stained (is it? and would that mean that dipping the tank wouldn't make any difference?) but regardless, I can always argue that I wasn't the first owner of the car and point to the very many receipts that I have kept from the purchase of duty-paid biodiesel. Plus my supplier always keeps a written record of who buys how much fuel, so I'd be able to use that as a backup.
TBH, in four years of diesel ownership I've only ever seen HMC&E on the road twice, and they've waved me through each time as they pull lorries and vans in. But yes, when I was told what had happened I was less than overjoyed!
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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