because:
You had brain failure
The guage was wrong.
There was no warning light.
You meant to fill up, but then forgot.
You thought E meant ‘enough’. [ and F was for ‘finished’]
and then:
It cost a huge amount to get some.
You were miles from anywhere.
Your tip was 6 hours late,then refused.
You conked out on a blind rise/tight bend/single track lane/lane 3 of the M1/on a bay.
Had no mobile phone signal.
The gaffer was ranting/nice as pie.
It didn’t self-prime before the battery went flat.
I ran out of fuel last year. In all my time as an O/D I never had a working fuel gauge. My first trucks was bust when I bought it and I never bothered recalibrating the second’s after I swapped the fuel tank for a smaller one. Used to work it out on a piece of paper, knew roughly when I had to fill up.
Got caught out by filling up lunchtime the day before, working the afternoon locally then being loaded into and out of Snowdonia area the next morning, then took a load of Tarmac in the afternoon. I knew I needed some so I got the load off, was off site 2miles, about 5miles from the petrol station and only 7miles from the yard and it ran out. Where I’d usually expect 8.5mpg, I’d actually done 6.6 she ran dry about 150kms earlier than I was expecting. My mistake.
Fitter came out (7miles) and after muchos ■■■■■■■■■ got me going again. He only charged me about £100 for the callout and 50L of derv. Lucky to be where I was and bloody lucky it didn’t conk out when I was on site with a load of black on.
Only ever ran out of fuel once. It was an old Leyland Freighter skip wagon with a busted gauge. Luckily i was on my way to fill it up and it stopped about 100 yards from the filling station we used. Out with the jerry can,filled that,put it in the motor and bled it up myself. The boss never found out and i never mentioned it!
Yes twice, two identical trucks. Both dodgy fuel gauges. First one needle was showing 1/4 as I was climbing telegraph hill to go to the texaco, just past the Shell garage she conked out so rolled back into the forecourt and put 20 quid in to get me up the hill. Second time I was up near Bristol on the way home and was showing 3/4, phoned the fitter and had a kip on the bunk. Woken by the HA who told me I couldn’t park there! 5 minutes fitter arrived and we got her going.
Once, picked a rigid blower feed wagon up from kirkbride airfield. It conked at carrs Billington in Carlisle 50 yd from the yard. Mind you I wasn’t much cop with the twin splitter so probably burnt more fuel than necessary!
Ran dry in a 8 leg foden tipper eons ago. Was going to tip just off m25, took exit site was left at bottom of slip road, motor died the no fuel death. Coasted down rest of slip and with two feet on the floor and both hands on one side of wheel managed to get it into the site.
There were a few swear words from the site manager about my chosen ■■■■■■■■■■■■ but a deal wa done for enough red to get home8-)
i have ran out twice, once in a 92 Scania when I went to Grangemouth to load, it was so bloody windy I ran out at Stainmore Cafe when the fuel station was open. Normally the lorry would have got back to Hull
The next time was in Germany on the A5 near the air base. I needed fuel, couldn’t find any who would accept my card. I ended up cutting a piece of pipe of my gas cooker, and pushing it on the end of the stack pipe, it gave me enough to get off the motorway and find some fuel. I had to drop the trailer though to get under the canopy.
Once got back to the yard with a sick motor. Had a hire lorry in the yard got told to take that on the hurry up. Gauge was showing half a tank was only going barking to rain ham and back about 15 miles.
Tipped in rainham on the a13 as I come to the dagenham turn it started spluttering and died as I rolled down the slip road. Called the fitter 10 gallons of fuel and a can of easy start well it was a hire lorry and we were off. Still got the ■■■■ ripped out of me even though The Hague said half full.
on the magic roundabout at hemel hempstead-gauge was not on empty, was an old iveco eurotrakker,
wasnt my regular drive.
stuck it in gear and turned the key to get it off the roundabout and out of the way.
that was the first and last time ive run out,but been bloody close many times lol
On a fuel run over to Belgium one weekend with a unit.
The fitter knew exactly how much fuel to leave in to get it to the garage and used to syphon all but that bare minimum out before sending it over. It wasn’t my usual unit and he didn’t tell me to raise the suspension whilst on the ferry so the fuel sits under the pick up at the front of the tank rather than sloshing back behind the baffles. Managed to just make it over the Belgium border before spluttering to a halt.
This was before it was as notorious as it is now (no locking fuel cap) but our travelling friends helped themselves to virtually the whole tank out of the DAF 18 tonner I was driving. Didn’t even look at the fuel gauge when I started in the morning got about 500 yards and it conked out. Got a jerry can and got it going gain but still smelt of diesel about 3 baths later.
One of our drivers did, he phoned me up and was ■■■■■■■■ himself as the tyrant of a manager we had at the time considered it a sacking offence, I took him 5 gall out to get him to the yard and told him to make sure the fuel gauge wire was broken when he came back in
my first megaspace actros had 1500 lt tanks, i was unloading in brussels airport with low tanks intending to fill them up in luxembourg later but the loading bays were down a ramp and all the fuel ran to one end, so i had to get a shunting tug to pull me up off the loading bay then hand prime to get going again.
I ran out many years ago with the Bedford KM that I drove at the time.It had a 70 gallon fuel tank and as I was only on local short distance work I thought I had enough derv for three days.What happened,ran out on the way home.Fitter came out with a drum of fuel and had to bleed the thing to get it going.
Lesson learnt.
didnt exactly run out of feul, had a scania with twin tanks on it parked up above red as enough to fill in morning when on way but parked with truck leaning over to left so all feul in right tank moved across which didnt last long when fired up and done walk around it conked out lol had to get it siphoned out and put in right side tank
yes i did driving a hired volvo fm about 6 years ago but ran out right on bend on the southbound a3 just before the punch bowl caused real havoc gauge showed half full but tank empty not funny at the time
lol regularly just out of castle douglas going east on the old A75 usually just the fuel running tae the back o the tanks
( had large tanks fitted ) and boss didnt believe in using cards!! in Ireland and if i had a headwind i couldnt make the pumps at Dargavel stores (dfs).
just used to phone up my old fella and he would bring me 20gallons out from my stash .
jimmy.
In my last job, i used to drive a 54 plate, 18 ton iveco box and we always used to fill up @ Raglan servies. The one day i headed down there from mitcheldean with only 1/4 of a tank left and when i got to raglan, i did the usual- pull up and turn engine off blah blah.
Paid for my fuel and got back in the cab, turned the ignition to find that the lorry wouldnt start!!!
Turns out, if you let the tank go below quarter then, u have to bleed the engine! So i waited for 1hr 30mins for a mechanic to come with some special air filter spray that fired her bak up.
