Perhaps your fuel sender is simply off .

Sadly, there's only one way to find out, and that's to run it dry.

Maybe put a gallon or two of gas in a can in the trunk, run it dry and see how far it goes after the light comes on, then gas up and head to a station?

Sam

 

I don't think it's good on the injectors or the fuel pump to run them dry as the gas acts as coolant/lubricant, and it would suck up all the dregs and sediment in the tank.

 

There are fuel filters both in-line and in the gas tank. Worse it'll happen the sediments would block the filter in the gas tank and engine will choke a bit. If the fuel pressure in the lines actually drops to zero the safety switch will kick in and kill the engine to keep the injectors from running dry.

I've never ever ran out of gas for over 20 years of driving. I've had an engine cut out on me due to very low gas on my dad's car. It happened when I was making a hard turn the engine just died. Soon as I made a complete stop and on ground level it fired right up ok. Cars should not be doing that but his being an old car did.

 

My 2003 HCH I has often taken up to 15.5 gallons on fill-up, and gone well over 700 miles on a tank. It's done this for most of its 200k mile life. I've asked several dealers about this, with no answer. There have been no check engine lights, so the carbon canister was apparently unaffected. Strange and unexplained behavior.