if you were to fill up a cars gas tank all the way and then just let it sit and run.....?

Question

how long would it take for the gas tank to be empty.... i just thought of this one day...has anyone ever tried to do it before?..

Answer 1

too much time on your hands

Answer 2

The car would eventually run out of gas, but it would take a while because an idle car doesn't consume much gas when compared to a car moving at 55 mph. Some cars might actually over heat too; this would ruin the engine. Exactly how long it would take a car to consume the gas though really depends on how many gallons of gas the tank holds and also how many cylinders the engine has. The more cylinders and the smaller the gas tank, the faster the engine will consume the fuel. A standard four cylinder engine with a 15 gallon tank might take, say, 18- 24 hours to use all of the fuel.

Answer 3

Tom: How long would the car run? It'd run all day. Without a heavy load on the alternator, an idling car can run for more than a day -- depending on the car and the size of the gas tank. this was taken from the car talk guys

Answer 4

you would need to have a lot of controls to account for the variables in this question: type of engine, size, displacement, grade of gas used, idle speed. For the sake of argument, lets use a later model american sedan.... Ford Taurus for example.... if you were to idle this car until bone dry, I would estimate that it would run out in about 19 hours.... figuring that you can drive at 70-75mph for 5-6 hours, it would take at least twice as long without a load on the drivetrain or engine. Hope this helps some.