4 tips to avoid running out of petrol

Hoe krijg je nooit meer een lege brandstoftank?

Do you know that story about those people who went on a trip and ran out of fuel? In hindsight, you can often laugh about it, but we still think it's better to prevent this with these tips.

Naturally, you might think, but don't you have a fuel gauge? And yet, you'll be surprised how often it happens that people without petrol of diesel to be left sitting. The causes are usually; not paying attention to the meter reading, or a miscalculation of the number of kilometres still to be driven.

To prevent this ‘not-so-funny’ situation, we've put together some handy tips for you when hiring a car.

Tip 1: Study the fuel consumption and range of the hire car

The fuel consumption of cars can be expressed in kilometres per litre, or km/l. Suppose you have a tank capacity of 60 litres and the average consumption is 8 km/l, then you can drive (60 x 8 =) 480 km on a full tank.

Take into account the different driving styles. In built-up areas with a lot of stop-start traffic, a car will always consume more fuel than when you drive at a constant speed for a long time on the motorway.

Feel free to ask the car rental company about the maximum distance, or range.

Tip 2: Ask how a nearly empty tank is reported

It really varies from car to car how it's indicated to the driver that the fuel tank is nearly empty. Often it's an (orange) light, and if the tank is really about to run dry, most modern cars will also [beep/make a sound] Beeping signal Give.

Be mindful in a hire car, as it may give different signals to what you're accustomed to, meaning it might not always be obvious.

Our advice is therefore not to let the tank drop below a quarter of its capacity.

Tip 3: Study the route and refuel in good time

It sounds logical, but this is precisely the most common reason people find themselves stranded with an empty fuel tank. Even though the indicator light is already on, they decide to keep driving to use up “as much fuel as possible” and therefore have to refuel less often.

If you decide to keep driving when you see a petrol station and want to take a gamble, you'd better have studied beforehand (and be resilient to stress).

There are apps for your smartphone, for example, the Shell English BP, so you (the passenger) can look up where the next petrol station is. Also the ANWB app is very handy, as all (!) petrol stations can be found here!

Tip 4: Abroad

In the Netherlands, you can usually find a petrol station every few kilometres. This can be very different abroad. In countries such as France English Germany Are the distances much greater and are there also many fewer petrol stations per kilometre to be found. Therefore, take less risk here than you would in Netherlands would do.

Extra tip: Where is your fuel cap?

You will find that the fuel cap on your rental car is on the opposite side to your own car. Most cars have a handy indicator that you just need to be aware of.

Usually, this is indicated by an arrow next to the fuel pump icon.

With other brands, the arrow on the fuel gauge indicates where the fuel cap is located.

With these tips, you can avoid the embarrassing birthday story:“...so then we were out of petrol”.

More tips? Read our blogs about:

–  Safe driving

– Driving in winter conditions

– Tips for hiring a car

– Reasons to hire a car

– preventing car theft