Larger aftermarket gas tanks

Most have the tank designed into a fixed space. If you want a larger tank it would almost have to be an add on to the existing system.

LOL Yeah, like a 55 gallon drum in the trunk ala Cannonball Race.

Just have a friend drive along behind you in a gas supply truck. ;-)

Some local laws prohibit adding extra tanks to road cars (i.e. not racetrack-only cars) or only allow them to be positioned in specific places.

The smaller tanks on small cars is because they use (slightly) less fuel, and because they aren't usually designed to drive long distances - they're city cars. If you need a bigger tank, it's likely one of the signs that you need a bigger car.

Yea. I found out about tiny little tanks last week in a rented Kia Soul. The tank was only good for 150 miles, half way to Dallas from Houston. Had to fill up 4 times in a

542 mile round trip.

Often a weight savings measure - and a tank of an extra couple gallons capacity can often be fit in by reducing ground clearance by an inch.

Not aware of anyone making extended range tanks for Soobs though. Was quite common a while back for Pickups and Vans.

Same here. I have a Yaris loaner car while mine is getting the dents from a hit and run removed. Est Range HAS to be wrong, it has a full tank and only estimates 325 miles!

Then I filled it with a $20 from 1/3 tank!

Fuel usage depends on many factors, but these little cars simply aren't designed for long distance travel. They designed for in city use: little old granny driving it only on Sundays to church. ;-)

is the mathematical elephant in the room just too hard to understand? or do none of you feel you want to state the obvious?

10 gallons in a 30mpg vehicle = 300 miles range. 15 gallons in a 20mpg vehicle = 300 range. [both numbers from my car and truck respectively.] +/- 300 miles is the typical american car's design range target and /that/ determines tank size. end of story.

My old 77 datsun 280 z could go over 400 miles. It was great when things were bad for getting gas back then. I could drive to Vegas, drive around, drive back to barstow. Many cruising sports cars get over 400 miles. Even my cavalier gets almost 500 miles, if I'm thinking it has a 16 gallon tank ?

34 mpg.

Greg

There always has to be at least one in every newsgroup. :-\

No car company on the planet designs a car around a specific tank size - not even American car companies are that stupid. The gas tank's size is determined by the size of the car, the space the tank has to fit in, the purpose of the car, etc. A small car designed to be a city / suburban runabout is not going to have a massive tank - it pointless having one take up all that room and added weight.

Whining that a small car has a smaller tank than a truck is pointlessly idiotic.

As for mileage quotes, if you believe what car sales material tells you, then I've got a beach house on top of Mt Everest that should interest you. :-\

Mileage quootes are, at best, theoretical and the actual mileage is dependant on many, many factors.

Yeah, makes sense since vans by their very nature got gobs of space that can be reserved for larger tank without sacrificing the ground clearance.

how is the rust resistance of aftermarket ones compared to oem

thanks

Highway mileage quotes are pretty accurate from what I've seen. Range might be usually figured in trip highway miles - that's the only time I think about range with my '97 Lumina. Like I fill up, then think how many miles before the next fill up. And I think 300 miles, because that's about what I get highway with some margin of error. That's 4 hours at 75mph. Gas gauge reads 3/16. I could get about 375 but I never trust a gas gauge that much when close to empty. Not worth getting stranded. BTDT. For my normal "commute, grocery getting" I never look at the odometer. Just the gas gauge, and I normally figure on getting gas in so many days. I just did a 3000 mile trip in the Lumina and got about 29 mpg overall. Most I ever put in the tank is 13 I think. It's said to hold 13.41 gallons. Gets 28-31 mpg highway. Since I just replaced the tank due to a leaking rusty seam, I can tell you it's shaped to conform to the underbody. It has to be so far off the ground for safety reasons. So the car designers have a choice. Sacrifice rear floor space or trunk space for more tank. They probably do figure 300 mile range on most cars as a good compromise.

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It's usually difficult to replace the existing tank with one that is really any bigger - car designs these days are pretty tight on space. It's probably a better option to add a second tank (local laws allowing of course) which is designed to fit in the trunk or the back of a pick-up / van. The problem in small cars is that the rear "crumple zone" may make that impossible / illegal.

Pretty good if you get stainless steel. Sceptre was making stainless replacement tanks for several years - not sure about now.

OEM plastic is the way to go though.

Yeah, my experience mostly owning Toyotas is that they are targeted at ~400-500 miles. I guess I drive a bit better than they figure, because I usually do 20% better on overall fuel economy than the EPS highway ratings. Par Example: my 85 Corolla was rated 33 MPG highway, but I was getting ~36 MPG overall. on a 14 gallon tank, that's 504 miles I know I do better than a lot of folks, but my range has always been at least 450 miles on a tank.

With my Supra, I get...well, let's not talk about the Supra, eh? ;)

(~24MPG on a 19 gal tank...)

AD laid this down on his screen :

Most aftermarket gas tanks are usually designed to perfectly replace the existing gas tank. Usually the only reason you change a gas tank is if there was some damage to it. So I would assume that they don't sell gas tanks that are bigger than the existing one.

Yousuf Khan