state police behind me and got towed, yay love fuel starve!
 

Last night my wife was out, I decided to take the dogs to my friend's place to hang out. As I came off a highway off-ramp (sharp right hand U turn), car suddenly cut out and I had to coast to a stop at the shoulder. Despite numerous attempts , the car refused to start backup. I had about a 1/4 in the tank and 6 LED on the fuel gauge before it happened. Of course once the fuel sloshed to the other side, my gauge was showing 2 LEDs. I must have tried to start the car at least 40 times in the next 15 minutes, yet the car just refused to do so. After sitting for about 10 minutes, I decided to call AAA to have them tow me to a gas station. When they offered to bring gas, I declined because I needed at least 10-15 gallons. Just as I got off the phone with AAA, the state police came and got behind me with his lights up. He proceeded to help me rush the tow truck driver to the scene. While we were waiting, I was explaining him the situation. He was just puzzled at how a nice looking sports car can have a design flaw this big. He was great and he waited with me until the tow truck driver came. There were at least 200-300 cars that had passed me during that time, everyone probably thought I got busted for doing something stupid. Well maybe stupid for buying a car that has a design flaw like this, but then I honestly didn't know about it when I bought the car since everyone only complained about oil temp.

Anyway, the tow truck driver came. He was able to get me to a gas station relatively quickly. Instead of just dropping the car immediately, he allowed me to fuel up while the car was still on the flatbed. 14 gallons later, car was full and it started on top of the flat bed. He proceeded to lower the vehicle and we were both on our way. The incident ate up 1.5 hours of my time, my dogs were scared $hitless as we were sitting on the side of the road. I was probably seen as that road rage maniac who got busted by the police with the police behind me flashing his light. This all happened with 5 gallons of gas in the car.

Moral of the story, don't let the car run down past 3/4 of a tank as fuel starvation can happen at any points lower. If you are lucky, car will pick right back up (which I have had happened many times in the past). Yet if you are unlucky like me, you will end up seeing your car on the back of a flatbed in front of a cop getting towed away.


Please do all Z owners a favor, report the fuel starvation issue to the NHTSA. Hopefully if enough people bitches, NHTSA will look into it and perhaps issue a recall. There is currently no fix for it right now short of replacing the gas tank or keep filling it up all the way.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/

If my wife wasn't pregnant, I would be shopping for another vehicle today. I love the car, but some of these stupid problems just drive me insane

That sucks

Fuel starvation is a weird feeling. last month at the track I was low on gas (stupidly knowing this was an issue), about a quarter tank, and a sweeping right turn. I thought I'd shifted into the wrong gear, several seconds later it made a slight popping sound ( or some kind of sound), and all was well again. It happened again on the next lap and then I slowed down on all right handers.

I would think a small reservoir tank in between gas tank and combustion chamber would solve this inexpensively. I am not a mechanic or engineer so what do I know.

oddly enough on my 2011 i have never had this issue with fuel starvation even when running on 1/4 tank and making long sweeping right hand turns on an onramp going about 50-60....makes me wonder if nissan secretly addressed this issue in the 2011 and up, guess i'll have to wait for some more 2011 and up owners to chime in.

I dunno, I have an '09 and have regularly run the tank down below the 1/4 tank mark and have never had a problem even with spirited driving on curvey roads with and without elevation changes. I wonder if there is a problem or defect with a batch of tanks versus the overall design of the gas tank. Someone who has had the problem definitely needs to cut their tank in half and do a video for the rest of us. Any takers? :tiphat:

Sorry to hear the bad news. Kind of sucks that it took 1.5hrs out of your life, but at least things are back to normal. Oh congrats on your wife being pregnant.

I have run my 2012 down to the dummy warnings telling me to fuel up and havent had this happen to me. I wasn't even aware this was a problem.. I am going to fuel up more often now

Same here, I have an 09 and ran the car a couple time with one LED left on the high way off ramp/on ramp and never had a problem.

I have an 11' and had the Fuel lights down to one and one time it showed the dash marks meaning no more gas and didn't turn off. Idk.

Defective batch
 

If I had a car that had this issue I would be really peeved, and taking legal action. I almost hesitate to say that I have an '09, and haven't had this problem. I wonder if the guys on the forum that have the fuel starve problem could compare notes on their builds to see if there was a defective lot of fuel pumps that are causing this issue.

Frankly I think that a lot of the other complaints I hear about the Z on this forum is just a bunch of BS grousing about nothing more than individual idiosyncratic irritations, or misinformed expectaion. The fuel starve issue, however is serious and potentially life threatening.

same iv had mine down to the 1 led light no issues...knock on wood

cossie -were you going 170mph and told officer you can go even faster?

09 here and have hit sweeping right handers at 90ish with my gas range blinking at me and 1 dot lit up and never had this issue...

:roflpuke2:

you just aren't taking turns long/hard enough. You can definitely still starve an '11 no problem.


A lot of people that have not had an issue simply aren't driving that hard. It is not terribly common on the street, unless you have unfavorable banking/slope.

That sucks. Sorry cossie. Rep for yea.

Yeah you have to hit a right turn really hard. Its happened twice to me. On both times I was on the very limit of Corning traction and acceleration. I think I had less than 1/2 a tank n both cases as well.

I keep mine on Economy all the time never had the problem yet. I wonder if they fixed it for 2011?

If it happens I am going to be pissed though and report it.

You can also have a faulty Fuel Sending Unit and could be a reason for not giving you the correct reading. I just got mine replaced 2 weeks ago.

Z has a returnless system, very hard to do

See below


Ty

Iit is a fuel pickup issue. The cup that is used to hold fuel is simply too small. It is part of the fuel pump assembley. The whole part should be redesigned. As far as I know, all fuel pump assembly is the same from 09 to 12.

Btw, the problem usually happens when you come out of the corner, not entering the corner since only a small amount of fuel is being held in the cup. If you gun it and use up the fuel inside it, you are sol. You either get a hick up or you have to get towed.

Z has a returnless system, its going to take more work to install another pump. My friend who designed my trailer hitch can do it, but I am hesitant about blowing another 1k in the car.


I wasn't driving the Prius, can't do 170......

I bitched about it a year or two ago, people think I am on crack. They are more concerned about the stupid oil temp

Sux bro. Sry to hear.

:icon17: gl on the fix. :)

Credit to the people who took the time to document the pump. You can see a difference between the 350 and the 370 pump.

The way the cup is design, it simply doesn't hold enough gas and it is very hard to refill

http://cj-motorsports.com/img/370p1.jpg

http://image.superstreetonline.com/f..._fuel_pump.jpg

This is how you fix it cheaply

http://www.extremeoffroadgear.com/im...721395356.jpeg

:tup:

hmmm, first time I've heard of this issue occur on the street its a well known issue for track drivers. Of course up to this point, having it be a "track" issue doesn't help giving Nissan a reason to fix this. If you had enough fuel I think you would have fired up with a jump. This happen to me once and even after refueling it didn't crank over, a quick jump from the boost box and it was good to go.

When someone gets rear ended due to fuel starvation, Nissan will get sued and they deserve to be sued...They know about the problem and they just don't care..

I am glad you are ok and nothing happened, but it will someday...

Tally
 

I agree with the poster that said, if fuel starve is a track only issue the chances of getting anything done about it are slim and none. I also agree that if someone gets rear ended as a result of this issue it could mean serious liability issues for Nissan. How many people here have had fuel starve occur on the street and WEREN'T speeding?

If enough people FLOOD Nissan with complaints, the paper trail will be easy for any Lawyer to sue for millions if someone is hurt getting rear ended..

They can claim fuel starvation, and Nissan should be liable....You should not have to keep your gas tank full on a modern car...Justifying it, is just trying to justify buying the car..

I never had any issues with my rock solid 350Z..If i have problems with the 370Z, you can bet i will take the loss and move on to another Car,and not a Nissan..

I am going to let my 370Z get low on gas and see if it starves...Then I will document a formal complaint with Nissan if it happens...Absolutely unacceptable...

sorry to hear about your fuel issue....

i once ran my 09 down to no fuel dots showing,, i know stupid and the yellow
warning light flashed on but i didn't have any problems. except how fast i could find a gas station..........................

guess all we can do is hope that if they get enough complaints and it becomes a safety hazard that nissan will finally do something bout this and who knows, hopefully there is a nissan rep on the boards that is keeping track of all the complaints. they did finally put an oil cooler on the 12's after all even if it is a little underperforming lol.

I do not know if this is sensible. Looking for trouble so to speak. Look up catastrophic fuel starvation for a worst case scenario.

I've experienced minor fuel starvation on the street as well. It's just that it is hard to distinguish from VDC.

I don't doubt the complaints we've seen street driving, but I think there's more to this story. I doubt most 370Z owners ever see this problem on the street.

The basic combo of factors seems to be: A right-hander of decent length and tightness, pushing the car pretty hard on grip, and being low-ish on gas, but there could be a fourth factor. Maybe some subset of the cars has some defect that makes it more likely than others? Maybe some baffle comes loose because some cars don't have it attached securely, something of that nature?

I can make mine starve on a CW track run if I let it get down to 3/4 tank or less and push a hard right sweeper, but on the street it's rare I can replicate that scenario, and my "normal" driving on the street never triggers it even down at 1/4 tank.

I have stickier tires. I took the turn at 30mph, car shut off at 65 or so

I get Fuel starvation at 3/4 of a tank on hard rights. It really pisses me off too. This is a F*cking sports car. That should not happen. I drive a 2011 Nismo. Thanks for the link cossie1600

Just want to add that this problem is nothing new, but it is more severe than other cars I have seen and for some odd reason it takes forever to get the fuel to come back. If you do a search, you will see some people have to wait 8 hours before it fires up. Prior to yesterday, my longest hick up was about 5 sec

Reading all this makes me count my blessings.

On a recent trip to Vegas, my buddy (driving a 350Z) and I were cruising along from Reno to Vegas. We were chatting over the two-way radios how much gas we had left (distance to empty is very misleading). We thought we had more than enough to make it to the next town. But when the distance to the next fuel stop was greater than what the navigation system calculated, and too far to turn around, we kinda crapped our pants. Off went the AC and found a Uhaul to draft behind.

Fortunately we made, I had less than 1/2 a litre of gas left. I'm glad there were no sharp turns or big hills, otherwise the outcome might not have been so favourable.

Thanks to this thread I'll know to watch my fuel level on sharp right turns.


Cheers.

It's quite frustrating this issue. Now whenever the low fuel warning or 2 dots remain I fill it up because of all the fuel starvation horror stories, don't want to get stranded anytime soon.

Oil temp issue fixed 100% when the engine dies as a result of fuel starvation. :tup:

Seriously though, I've never had this issue.

You would have to document your particular issue with Nissan (prior to the accident) if you hope to sue. Let's just hope nobody gets hurt.