Run out of fuel

[33chinacars]

So on a trip to Melbourne and back on Sunday I appear to have run out of diesel. Cough cough no go . But the trip meter said I had ~100 kms left to empty and the orange light had just come on.
RACV fiddled for awhile, no go. Put some diesel in , now ~150 kms to empty. Still no go. Waited for another hour for a flat deck who took me to Ballan where I filled the fuel tank. Then I proceeded to prime the fuel system. At the second attempt success. Never missed a beat on the way home 250+ kms.
Now I have my own theory as to what is going on, but would like to get others opinions first.
Gauge has been spot on all the time I've had my Range Rover TD6.

[carlschmid2002]

I had this happen once in my D3. I had just been offroad and put it through some fairly large angles in all directions and when I go back on the highway it cut cut out with 80kms to go. I have not been able to replicate this. I have two tanks so I have run the main much lower than this and it hasn't conked out. When it ran out of fuel the situation wasn't helped by the angle I was parked on the shoulder of the road. At the time I was just happy it was fuel not something more serious. I never let main tank run less than 100km to go if aux is empty.

[rar110]

How much fuel did it take after it ran out?

I have only one guess. The lift pump is starting to fail. When the tank is full or reasonably full there is positive pressure to the outside of the lift pump.

[jsp]

yeah might be the intank pump, I have a habit of running my cars almost dry - you get a warning in the dash when there's 50k's left, and on mine it beeps every 5k's with something like "range < 50".

The most I have pushed it is light on at Beaufort and made it to Horsham, that would be nearly 150 k's.

After having the trans done at an independent I ran out of fuel on the way home, it spluttered randomly for a solid 5 minutes of highway driving before going into limp mode where the ecu slows you down, same symptoms as when the fuel pump went.

[33chinacars]

FYI it took 84 litres to fill.

As it appears that the lift pump is in the RH well of the fuel tank & the pickup for the secondary pump is in the LH well. To me the lift pump is not equalizing the 2 sides of the tank. So yes me thinks the lift pump is on the way out.

Mine only coughed twice ,before dying

[jsp]

just checked my little phone app, most I have ever put in the car is 95.52L.

I think Gavin posted about cleaning the tank out, and the soup that came out of the bottom......

[Homestar]

Yep, sounds like the in tank pump. Had this on mine too. These tanks are a funny setup - as they drop over the hump in the middle of the car, they rely on a Venturi to suck fuel over into the side with the pickup. This is done by the in tank pump. When it gets lazy you can run out of fuel while your fuel gauge is still reading around 1/4 tank - the sender is in the side that needs to pump over to the pickup side so it can still be reading fine when the pickup runs dry - smart eh?

A new pump isn't expensive and it's easy to fit. Hardest part is getting the back seats out - they are bloody heavy. :D

Might pay to do the inline pump at the same time, they get lazy too - it's under a cover underneath the vehicle on the passenger side - again, easy to change and not too expensive.

As a get out of jail I've found running the ignition through a few cycles can pump enough fuel over to get you running again.

[harlie]

Hey Gary, replace the in-tank pump. It moves fuel from one side to the other (side pickup is on) and is only needed what the level is very low - the bottom of the tank has a hump where it goes over the tail shaft.
As mentioned above, change the inline (one beside the tank) while you are there.

[33chinacars]

Changed in tank pump . Inline pump was changed not that long ago.

Hi Harlie was well aware of how fuel system works.

All good on a trip to Adelaide. Ran tank down. Filled with 90 litres. No problems. Even starts better, so pump was probably on the way out for awhile. Lucky I had a new pump sitting in the shed.