How long would the car run for?

Captain

Captain

Captain

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Having a chat at work about random stuff, question came up that if you filled a car right up with fuel, turned heating etc off, left the car ticking over, how long would it stay running?
 
If we say the average car consumed 0.6 litres of fuel per hour (based on some Googling), and the average fuel tank is 50 litres, then it'll last about 83 hours.
 
Would overheating be an issue?

Obviously it's at low load and low rpm, but also not much airflow through the radiators.
 
According to a lot of people on Kent roads 'the slower you go the less fuel you use' so I suspect the answer would be pretty close to 'for ever'.

Andi.
 
I left the S-Class idling for several hours to recharge some phones and it didn't use an appreciable amount of fuel so I'd expect it to last a long time, more than a couple of days.
 
Reminds me of that road that led out of Kuwait to Iraq. The retreating Iraqi's were bombed so they abandoned their vehicles. There are loads of video's online that show a good many of them had been left running and still were many days later.
 
When idle my cars mpg changes to gallons/hour. when up to operating temperature, it reads 0.2g/h Its a 70l tank, 15g, so around 77 hours from full to empty.
 
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