jad: "Then you're EOC for real"
That's funny!
I did actually run out of gas once, on purpose, because I really wanted to know my true capacity (and even though I've heard lots of reasons why it's considered a bad idea). And I managed to be heading downhill toward a gas station at the time (although I also had a gas can in the car), and literally coasted to the pump in EOC mode. Just like you said.
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cems: "the pump usually stopped at 9.5 - 9.8 gallons for the 10 gallon tank"
Wow, you really were running close to empty. When I did my dry-tank experiment, the pump stopped when it reached 10.138. Of course, even when you had only 0.3 gallons left, that was still worth about 15 miles, since it was a VX.
"I also used to overfill it with 3 - 5 gallons extra"
You must mean 0.3-0.5.
I once did some very stupid overfilling, and realized (too late) that I was paying for fuel that was being vacuumed into the pump's vapor recovery system. Those little holes at the end of the nozzle carry a vacuum. Now I'm done as soon as the pump stops.
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1993: "At times, I've put 11 gallons into my gas tank"
I've seen confusing information about how big the VX tank is. Some references indicate that all VXs have a 10 gallon tank. Some other references indicate that it was 10 in certain years, and 12 in other years.
Maybe you have a 12 gallon tank. If you have a 10 gallon tank, and paid for 11 gallons, I'm pretty sure you were sending gas into the pump's vapor recovery system. I learned the hard way.
I once looked at all the VX gaslogs, looking for very large fills. I found only a very small number of fills over 10 gallons. The record (at least as far as what I could find) is 11.174, here:
http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/796. I think the only other car with a fill over ten (10.236) is here:
http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/217.
Those cars are a '92 and a '93. I think somewhere along the way I got the idea that those years had a 12 gallon tank, and then they switched to 10. Not sure, though. But I'm darn sure that my tank ('95) is 10, not 12.
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fume: "by the time it got to 30 he was looking under the car"
When I did my stupid experiment involving overfilling, I did literally look under the car, because I was surprised at the fact that it seemed I could keep squeezing more and more gas into the tank. I really thought I might be forcing it out onto the ground, somehow. It was only later that it dawned on me about what those little holes at the tip of the nozzle were doing.
I knew that pumps have some kind of vapor recovery system, but I didn't realize how subtle and effective it is. It's different from a few years ago, when the nozzle had that large bellows over it. Those were easier to defeat, if you were determined to fill to the very tippy-top.
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