The Boat I Should Have Learned From

We had just purchased the truck in Oct 2001. I didn't negotiate a full tank of gas, but figured since it was a six cylinder manual trans. vehicle I'd be fine. My wife and I drove from the dealership to Highway 280 in the Bay Area. I got on the freeway, and noticed the tank guage showed about 1/8 of a tank. Knowing that most cars can go into the "red" I figured I had some time. I calculated, erroneously, that was probably about 15 to 20 miles and thought I could make it to San Francisco. I didn't make it more than two miles! The truck shut down and I spent 15 minutes trying to start the truck thinking we had just bought a lemon. No gas light or anything. Finally, leaving the key in the on position, I realized maybe the gas guage was unlike any vehicle I had ever had in the past and so I called AAA for a tow.

Needless to say..I felt like an idiot and sheepishly accepted the 1 gallon of gas from the tow driver. My wife just glowered at my stupidity.

Did I mention the other part??? I had repeated the same mistake with the first drive on a newly purchased used boat with my wife, and my recent addition of a baby daughter on Clear Lake in Nor Cal several years prior. I bought the boat for a "song" and had figured out why the seller couldn't get it to run, simple fix. I was a proud new boat owner who just had to take my wife out on the first run..yeah...Gilligan's Island!!!

If you think calling a tow truck is embarrasing...try getting towed 5 miles by another boat owner on your maiden run and KNOWING how to fix boats, yet ignoring the gas guage, with no dummy light.

Lesson learned...all new/used vehicle/boat purchases since then had a full tank of gas negotiated in the purchase!

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