Gas light failure

less than ten miles

running on dregs from the petrol tank
clogs fuel filter and can damage pump even injectors

It has 2 possible solutions 1) fuel sending unit is going bad which the tank has to be dropped to change, 2) you have a bad cluster panel. Hope this helps

You never leave a car running, as it will
overheat the Exhaust Converter
When you run out of fuel, you sometimes
ruin the Fuel Pump
It depends on gas to lubricate it,as strange as it sounds
Check fuel pressure & volume at the motor with a gauge

In the Ford Ranger, the light switch can be found in the door, right by the latch. You may need to use some WD-40 to get to work properly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zed bull

One tank of gas is not enough to compare mileage. Or are you saying the computer's readout of mpg estimate is showing less? Try a tank or two of premium and see if that helps. Keep track of gas mileage. Driving techniques have a lot to do with gas mileage, as does long trips vs. short trips, highway cruising vs. city driving. For best mileage, do regular maintenance and keep the car in top running condition-good spark plugs and clean filters and clean oil ! Attend to minor problems before they escalate.
If you want to check actual miles per gallon, start with a full tank. Write the odometer reading down, and go. Everytime you put gas in, write down the amount. When you are close to 1,000 miles from the time you started, go fill the tank and include that amount of gas to your previous list. Now add up all the gas used and divide it into the miles to get miles per gallon. (976 miles/31.8 gallons = 30.69 mpg ) . Only one tank will skew your numbers, might be off cause the tank was filled more to the top than the previous fill-up. About a thousand miles of driving will give you a very accurate figure of miles per gallon for your car.

Sounds like you got a tank of bad gas. That would easily cause your issues. Start by draining as much as you can, put a can of Seafoam in there, add a few gallons of fresh gas, drive to the gas station and tank up, and run that tank down until your gas light comes on before adding more. You may end up needing a fuel filter or plugs again, but with minimal run time on the bad gas, you'll probably be fine.

Does it stick at about half full? I would fill up, the gauge would show full then after 60-70 mile when gauge should show less than half to a 1/4 tank the gauge still showed 1/2 tank so I'd go ahead and fill it up. Finally, I watched my mileage and when my yellow low on gas light came on I filled it half full. After a couple of weeks I filled it up and the gauge has worked every since.

Sounds like the sending unit is shot, which is in the gas tank.

Usually you can drive about 60 miles. when the light goes on you have 3 gallons left.

This isn't a definite fix, but it may be that the gasoline in your tank is 'sloshing' forwards and backwards and your sensour is getting readings when the gasoline is in different positions in your tank. The connection is actually above your gasoline tank and you'll have to take off the tank harnesses and drop the tank if you want to check to see if the connection became slightly loose, otherwise you can just fill your gas tank and reset your temporary milage gage (that's the little black button near your RPM meter) and remember how many miles you get per tank.