[mikestew]

If you can't push-start a car, it's because it has electronic fuel injection. If the battery is stone dead, there's no juice to run the FI and fuel pump, it will never start. It would work on stone cold carbureted cars because there'd be enough fuel left in the float bowls to bootstrap the whole operation.

[prmoustache]

Starter motors can die and you can push start a car with electronic fuel injestion in that case. Also a weak starter is often a warning symptom of a dying battery so push starting can help heading to the next shop / service station selling car batteries.

[hinkley]

Some old cars had mechanically powered fuel pumps so if the engine is moving the pump is going. Mine just had a little shaft buried behind the mounting bracket.

Probably safer not to introduce electricity to gasoline…

[mikestew]

Probably safer not to introduce electricity to gasoline…

Ooookay. I've never even heard third-hand stories of an electric fuel pump lighting the gasoline on fire, if that's what you're getting at, and I was a professional mechanic at one point.