Running out of fuel/Massively inaccurate fuel gauge

[Toomanyloti]

Uh oh... story?

Sounds like its the level sensor which is faulty as per our friends experiece above.
Stealers are run by accountants. Time is money. I have no trust based on experience so I'll run with it faulty until such time as it might need a service. I will then find the most highly recommended dealers from the handful of official service agents to do it all at once. If the factory offer it as an option I might drive the 4 hours down there.

 

[JimH]

Sounds like its the level sensor which is faulty as per our friends experiece above.
Stealers are run by accountants. Time is money. I have no trust based on experience so I'll run with it faulty until such time as it might need a service. I will then find the most highly recommended dealers from the handful of official service agents to do it all at once. If the factory offer it as an option I might drive the 4 hours down there.

The Hethel factory/motorsport service operation was closed down years ago……

 

[Toomanyloti]

booooooooooooo

 

[nelly111s]

Sounds like its the level sensor which is faulty as per our friends experiece above.
Stealers are run by accountants. Time is money. I have no trust based on experience so I'll run with it faulty until such time as it might need a service. I will then find the most highly recommended dealers from the handful of official service agents to do it all at once. If the factory offer it as an option I might drive the 4 hours down there.

Depending on where you are in the UK, there are specialists that are better than dealers

 

[FederGigant]

I ran my car down to 0 an drove another 18km without the car turning off. Lucky me! Obviously it’s different in every car

 

[Aero]

Just another data point for the fuel gauge. When I put the car in the garage last time it said i had 60 miles of range left. Figured I had plenty to get to work which is 35 miles. Soon as i left the driveway it went to 50. Wasnt driving hard at all and it went to 10 about 10 miles from gas station wanted to go to. Another 3 miles it goes to 0.
When this happens the range goes to "--" and the symbol and line turns red and get a msg saying to refuel immediately. Slightly different than what manual says.
I knew from past fillups theres still quite a bit of gas left even close to 0 range.
I get gas after a few (7?) miles with it being red and I had 2 gallons still left in tank.
The manual (page 70, 71) says the first time the pump symbol warning msg comes up there is 1.5 gal left. In reality there is about 1.5+2 gallons but really that 2 is emergency fuel. See warnings on page 71.
From now on I'll get gas before the first warning light comes on since the range remaining is so inaccurate. Didnt get any indications of fuel starvation luckily as was close to gas station.

 

[Orchardbike]

Most ‘range indicators’ work the same. They judge it based on recent history. So if you’re driving at a steady state (motorway/freeway) it will indicate a longer range than if you’re driving stop/start in traffic or around town. If you then go from freeway to town, for the first few miles or so, it will give you an artificially long range estimate. The same thing happens if you look at the range with the car warm as you get home for example, and compare that to the next day, when the engine is cold. The range indicated will be quite high, based on the previous day, and as the car will run rich while it warms up the range will quickly drop because it’s adding the new data (MPG) for the cold start.

 

[Six Speed Stephen]

Most ‘range indicators’ work the same. They judge it based on recent history. So if you’re driving at a steady state (motorway/freeway) it will indicate a longer range than if you’re driving stop/start in traffic or around town. If you then go from freeway to town, for the first few miles or so, it will give you an artificially long range estimate. The same thing happens if you look at the range with the car warm as you get home for example, and compare that to the next day, when the engine is cold. The range indicated will be quite high, based on the previous day, and as the car will run rich while it warms up the range will quickly drop because it’s adding the new data (MPG) for the cold start.

It's always fun to see the gauge after a track day. You fill up before leaving, and at a full tank it tells me 25 miles LOL

 

[Jinba ittai]

It's always fun to see the gauge after a track day. You fill up before leaving, and at a full tank it tells me 25 miles LOL

LOL mine’s never been that extreme. However a couple weeks ago I drove 200kms to my brother’s after some spirited driving. It said range was 300km when I left home and 320km when I got to his place.

 

[Tomwa]

It's always fun to see the gauge after a track day. You fill up before leaving, and at a full tank it tells me 25 miles LOL

Having run out of fuel a few miles from the track its far better than the opposite.

Get off track. Car says "25 miles remaining". Cool down. pack up. get back in. start up. -- Miles remaining.

"ah well. it said 25 but that was when it was running hard on track. I can limp it home to costco and fill up there"

oh..no. no i can't. not at all.

Turned out to be a good way to make track friends when someone driving by who was also at the track stopped for rescue.

 

[scv]

A thought: fluid volume, in this case gasoline, has some temperature dependence. When car is parked in cooler enironment i.e., garage etc then volume will probably contract; then when driven now in outdoor usually higher ambient temp plus heat from car, fluid will expand. Same will occur when tank, warm from driving, is filled with cooler gas from buried tank at station. The number remaining adjusts either up and down.
I am in Florida temps. My numbers are reflected by these temp conditions, especially when I fill up with cooler gas. Just a thought…………….

 

[Jinba ittai]

A thought: fluid volume, in this case gasoline, has some temperature dependence. When car is parked in cooler enironment i.e., garage etc then volume will probably contract; then when driven now in outdoor usually higher ambient temp plus heat from car, fluid will expand. Same will occur when tank, warm from driving, is filled with cooler gas from buried tank at station. The number remaining adjusts either up and down.
I am in Florida temps. My numbers are reflected by these temp conditions, especially when I fill up with cooler gas. Just a thought…………….

wouldn’t this be the case with all cars though? I’ve never seen fluctuations like the Emira. I think they programmed the range display with a much shorter running average of fuel consumption than most cars.

 

[geoffbland]

Expansion coefficient of gasoline is 0.00095 C-1 (water is 0.000214). Very unlikely to make a difference to the fuel tank measurement.