Fun with Honda Jazz fuel gauge.

Uriel

Uriel

Uriel

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I've got a Honda Jazz 1.2 S as a courtesy car for 3 days while my car's at the Honda dealer.

The car was handed over to me with pretty low fuel. Within a few miles the low fuel light came on, and just wanting to cover the fuel I was using, I put in a fiver.

The low fuel light stayed on.

Before topping up again I worked out what my fuel use was likely to be over 3 days. I will have covered just over 50 miles when I hand the car back (43 so far). I reset the trip computer on leaving the dealer and it says I've averaged 52 mpg. At current petrol prices that's about £6-7 quid's worth of fuel.

I have now topped up with a fiver at 3 separate garages (2 Esso and 1 BP). The car seems to be completely oblivious to the extra fuel and is now showing the needle near zero with a trip computer range of 2 miles.

So what's up do you reckon? I'm kind of interested to see how many times I can slip in a fiver before the car notices (but it could get more expensive than it needs to be if the fuel gauge is actually broken).

Edit: It feels a bit strange putting in such small amounts of fuel. I've not done that since I used to drive a 1979 Mini 1275GT that I shared with my sister in the late 90s.
 
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It happens in lots of modern cars, as £5 is such a small amount of fuel it usually falls within the tolerances of the sensors. If you leave it for a bit it will probably show on the gauge eventually.
 
I wondered about that. Fuel light coming on and first fill up were Monday. Another fill up yesterday and another this morning. So leaving it for a few hours doesn't seem to make a difference.

If the work on my car is done on time I'll be giving it back this evening.
 
I persisted, a fiver at a time. At £30 the needle finally jumped from Zero to over half full with an over 200 mile range.
 
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The vauxhall corsa does that as well, just keep your reciepts as they will have logged the mileage the car went out on so will know how much you did.

It also a pain the other way, often delivered out a corsa and put fuel in it only for the fuel.guage not to.register it when i get to the customer, have to show reciept as proof and assure them it will register it evenually.

Stupid deisgn if you ask me.
 
Yeah my Mrs Jazz is the same. The car says it has 42L for a tank but when the guage says 10 miles to go and you brim it it takes 30L. 12 litres spare. I'm sure it's because it's traditionally an old peoples car so give's them miles of buffer ;)

I keep meaning to run it til it's empty to see just how much further it will go :D
 
I read on another forum that the current Jazz fuel tank is very flat, so the float only has 3a inches travel. I guess it must use a float plus calculation.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Yeah my Mrs Jazz is the same. The car says it has 42L for a tank but when the guage says 10 miles to go and you brim it it takes 30L. 12 litres spare. I'm sure it's because it's traditionally an old peoples car so give's them miles of buffer ;)

I keep meaning to run it til it's empty to see just how much further it will go :D
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I think you'd be surprised how generous the fuel warning is on most cars.

I was talking about this last week with Voxination (whilst we waited for Geekman to drain an entire petrol station brimming his Jaaag) :D

My MX5 apparently has a 50 litre tank. I once had the fuel warning light come on very close to a petrol station so I pulled in very soon after it came on. Brimmed the tank and managed to get just over 38L in, so I reckon the light comes on with about 12 litres spare - probably 12.5, which is exactly a quarter of the total capacity.

At the car's average of 34MPG, that's a shade under a further 90 miles before the tank runs dry.
 
Uriel said:
I've got a Honda Jazz 1.2 S as a courtesy car for 3 days while my car's at the Honda dealer.

The car was handed over to me with pretty low fuel. Within a few miles the low fuel light came on, and just wanting to cover the fuel I was using, I put in a fiver.
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See, this annoys me. Why don't they just brim the tank to the first click and tell people to do the same before they return it, like you have to do at airport car hire places.

I hired a van the other month and had this same problem. They told me "yeah, just put in what you use", which, not wanting to overpay for the fuel, meant i had to fill up twice for my journey as i didn't know how much fuel i would use. It just irritates me that theres such a simply solution to this problem, yet no dealers or rental places seem to get it. I also had this when having a courtesy car from BMW.
 
Uriel said:
I read on another forum that the current Jazz fuel tank is very flat, so the float only has 3a inches travel. I guess it must use a float plus calculation.
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That's apparently true of the Civics too as a way of creating extra cabin space. It makes sense as from full, it takes ~100 miles to move the needle off of full, after that it looks like it's dropping with mavity.

Even when I think I'm running on fumes (0mi range and done some miles) I've never been able to put in 50L of the alleged 55L tank, which is probably a very good idea as paying for a dried out diesel to be fixed doesn't sound very fun.
 
I've never been able to get more than 36 litres in the tank of my Insight Mk2. That was with the needle on the bottom and about 10 miles past zero range on the trip computer. It's supposedly a 40l tank.

The small tank size is probably my main gripe about the car. Having to fill up after only 420 miles kind of takes the shine off getting 60mpg on a run.
 
wingman said:
Why not put the amount you required for 3 days travelling?
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The amount required was £6-7 ish (worked out after putting in the initial £5). I didn't want to return the car with the needle on the bottom and zero range indicated though.

Having ensured I'd put in enough fuel to return the car with what I put in, the rest was morbid curiosity.
 
Uriel said:
I've never been able to get more than 36 litres in the tank of my Insight Mk2. That was with the needle on the bottom and about 10 miles past zero range on the trip computer. It's supposedly a 40l tank.

The small tank size is probably my main gripe about the car. Having to fill up after only 420 miles kind of takes the shine off getting 60mpg on a run.
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Is the tank size limited by the hybrid motor mechanics?

e: what really grinds my gears about 'courtesy' cars is when they give it to you with a pippette's worth of fuel in them. Having had the same experience last week, it properly wound me up that I was plumped into an abject poverty spec Jazz with no A/C on a hot day with no fuel in it either. Seems cheeky to charge me for a horrendous car which I then have to fuel at my own expense when I'm shelling out £400 for servicing every 12k miles.
 
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I've got a 55L fuel tank in the Leon, and its nowhere near as generous as some of the cars listed here.

When the needle is at the bottom and the fuel gauge is showing 5 miles I can usually get about 53 to 54 litres in it.
 
Theophany said:
Is the tank size limited by the hybrid motor mechanics?
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I guess it was a design decision. The actual hybrid motor is pretty small - no bigger than a small turbo or flywheel and the IMA batteries are in the spare wheel well (the options are space-saver or goo - no room for full size alloy). Fuel tank lives under the rear seats.

The car is based on a modified Jazz platform, as is the CRZ. The Jazz gets a 42l tank though.

Edit: Like Theophany, the Jazz was a real poverty spec thing with no aircon. Thankfully it's been a bit cooler this week. Very glad to have my car back now.
 
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Fr0dders said:
I've got a 55L fuel tank in the Leon, and its nowhere near as generous as some of the cars listed here.

When the needle is at the bottom and the fuel gauge is showing 5 miles I can usually get about 53 to 54 litres in it.
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My Focus has a 55L tank too, never fit more than 51L in it even after the miles left showing 0. Light comes on always at 50 miles left.
 
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