Digital petrol guages

robfosters · 3 Sep 2011 at 23:56

Is it just me or are they one of the most flawed, annoying techs ever to be developed on a car.

I have had 2 in a row now and they are constantly wrong :mad:

One minute they tell me I have 100 miles left, then they say 25 left. They can go from 40 miles left, then straight to the lines. They go up and down every 5 minutes and they don't always register fuel if you only put a small amount in. I know they try to compute miles left with current MPG, but they just seem to get confused most of the time.

I long for the good old needle gauge again. You always know where you stand with them.

chaparral · 3 Sep 2011 at 23:59

robfosters said:
I long for the good old needle gauge again. You always know where you stand with them.

Your car no have an normal needle fuel gauge or some display that shows how much fuel in your tank :eek:

What car do you have ??

Lum · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:03

The needle on the analogue gauge in my Mondeo seems to like to follow the mileage estimates from the digital display rather than showing me the actual fuel level.

I particularly like it when I park up with 40 miles left and then set off in the morning and suddenly I only have 10 miles left.

Bonus annoyance if the second estimate was the correct one, as my morning commute is 16 miles.

So annoying. The only reliable fuel indicator I have is the fuel warning light, it seems. I just carry a 5 litre can of diesel in the boot as it's quicker to run out of diesel and fill from that than it is to detour to the garage on the way into work.

robfosters · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:04

My car is a c4 picasso and it only has a display which is atrociously inaccurate.

There is a digital needle, but it is also terrible. I like the normal mechanical gauges.

SoundsGood · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:08

Lum said:
The needle on the analogue gauge in my Mondeo seems to like to follow the mileage estimates from the digital display rather than showing me the actual fuel level.

I particularly like it when I park up with 40 miles left and then set off in the morning and suddenly I only have 10 miles left.

Bonus annoyance if the second estimate was the correct one, as my morning commute is 16 miles.

So annoying. The only reliable fuel indicator I have is the fuel warning light, it seems. I just carry a 5 litre can of diesel in the boot as it's quicker to run out of diesel and fill from that than it is to detour to the garage on the way into work.

Haha. I parked my Mondeo up the other day with a reading of 2 miles left, started it up in the morning and got 35! However 2 miles down the road I was down to 11 miles.

Raymond Lin · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:16

I just have a 8 bar digital gauge....

It stays on full 8 bar for miles and miles, then it drops quite rapidly! I think when it is showing 50% full it is actually more like 1/3 full.

MagicBoy · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:17

I hired a Van for a mate to move some stuff a few weeks ago. Picked it up with half a tank showing, they said to bring it back with the same in. Winner I think, hoping that it wouldn't budge.

Dropped from half to a quarter after half a mile, completed the run which was about 25 miles round trip. Figured I'd used about a gallon so chucked a tenner in just to be sure it's got enough in. Still reading a quarter. Another £5, no change. Has a word with mate who's covering the costs - he decides that I drive it the few miles back to the depot and see if it sorts itself out. No. Nip to the station across the road. Another £5 - Still a flaming quarter. Another £5. Grrr! :mad:

Another £5. THREE QUARTERS.

Stupid Hateful idiotic things.

That said the analogue gauge in my RS seems to have an electronic overlord. As soon as the trip computer registers the range as 80 miles left it automatically drops to the red line and sets the warning beep off. Said range goes off the consumption for the last 100 miles I think. Drive economically for a bit and the range goes up to say 100 miles, the light goes off and the gauge goes up to the proper reading. :rolleyes:

chaparral · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:17

Lum said:
I particularly like it when I park up with 40 miles left and then set off in the morning and suddenly I only have 10 miles left..

My motorbike gauge can also be a pain

It shows compeletely different fuel level when on side stand compared to main stand

Lum · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:24

That's understandable on a motorbike, hence why many don't have gauges at all.

But this is a fairly huge change when the orientation of the fuel tank hasn't changed at all.

Mr-White · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:25

When I was given an Astra XSI as a loan car the mileage would jump up and down by considerable amounts literally every second, so much so there was no way to tell how much fuel was actually in the car.

MW

Berger · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:25

Never had a problem with the gauge in the Fiat 500, when it goes down low you just fill it back up again.....

Needles don't tend to be mega accurate really, depends on the shape of the tank and how hard you are cornering! The 306 takes ages to lose the top 1/8th then goes down quite quickly to the middle where it sits for ages.

Lum · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:28

Indeed, but at least they're consistent, so you get used to it.

The digital ones make no sense whatsoever.

Berger · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:31

Lum said:
Indeed, but at least they're consistent, so you get used to it.

The digital ones make no sense whatsoever.

Not had that problem so I can't comment but you must have some idea of the range of your car on average 300-400 miles, just fill it after that?

PapaLazaru · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:37

I recently hired a Toyota Yaris in Portugal which had a digital gauge. I found it most annoying as it only has 8 increments from full.

Clarkey · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:49

Old fashioned gauge in my car is complete rubbish too, if you floor it the gauge drops like a stone, you can lose quarter of a tank in just a few seconds. Comes back up but only when it feels like it.

PapaLazaru · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:55

Clarkey said:
Old fashioned gauge in my car is complete rubbish too, if you floor it the gauge drops like a stone, you can lose quarter of a tank in just a few seconds. Comes back up but only when it feels like it.

Your sensor must be very sensitive and be at the front of the tank.

Raymond Lin · 4 Sep 2011 at 00:57

PapaLazaru said:
I recently hired a Toyota Yaris in Portugal which had a digital gauge. I found it most annoying as it only has 8 increments from full.

That's my car! lol

or

in this instance.

I tend to fill it when it gets down to 3 bars. All I know is that when it has 1 bar left, it has about 30mile of fuel left (according people in the Yaris forum).

I do know this. It has a 42L tank, and at £1.34 per litre it cost around £56 to fill it from empty to full.

When I fill it at 4 bars the other week, it cost me £45! That is 20% full (45/56 = 0.80)

Lum · 4 Sep 2011 at 01:07

Berger said:
Not had that problem so I can't comment but you must have some idea of the range of your car on average 300-400 miles, just fill it after that?

It's very variable due to the local terrain.

The problem is more to do with the way my company charges you back for private fuel. They bill you amount spent that month - %age of miles done for business. It means that putting in a full tank (close to £100) near the end of the month screws up your cash flow, so towards the end of the month you try to drag out what is left in the tank, and only put diesel in a tenner at a time.

Unless, of course, your mileage for that month was mostly business mileage, then filling up just before the cut-off benefits you.

Conscript · 4 Sep 2011 at 01:17

I was discussing this with a friend the other day. What I really would like and what I have never seen, is a gauge which shows you how much (in litres) is left in the tank. I don't want range estimates, or other unreliable calculations about the fuel level - I would just like to know how much is left in there and how much the tank can hold. I think that would give me a much clearer and simpler indication of how long until I chug to a stop.

The thing is, surely the ECU must have access to such raw information to work out the ranges, etc, so why cant it just display that raw data to the driver?

Clarkey · 4 Sep 2011 at 01:23

Most cars can if you stick the dash in service/diag mode. It's only really going to be accurate if you are parked on a perfectly level surface though.