I was on my way to work with 60miles DTE. I got on it a little bit. After about 5 miles my gauge read 0 and was flashing, then it went to 4. So I pulled over to get some gas. I only put in 14.5 gallons. Why would my gas light come on with roughly 100miles left (20 gallon tank)? I know there they want to prevent you from running out but I want to atleast go for another 40 or 50 miles with out filling up.

Any thoughts?

 

It may be that the tank is 15 gallons with a 5 gallon reserve and the sensor only reads to the top of the 5 gallon reserve. Anyone know the answer? The shop manual may tell...

 

I find the DTE and the low fuel light totally useless. The DTE apparently computes your recent driving habbits and forecasts remaining miles using those driving habbits as a guideline. I have left from my house with 57 DTE to drive to work. I drove 27 miles to work at 65 MPG and arrived at work with 55 DTE. Later that day, I went to lunch driving surface streets and read 23 DTE. Drove home that day and read 40 DTE when I got home.

I filled up the tank later that day because the low fuel light was flashing and it only took 14.5 gals. I had another 100 miles left of fuel. I just don'teven look at the DTE function anymore. When the low fuel lights up, I know I have about 80 miles more.

You might say what the big deal, fill it up anyway. I like driving the car with less than 10gals of gas, the car is more fun to drive without the added weight of 20 gals of fuel.

Zmoney, I share your experience.

 

I'd say that there is some safety margin built into the readings. But also, with 60 miles DTE and sucking down the gas when you got on it, the updated calculation over the next 30-second period indicated that, given current conditions, you could be very close to the lower limit. If you had driven steadily for another 30-60 seconds, I bet the DTE would have come back up to 55 or so.

 

shop manual says...
when fuel is less than 10 5/8 quarts the DTE will start blinking
when fuel is less than 8.5 quarts the DTE will display "----"

4quarts to a gallon remember.

the fuel gauge can be recalibrated, but Im not gonna give that info out for someone to screw up their car cause its kinda complicated, but bring it to the dealer if your concerned. it gets DTE from fuel gauge, MPG gauge, as well as VDC, and ABS, tho Im not sure what those inputs have to do with DTE.

 

I have a Canadian car, so of course I am in litres and kilometres.

I actually find the DTE quite nice to have. It starts flashing / light on when I get to about 75 km left to go. I have filled up the tank with a claimed 30-40 km to go, and have only managed to fit 65-67 litres in, the tank being 75 litres. So I assume there is a decent amount of room left after it hits 0. Usually I find it fairly consistent, and I am confident in driving even when my analog gauge is down to empty. It's a nice change from my Civic, in which I actually ran out of gas with the gauge reading about 1/8th of a tank left.

 

The fuel and MPG gauges alone would not give any instantaneous, or immediate, indication of fuel usage rate in order to update the DTE reading. Maybe the computer uses acceleration/deceleration outputs that are probably generated in the VDC and ABS systems in order to get some indication of current fuel rate. (It takes more fuel to accelerate faster, less fuel while decelerating.) It must then use an empirical equation or algorithm to determine how much to subtract from (or add to) the previous DTE reading.

Then again, maybe it just has a random number generator.

WayneTN