Northern Auto Tech - ECU and Blue & Me Repairs

Technical fuel gauge/range problems

Currently reading:
Technical fuel gauge/range problems

5

500otto

New member
Joined
May 10, 2010
Messages
2
Points
1
Hi. I have recently purchased a fiat 500 pop 1.2. I have now done 700 miles, but was wondering if anyone else was having any problems with the fuel gauge/range indicator.

When the fuel gets low, and the indicator light comes on, the range seems to stay on 39 miles and does not adjust. For example, the other day, this happened, and we managed to do 30 miles without the range changing from 39!! The fuel light remained on. We have been advised by the dealers that when the fuel is very low, it should bring the range down to -----.

Has anyone got any ideas whether this is ok. This is the second time this has happened. I am now waiting to see if this will happen again when I next have low fuel.

Any help or suggestions appreciated. Many thanks.
 
In my experience the range decreases in a fairly linear way until it reaches about 70 miles and then drops rapidly down to the point where it starts reading "----" (I think this is 30). I've always filled up fairly soon after this and have never put in more than about 30 litres.

Sounds like yours is behaving quite differently to mine.

How many miles are you doing on a full tank?
 
500otto said:
Hi. I have recently purchased a fiat 500 pop 1.2. I have now done 700 miles, but was wondering if anyone else was having any problems with the fuel gauge/range indicator.

When the fuel gets low, and the indicator light comes on, the range seems to stay on 39 miles and does not adjust. For example, the other day, this happened, and we managed to do 30 miles without the range changing from 39!! The fuel light remained on. We have been advised by the dealers that when the fuel is very low, it should bring the range down to -----.

Has anyone got any ideas whether this is ok. This is the second time this has happened. I am now waiting to see if this will happen again when I next have low fuel.

Any help or suggestions appreciated. Many thanks.
Click to expand...
It won't necessarily change every 2 miles or anything. I suspect the way your car is behaving is very much normal. The way it calculates the range is calculated on fuel level and the way you're driving. So for instance if you were on a gradient when it was reading 39 and the level was actually above what the car needed to do 39 then the range probably wouldn't go up. Nothing wrong I reckon.
 
ukmike2010 said:
Confucious say: Man who relies on fuel indicator light must have good walking shoes.
Click to expand...
Not really. As long as you know how much fuel you've put in, how far it'll go on that fuel and how much you've got left you're fine. I regularly run my car down till it's pretty much dry and I've never run out of fuel. With a light foot, narrow tyres and some luck I reckon you could get 500 miles from a 1.2 so I suspect if the OP has filled up twice and done 700 miles in the car then they were probably far from running out of fuel.
 
Having been caught out when the tanker drivers went on strike and there was no petrol to be had, I rarely let a car go beyond 1/3 empty.

But each to their own!
 
The light comes on, i keep driving, another notch disappears, then another, then it beeps "LOW FUEL" then the final tiny notch and even then when i brim the tank, the most i get in is 38 litres, Maxi says he can get 42 litres in, so i would say, if you're willing to risk it, there isn't much risk of running out anyway.

I never go by the range either, when i fill up, it says 400 odd miles to go, the Abarth will do around 200 on a tank so i don't think Fiat re calibrated the range indicator for the A500, it's still set up for the other Fiat models!
 
As Maxi said, the range indicator works on how much fuel (it thinks) you have in your tank and how you're driving (I guess it takes some sort of rolling average of instant MPG, but that's conjecture).

It's also (apparently, although from what I've seen I agree) pretty conservative, for obvious reasons.
 
Thanks to everyone who has replied.

I do not make a habit of letting my car go really low on fuel, but i just could'nt understand why on both these occasions the fuel gauge seemed to stick on 39 miles??? The second time this happened was purely so we could see if it did the same thing.....

We started a 40 mile round trip with the gauge reading 39 miles, and after the trip was completed, it was still reading 39 miles. The light came on just at the end of the journey, thus causing some confusion, as the gauge was showing approx 1/4 tank at start, and 1/4 tank at the end of the journey - how??

My husband says that i am worrying about nothing, and that he was more concerned that the fuel gauge was reading 1/4 tank when the fuel light came on.
 
500otto said:
Thanks to everyone who has replied.

I do not make a habit of letting my car go really low on fuel, but i just could'nt understand why on both these occasions the fuel gauge seemed to stick on 39 miles??? The second time this happened was purely so we could see if it did the same thing.....

We started a 40 mile round trip with the gauge reading 39 miles, and after the trip was completed, it was still reading 39 miles. The light came on just at the end of the journey, thus causing some confusion, as the gauge was showing approx 1/4 tank at start, and 1/4 tank at the end of the journey - how??

My husband says that i am worrying about nothing, and that he was more concerned that the fuel gauge was reading 1/4 tank when the fuel light came on.
Click to expand...

I often do a 40+ mile run where car reckons it can go further after then before (without adding any fuel before any cheeky so & so pipes up).

If you are an economic driver then you will see the same thing.


Trev
 
when light comes on put fuel in it....all your doing after this is sucking up crap at bottom of tank. I have a good look inside at least 5 fuel tanks in last few weeks and I dont want any of that crap gunging up my injectors or diesel high pressure fuel pump.
 
I regularly let my car get down to the Low fuel Warning - and then sometimes drive up to 20 miles after this point - mainly because I hate refueling - such as waste of time ... but I fill it to the "top" (my top, not maxi's top) and repeat exericise approx 300 miles later
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
General Fuel tank
Replies
8
Views
332
Spike1963
S
B
Technical Fuel cut off
Replies
5
Views
342
John202020
John202020
serhioje
Technical fuel pressure
Replies
7
Views
471
serhioje
serhioje
D
Technical Fuel gauge
Replies
2
Views
872
vexorg
vexorg
Mikefraser93
Technical Fiat 500 voltage problems
Replies
15
Views
516
Mikefraser93
Mikefraser93
Back
Top