UpTo11

Alright, so I get off work and get in the stang, turn it on and the little green lettering says "Fuel Level Low; 30 miles to E" and I'm like, alright, cool. I can make that last a couple more days. So I peel out of the parking lot and the lettering goes from "30 Miles" to "0 Miles" and the little fuel needle DROPS. So I park again, turn it off and back on, it still says 0 miles. It didn't say that when I parked earlier that morning, in fact I refueled it a week and a half ago and it doesn't usually drop this fast. So I inch over to the next gas station and fill it up. What do you think happened?

JCON

were you parked on a hill? there may have been enough gas that on a slope it registered a little more than a gallon and then burning out ate some up then you leveled the car and it read as being completely empty.

Nuke

I think you let your fuel get uneccessarily low. Why put yourself in that position? By letting your tank get that low you allow a host of negative things to occur including sucking more crap off the bottom of the tank and allowing that much more air space for condensation to form.

When was the last time you hit "RESET" before this happened? If the on-board had been recently reset, your "peel out" (that in itself speaks volumes) probably registered that immediate fuel use and recalculated your average MPG as some ungodly low value which would cuase your remaining miles to empty to go to crap.

rdsx18

I never understood letting it go that low either, my dad does that and has ran out of gas before, and this was on his old F250 with 2 tanks!

Just FYI (probably shouldn't tell you this lol) but once it hit 0 miles to empty, you have a gallon or so of gas left, or so I've heard. Also, as others said parking on a hill will make your gas gauge read higher.

Norm Peterson

I thought the message center started warning you about low fuel at 50 miles to E, and at every drop of 5 miles from there if you keep resetting it to turn off the warning.

You've mentioned unexpectedly high fuel usage - have you driven more/differently/different places?

I suppose that a leak is possible, so check for dampness and odor.


FWIW, the message center is only good for rough guideline use, so don't be counting on it for anything closer than that. My "Fuel used" is typically off by 8-10% (with the message center usage lower than actual) and my MPG display drops a tenth or two just accelerating a couple of gears worth leaving a toll booth even after several hundred miles have passed since resetting everything. DTE is some function of those, including the errors in their measurement and in how well they actually reflect your then-current average driving.


Withholding comment with respect to peeling out with a cold engine . . .


Norm

fordmuscle

How accurate is this message center?? I never go by what the computer tells me.

Nuke

Based on all the forum information, the on-board is TYPICALLY about 1-2 MPG conservative (high). There are a few that are very accurate; my g/f's '06 V6 Pony is usually within 0.3 MPG from the hand-calculated value at every fill-up. My '07 GT is ~1.5 MPG high on average. The on-board is good for relative information.

Being an engineer, I'm **** about data. I keep a pocket planner in each car and hand calculate at every fill-up, then at the end of the month I average each data point. With my notes regarding what maintenace has been performed, driving conditions, fuel type (ethanol laden vs. "pure"), etc, I get a pretty good idea of what's skewing my numbers.

Burrosito

Hey, I noticed something similar. If the car has been parked for a while (i.e. shut off) then I hop in and immediately peel out or give it all it's got (pedal to the floor, like a very quick take off), my fuel gauge drops down about 1/4 or more than what it originally was. It takes about five or so minutes of regular driving for the guage to go back to where it was.

Maybe its just a sensor thing? I never pay any attention anymore when I do something like that. But then again, I probably shouldn't be doing such things on a cold engine.

Cal26Stang

The gauge sometimes mis-reads fuel levels at startup, driving normally for a few minutes or letting the engine heat up will give you a better read. Peeling out or driving aggres. at start-up will almost always give you incorrect info in a 2005-06 model

UpTo11

I was not parked on a hill, as these are virtually unknown in texas, haha. I suppose a cold engine and an incorrect reading was totally possible. I later noticed it filled up faster than it usually did, so I'm guessing it was an incorrect reading. Scared the buhjeezus outta me though.

Also, getting her back from the shop tomorrow! Some stupid kid rear ended me while driving, repairs currently taking place, gonna be done tomorrow. I'm excited. Hope the dude was competent enough to do it right. Been hell without her.