Digital Fuel Gauge – Does anyone think these are a good idea?

Just test driven a Audi A3 and a Seat Leon. Both have rediculous digital fuel gauges with graduation in 8ths of a tank. About as much use a chocolate tea pot. The difference between an 8th of a tank and empty is fairly fundamental but there is no way of knowing with one of these VAG cars (Other manufacturers are also guilty as well)

Is there any benefit to this type of gauge over a propper dial?

First world problem of the day award goes to…

Is there any benefit to this type of gauge over a propper dial?

They look like something from Knight Rider!

Other than that – no.

Isn’t there a trip computer that gives you “Miles To Empty” anyway?
(and probably a warning when you have 50 miles left)

Do they not also have the “miles to go” thing? TBH I tend to look at that rather than a fuel gauge these days.

Is there any benefit to this type of gauge over a propper dial?

Cheaper, easier to integrate into a dashboard, can be made to look like all the rest of the display.

Most cars chime now when you get to within 50 miles of an empty tank anyway so the dial doesn’t need to be that accurate.

I had an old 205 that would do 250 miles on the top 1/4 of the gauge and about 50 miles on the next 3/4

it’s up there with Ebola….

Miles to go is much more useful than a gauge.

The difference between an 8th of a tank and empty is fairly fundamental but there is no way of knowing with one of these VAG cars

I’d bet a pound to a shiny penny that there is a little dashboard light that will appear with an accompanying ‘DING’ to tell you when a certain volume / range is reached.

There is nothing wrong with a digital fuel gauge.

It’s all about living on the edge, will I get there? Will I not? ooooh – imagine the excitement. Go on. Imagine it.

Cheaper for the manufacturer I would imagine. But not great. I don’t like them.

GrahamS – Member

Isn’t there a trip computer that gives you “Miles To Empty” anyway?

These are generally rubbish though. The in my Wife’s Ibiza will say 50 miles or so and then 20 miles later it’s down to 5 miles, even if your driving style hasn’t really altered over the course of the tank.

My Ibiza seems to be a bit better than hers in terms of estimating range left, but still not brilliant.

jam bo – Member

I had an old 205 that would do 250 miles on the top 1/4 of the gauge and about 50 miles on the next 3/4

My “miles to go” counter gets 50 miles out of the first 50, then can go for about 25 on the last 0. Don’t ask me how I knows.

i also had a golf where the fuel gauge didnt work for about 100,000 miles. never ran out…

I had an astra with a perfectly functioning fuel gauge and a trip computer and did! On the M6.

My Triumph Herald had a reserve fuel tank.

There was a little lever on the tank you could move to put the pickup in the bottom of the tank and get another 30 or 40 miles out of it.

Imagine my smugness when I ran out of fuel one day and leaped out to move the pick up to ‘reserve’ 🙂

Imagine me finding it was already set to ‘reserve’ and I thus had a 5 mile walk to the nearest petrol station and back again 🙁

I hired a van with an analogue fuel gauge. It ran out of fuel when it still said we had 1/4 of a tank left. I missed a race because of that.

Cool story, eh?

wwaswas – Member

Imagine my smugness when I ran out of fuel one day and leaped out to move the pick up to ‘reserve’

My first motorbike had a reserve (actually just 1 tank but 2 different fuel takeups), and both the motorbikes I learned to ride on. Seemed obvious to me that all motorbikes would have it. Guess how I found out they don’t. Not that good for walking 5 miles in, your standard motorbike boot.

The Sprinters at work have had them for about 5 or 6 years now, I’ve probably travelled best part of 200,000 miles in that time in them, never been a problem.

We’ve had a few cars with digital gauges (inc a Yaris from 2004). I am more used to seeing a normal dial but its all much of a muchness. To be honest I look at “range” more than the gauge on my cars anyway.

Why would you want to suck all the crap out of the bottom of the tank by constantly running as low on fuel as your dial allowed?

I can’t recall the last car I drove that had anything other than a digital gauge 😐

I had an old 205 that would do 250 miles on the top 1/4 of the gauge and about 50 miles on the next 3/4

My 206 does the reverse. That’s the French for you, like to keep you on your toes. Literally occasionally.

Why would you want to suck all the crap out of the bottom of the tank by constantly running as low on fuel as your dial allowed?

That’s a bit of a myth. All fuel tanks pickup from the very bottom of the tank all the time. Makes no difference if you run to empty or not.

Our elderly ForFour has a digital gauge – didn’t even think analogue gauges were still a thing.

When it gets very empty, the odometer changes over to counting down in 10ths of a litre.

My miles to go is very accurate it told me there was 0 miles until the petrol station but I was clearly atleast half a mile away.

There is nothing wrong with a digital fuel gauge.

nor an analogue one, as I believe they are both driven on the same principle – a float inside the tank moves the contact on a rheostat up/down, thus varying the current coming back from the fuel tank sender. This is how the gauge – whether analogue or digital – operates

I watch Wheeler Dealers, me, I know everything that Edd China knows 😉

I’ve had a habit of setting the trip counter every time i fuel up, after driving trucks where if I couldn’t get to a fuel bunker we had an account with I’d need to buy fuel with my own money and filling the tank cost more than I earned in week so knowing the miles I have left in the tank was important in deciding when and where to get fuel.

Its come in handy in the past when fuel gauges have failed as knowing the range on a tank means I can use the trip counter as the fuel gauge, and as above the gauges give pretty spurious readings anyway – the bottom 1/8th of the dial on my van means I’m on actually on less than 1/20th of a tank.

Never understood the determination of drivers to have the minimum amount of fuel in their car as possible before filling to the brim. Given how numerous petrol stations are wouldnt you just stick some more in when you saw a good price, its not like you get a better deal buying in bulk (lets exclude supermarket offers, as most people dont use these anyway).

Surely its better (for you) to fill up at a price thats good or a time thats convenient, rather than when your car runs out? and likely making a special trip/diversion to ‘the cheap’ petrol station.

I’d bet a pound to a shiny penny that there is a little dashboard light that will appear with an accompanying ‘DING’ to tell you when a certain volume / range is reached.

Yep, you get a warning when there is 40 miles range left.

I do get the ping and the yellow light on my current car, yes.

I once ran it to about 15 miles left on the range, then the range just disappeared from the readout. most disconcerting. I made it to a petrol station, but in £5 worth – not much, true – and it didn’t even register. so I added another £5 worth at the next petrol station. still didn’t register, but £10 should (at the time) give about 80 extra miles. If I’d added the £10 worth in one go, it probably would’ve registered another 100 miles.

now I fill up as soon as possible after it pings, unless home is nearer. there’s a petrol station about 1 mile from my house in case of emergency

a little more scary was when the hire car ‘pinged’ on the way from our holiday rental deep in the foothills of the Pyrenees to Barcelona airport, 5am and an 8am flight to catch. Did make it to a station in Vic where I put in about a tenners worth), and did get to the airport in time. I’ll never do that again.

Our Kia soul goes from 30 miles to go to 0 miles to go in one move.
That was a nervous 15 mile drive.

My Octavia has a regular analogue gauge which I use as a rough guide, and which has 0, ½, and 1/1 shown, with markers for ?, ¼, ?, ?, ¾, and ?. If I want to keep an eye on fuel levels more accurately then I use the switchable digital display that gives a range of options.
I get a ‘bing’ when I get down to 50 miles, and an orange light as well. I’ve often got down to ‘0’ miles available, but only when I only need to drive along to the pumps about 400 yds away.
Only once miss-judged my fuel level, which meant driving back from Bristol late at night, without a single filling station open and twenty miles showing on the digital display. Got home after dropping my mate off who lives four miles away, with zero showing all the way from his house.
Not doing that again!

STATO – Member
Never understood the determination of drivers to have the minimum amount of fuel in their car as possible before filling to the brim. Given how numerous petrol stations are wouldnt you just stick some more in when you saw a good price, its not like you get a better deal buying in bulk (lets exclude supermarket offers, as most people dont use these anyway).
Surely its better (for you) to fill up at a price thats good or a time thats convenient, rather than when your car runs out? and likely making a special trip/diversion to ‘the cheap’ petrol station.
POSTED 5 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Why would you fill up more often than you need to? Week to week there is little difference in cost and queing to save a couple of pence is hardly worth it.

It takes the same amount of time to drive into the petrol station, wait in a queue for the pump, get out of the car, open the filler, put the pump in the filler, wait for it to be authorised, walk to the kiosk, wait in a queue to pay, wait for the transaction to process, type in my PIN, get a receipt, walk back to the car, drive out of the petrol station – no matter how much fuel I put in. Presumably you reckon I’d be better off doing all that every 50 miles when I pass somewhere with a good price rather than waiting 600 miles?

Oh and I do use supermarket offers and almost always fill up somewhere I’m driving past anyway.

My motorbike has an odd gauge – it can only read up to the half full point and then it just has an icon for “more than half full”.

Even stranger, when running low, once the warning light comes on, it starts to count miles travelled UP from that point. Never been brave enough to see how far up it will count…

BMW F800 GSA

Rachel

Never understood the determination of drivers to have the minimum amount of fuel in their car as possible before filling to the brim. Given how numerous petrol stations are wouldnt you just stick some more in when you saw a good price, its not like you get a better deal buying in bulk (lets exclude supermarket offers, as most people dont use these anyway).

Surely its better (for you) to fill up at a price thats good or a time thats convenient, rather than when your car runs out? and likely making a special trip/diversion to ‘the cheap’ petrol station.

‘Path of least resistance’ I guess. I tend to forget I have a car until something needs doing that requires using it. I also don’t really enjoy visiting the petrol station, so would rather only do it when I have to (when the light comes on).

Who uses a gauge ? It’s all about mileage!

A4- c.40 miles after zero, Five series-zero means zero.

Always use the trip counter to gauge fuel usage, I know I have a range of at least 590 miles on average and only once came close to running out, ended up not filling at Gretna and drove the interesting way home passing several ghost stations that my satnav was convinced existed but clearly hadn’t for years. Ended up bump starting it on one closed station forecourt since it would save on juice if I didn’t have to recharge the battery.

Eventually got rescued in Dalmellington (bandit country) at dusk by my dad as we chickened out of trying to get to Ayr and possibly losing mobile coverage. That was fun.

My 90s Clio had a fifth quarter on the gauge, after zero, I don’t think it was meant to though. Used to get an easy 70-80 miles after the light came on, on fact come to think of it the gauge was rarely above zero or the light off. I once filled up after pushing my luck to the extreme and the (I think) 40 litre tank took 42 litres out of the pump.