I have 2022 RT Limited with 1750 miles. Many people have told me it takes a while for the engine to break in and get better gas milage. My question is about the fuel gauge. On the speedo it will show how many miles you have left with the remaining fuel in your tank. How does the computer establish this number? For example I was on a highway ride and the fuel gauge showed a bit over a quarter of the tank with 77 miles left. When I stopped for gas the tank only took 3.5 gallons. Obviously the numbers don't work out. Any ideas?
I go 200 miles per tank, about 50m per quarter, and the gauge shows essentially empty. But it then takes only 5 to 5.5 gallons to refill, indicating I have a gallon or more left when the gauge shows empty. (The 2015 doesn't have computer MPG feature. But the one in my car isn't really accurate either...)
ff73, the computer does its '
Miles to Empty' (except that's really only '
theoretically' empty, cos it's still purposefully leaving
SOME gas in the tank - see next para below
) calculation based upon a range/period of the numbers taken from the 'instananeous' Miles per Gallon calc displayed on the dash, only, because that is in turn working off results that are responding to the throttle settings & revs you have recently been running (albeit admittedly with some delay & 'averaging' built in
) that mpg calc is notoriously 'mildly' incorrect at any given instant;
rarely truly achievable; & if you're aware of how it works & want to purposely fool it, you can fairly easily make that display show you something that's
really wrong, but looks good - or bad!!
So at best, the
Miles to Empty displayed on the dash is a vaguely educated
Wild Arsed Guess based upon things like your throttle settings, revs, road speed, the volume of gas remaining in the tank (minus the safety allowance) et al in the recent past; and at worst, it's basically just
wrong, because any one of the 'readings &/or calculations' producing those figures mentioned has been distorted by something you've recently done or the forces that the Spyder/engine/gas tank contents etc have been subjected to!!
So it's a fairly rough GUIDE, not ever intended to be taken literally/verbatim ac litteratim! :lecturef_smilie:
Missouri, you need to remember that like most other modern ICEngines, your Spyder's engine is a fairly complex Fuel Injected engine that operates due to components that operate to
EXTREMELY fine tolerances which rely on a certain volume of gas remaining in your tank for both Cooling and Lubrication purposes! So if you run that '
gas remaining in the tank' down too low, so that the gas left can no longer adequately cool &/or lubricate those fairly important things like the gas pump & the injectors,
CONTINUING TO RUN IT WILL START DAMAGING THINGS!! Now admittedly, that damage
might not mean your engine screams to a grinding halt instantaneously, but it
will begin
and continue to gradually lose power & degrade your fuel economy, and while it
may eventually self destruct cataclysmically, is more likely to just slowly run worse & worse over the miles until you can no longer start it or it stops during operation, well short of its expected &/or potential life.... :banghead: So to avoid that happening within the warranty period, the manufacturers of modern vehicles have ensured that their vehicle's fuel gauges, which can already be fairly unreliable as a true indicator of the gas remaining in the tank cos they already hafta cope with really odd shaped tanks,
have been adjusted to display Empty while there's still enough gas left to avoid damaging any of the important & expensive/difficult to replace components that rely on a certain amount of gas remaining in the tank to both cool and lubricate their operation!!
So that's why, when your gas gauge says
Empty, it
really means:
'
Yeah, I know there's some usable gas left, but if you let the gas remaining get anything much lower than this you WILL start damaging things' :shocked:
And collectively, all that means is pretty much what ARtraveler outlined above - the onboard electronics are not there to be relied upon fully - Sure, you can use them as a guide, and they might even be pretty close
some of the time, but you
really don't want to hafta bet your life on them!
