interesting little event.......

my low fuel light came on.
i drove probably another 20 miles...
then i purchased $5.00 worth of gas.... 1.3 gallons.

(i only bought 1.3 gallons because the price of fuel should drop within days, based on the open market price plunge last week.)

when i restarted the car, the fuel needle didnt budge. the low fuel light remains on.

i'm wondering if that makes sense... or if possibly little if any fuel was added to the tank.

the low fuel light is supposed to come on with 1.6 gallons left. i drove about 20 miles with it on.... while averaging probably about 34 mpg.
so i certainly should have had enough fuel in the tank after adding the 1.3 gallons to turn off the low fuel light. but not only did the light remain on, the needle didnt budge.

any thoughts?

 

lol do you really expect 1 gallon to make a noticeable difference? my thoughts are dont be a cheap skate, your going to use that full tank at some point anyway so just fill er up

 

1.3 gallons should be enough to turn off the low fuel light and... yeah... crazy me, 1.3 gallons should budge the needle. it's only a 10.6 gallon tank... and with the fuel i added, there should be over 2 gallons in the tank, and the low fuel light should not be on.

this thread isnt meant be a landmark moment in fitfreak history... just a point of curiosity.

the price of gas will fall about 40 cents within the next week.
why should i pay an extra $3.80 per tank when i dont have to?

 

.........

 

Here is a theory that makes logical sense:

The threshold at which the light turns on is not the same to turn off.
Otherwise when you're right on the margin, the light would just go crazy alternating between off and on. This is pretty common in design of many systems in general, not just automotive

So maybe the light turns on when you hit 2gallons, but only turns off after you get above 4gallons (made up numbers just for illustration)

 

Gas never comes down as fast as it goes up. so while it may make it back to 3.30 It won't be there until late June. It's just how it works.

 

Bingo!

Exactly the same thing I was thinking. Imagine driving on a bumpy road where the gas sloshes around in the tank a little. every bump would make the light go off/on/off/on.

As for the needle... I've never had a car with an accurate needle. My fit can go 250 miles on the 1st half of a tank (as far as the needle says) but only 150 on the 2nd half. Maybe yours is the opposite so 1.3gal wouldn't make a noticeable difference. It's only about 1/10 of the whole tank. I've also had the needle on my fit stick once when I left the key in the ignition on position II (not turned on, just to Pos II) When I turned to start the car, the needle stayed at less than 1/2 of a tank even though I had just filled it. Turning the car all the way off and back on fixed it. The needle jumped to Full at that point. (Did you have your key in POS II while filling?)

~SB

 

very good thought.

yeah, the light never fades in, or blinks.... it's either on or off.
my old car the light would fade in and out near the threshold.

 

as a matter of fact, i think i did.


update: i restarted the engine... nothing's changed. light on. needle didnt budge.

i think the light being on has been well explained.

i still would have expected the needle to budge up a bit... but i guess i'd be wrong.

 

I think you're onto something here spin out. This afternoon my tank was down at about 1/3. I was out on Long Island where gas is very expensive and so I only added $6, which would give me a margin of error for my trip out to NJ this weekend, where gas is perhaps the cheapest in the country. That's about 1.5 gallons. The needle didn't budge from the 1/3 position. A 1.5 gallon addition, especially in the bottom half of the tank where the gauge is the most sensitive, should, I think, have nudged things up at least a bit.

No big deal, but I don't think that spin out is imagining things--there's something odd here.

 

What makes you think that?

As for the needle not moving... maybe this is why... HowStuffWorks "How Fuel Gauges Work"

maybe the ECU just hasn't gotten enough readings.

OR...

Looking at the other pages... the shape of the gas tank in a Fit might be a bit wider at the bottom and more "funky" at the top (to fit under the seats)... so much that 1.3 gallons won't move the float in the sender unit enough to trigger the gauge to move... that is, assuming the fuel tank design is similar to the one on that site.

 

ten (10) char

 

hum??? what did I do?

I had a wasp living in my Fit for a day or two. The other day, the moment I opened my house door, a wasp flew in the house. After I dealt with that stinger (not good for it), I went to my car... only to find ANOTHER one on the inside (left window cracked open overnight). WTF?!? I swiped at it with a towel... only for it to disappear into the gap in the hatch frame at the corner of the rear glass (I think I pushed it in with the towel). Yesterday... guess who I found buzzing around. This time I tried to use a piece of cardboard to swipe at it... except the cardboard had an opening in it (the card board that was packed for the Ultragauge)... the wasp survived and finally flew away... unlike it's buddy from the day before.

 

It's a compliment. He gave you reps and then tried to give you more reps and the forum said, basically, spread it around before giving the same member reps repeatedly.

 

Fuel gauges aren't very accurate, they're only approximations. Even aircraft fuel gauges, where running out of fuel is rather more dangerous. They're required only to show E when the tank is empty, they're not required to be accurate, just to exist... which is why pilots pre-flighting their planes actually look in the tanks (bigger and more modern planes have electronic equipment to measure fuel accurately but a 20 year old Cessna or Piper? Nope).

The simple solution? When the gauge is near E or the low fuel light comes on, buy gas. Not that complicated...

 

Right. It cost just as much to keep an empty tank as it does a full one. IMHO it cost more to keep an empty tank, it puts extra strain on the fuel pump as it runs hotter and could fail sooner. I rarely go below 1/2 tank. As far as speculating on future fuel prices going up or down as a reason to only buy 1.3 gallon .

 

I can understand about timing- trying to wait to buy gas if prices are expected to go down. My goal is to minimize the number of fuel stops, just because it's an annoying five minutes even though there are gas stations pretty much on my way to anywhere.

I'd rather save the time so I can waste it posting here...

 

the price of gas is largely determined at the purchase point on the open market.

last week, that price dropped from $114 a barrel to $98 in one day.... and that's considered extreme. the price continues to hover around $99.
that potentially equates to a 40 to 50 cent drop per gallon in prices at the pump.
so i'm expecting an unusually sharp drop in the price at the pump soon.

when the price on the open market jumps, it's reflected at the pumps very quickly...... typically within a week (at least where i am).

when the price on the open market drops, it's usually reflected at the pumps 10 to 14 days later.

so they artificially keep the price up to make a quick, brief, large profit.

why should i play along and get ripped off?
at $4 a gallon i'm in no mood to be gouged..

i have never bought 1.3 gallons of gas in my life...... until yesterday.
i'm f-ing pissed at being ripped off, and this is pretty much the only way to fight it.

CRUDE OIL PRICE: Oil | Energy | Petroleum | Oil Price | Crude Oil Charts | Oil Price Forecast

 

I've noticed this as well and thought I was going crazy... glad to see i'm not certifiable yet.

 

The price doesn't come back down because the stations have to buy the gas as their supply dwindles. So when you buy 1.3 gallons for your ~35mpg Honda who's really getting ripped off? The Franchisee/Owner of the gas station.


If the fuel cost is high enough that they have to set their price at ~$4.40 just to stay afloat, they cannot just cut the price 40-50 cents/gallon or they are losing money.

When gas does go back down we need to impose a heavy tax of ~20 cents or so on each gallon of gasoline. These retards I keep seeing commuting by themselves in pristine pickups and SUVs with heavy ass oversize chrome rims for 20+ miles while I am on the way to see a client or head to the office still haven't gotten the message that they are part of the problem.

There should also be a year on year stupidity tax for owning a 2.5 ton vehicle to scoot one person around in. They increase wear on the road and they run up demand (and price) at the pump. Not too mention the physical space they take up on the road.

I own an SUV, I own a gas guzzling car (well it will do ~28mpg combined, but with a heavy foot I have returned ~4.x mpg a few times) and I own a Fit.

Guess which one sees 90% of the driving?