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Maxidot fuel not matching analogue needle


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Hi forum, I looked but I'm not sure this thread has been covered, so...

 

My Fabia Estate MK III 1.2 90 has been pretty accurate for the last year on the maxidot miles to empty matching the analogue fuel needle. But over the last month the both don;t marry up.

 

My typical usage is a full tank does 450 miles and the maxidot used to show this, then go down in 5 mile increments till empty, matching the analogue needle.

 

Now when I fill up form the 55 mile warning to full tank, the maxidot never registers more that 420 miles to empty. However after driving 45 mins at 70mph  on the M1, stop and turn back on it bumps up to 430 ish. the fuel amount jumps about around 420 to 430.

 

basically the digital maxidot fuel display seems to not know how much fuel there is anymore accurately.

 

Anyone else experienced this? Only thing that's different is that the M1 section  I drive used to be 50mph average, now it's open to 70mph, so maybe the car is baffled working out how many miles based on my driving style change?

Edited by Jedispooner
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It is working it out on the Average MPG over a short period of time so has the weather been much since a year ago and up until recently.

 

As long as your brim to brim is getting you good economy is that not enough.

Are you getting less miles from a tank full or can you still get 450 miles before refueling?

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Yes I can still get 450 miles ish,  Last fill up the nozzle didn't click off as soon as it usually does, so after a weeks driving the trip said 420 miles covered and 100 miles to go, so in theory it would have done 520 miles. So I brimmed it today and then the maxi dot said 405 miles to empty. Haha, who knows.

 

my average MPG has gone down from 50mpg to 47mpg, so this is probably the change that the system is reflecting  in the digital fuel level.

 

Any way to reset it all?

 

Ok cheers @AwaoffSki

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When the ambient temp is lower then slightly more fuel can go in at the colder temp, and also Venting the tank is not unknown. and the fuel in might be more.

So check the actual liters used then see what happens as the weather is maybe warmer again for a while.

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The "range" facility on my Yeti behaves in the same way - for the reasons George suggests.

If I fill the tank after a lot of town driving, the range will display around 400 miles.

If I then drive a long distance on A roads and motorways, the range will slowly increase to around 450 miles as the MPG increases.

It's only a guide!

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It seems I drive mine like I stole it. 

Lucky if I get more than 500km from a full tank. Of course that is mostly town driving. 

On a long trip I get about 650km. 

I wonder how you guys manage so much range :blink:

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I have never yet had an in-dash indicator that gave truly accurate verage MPG figures. They arev a guide/toy/bragging rights, no more. Note the amount of fuel you put in, note the miles travelled sinc last fuelling and work out factual numbers. Or, gett the "Fuelly" app and eep those stats on your 'phone, desktop, laptop, tablet. Whatever.  Come ack in a couple of months and report findings.  Thank you. Next.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a rental Seat Ibiza in Spain with the old 1.4 85PS NA engine. Most of the driving was to/from the airport (had various people arriving/leaving at different times) and the range would go up for about the first 60km, from about 600km to 650km (while driving around 50km) then start dropping, because most of that trip was on a 100km/h road with loads of cameras. They base it on your previous MPG figures, and so if things change, the predictions will change. 

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When going on a long journey I quite often amuse myself by seeing how far I can get before the predicted range stops increasing starting with a full tank. If I have had several days of bad traffic on my way to work the previous few days then it can be as much as 80 miles.

Just going backwards and forwards to work I average ~ 300 miles on a full tank, on long journeys I can easily get over 400 miles/tank.

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The accuracy of each vehicle's OBC consumption display will vary, so when tested some will prove to be accurate and others not, but I've found that any inaccuracy tends to be relatively consistent. I believe I have read somewhere that the consumption  display can be adjusted with VCDS if it is too far out.

 

Manufacturers tend to do a bit of psychological gaming with some displays, for instance the water temperature needle is always consistently at 90 degrees despite it varies almost as much as the maxidot oil temperature display. They do it so the driver does not  worry unnecessarily about variations within the normal working range, but if the water temp display does go higher than 90 degrees then you usually have real problems to address.

Similarly manufacturers have admitted to consistently adjusting the analogue fuel display so the 1st half tank display accounts for a larger volume than the 2nd half tank. In the case of my Octavia nominal 50 litre tank it is roughly 5 litres. 

My 1.4tsi will show about 820 km range when first filled, will rise to about 1000 km after a 150 km before the gauge comes off full then finally adjust to a combined 900km as the gauge begins its 'plummet' when past the half way mark.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Filled up yesterday (for the 1st time in 7 weeks). This morning I had to pick my parents up and take them to the airport. When I set off from home indicated range was 330 miles. Got back home 84 miles later and the indicated range remaining is 355 miles :biggrin:

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@bloodycat The range thing varies widely - it seems to predict future performance based on the most recent fuel consumption.  So, if that was a longish and maybe, motorway, trip, your mpg was probably much higher than previous trips. So - it'll do a prediction on that basis.

 

Otherwise, I find the average mpg readout to be very accurate on mine. I just don't rely at all on the Range predictor, or even worse, the Litres to Fill readout. That one is total crazy !

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A quick update on this post. I inflated my tires to 2.5 bar each from 2.2. Mpg has gone up to 55ish and the car now does 450 miles per tank and when refilled it registers 420 miles but slowly heads up to 435 after driving for 25 miles or 20 mins. 

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