On the weekend just gone, I was the designated driver, driving my sister and brother in-law plus a few of there friends to a party in Double Bay. When I jumped in the car the fuel light was on, and the trip meter indicated we had a range of 60kms. As the trip progressed the range dropped to 50, 40, 30kms as one would expect. I was a little worried given I was in an area I'm not at all familiar with, but my sister in-law promised me it'd be fine - to quote "with a range of 60kms your in good shape!"
So after dropping them off at the party I started the return journey and the range decreased to the point where it reported the range was 0 kms! I wonder if this is a bug in the trip meter software - as the engine is still running, meaning there is still some fuel and hense some level of range. I'm not sure of the age of this car, it's not brand new and maybe the manufacture has fixed this in the next version? I know that in my car, which is a year old, once the range gets down to about 40kms the trip display simply reports 'Fill with Fuel' rather than a specific value - I guess that's one way of doing it!
I came back from Sydney and misjudged the distance to the next fuel station... i turned off all the non essentials, found a big rig to draft behind and started praying, with the "I told you to fill up before we left" wife and grumpy kids (still watching the dvd) and started to think about which child I should hitch hike with and which I should leave in the car with the wife! we got to zero on the "kms to go" and continued on driving for 26 kms before finally making it to the fuel station.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the first time I've let the fuel get low before filling it up - but since that Sydney trip, I've not filled up below "50kms to go" since.
If those 26 kms are a bug in my car's fuel system - I'm kinda glad it's there!