Quote:
Originally posted by Jason@Feb 23rd 2004 @ 2:49 PM
Here's one: fuel alert @ 1.5 gallons. 50-75 miles is adequate.
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I guess this is in response to the question "what would you think is a reasonable, cost effective method...."?
I agree - this would be handy - even desireable. Heck, I frankly would like to see less - in this car, you could easily forget about the warning if only a gallon were alarmed. a 20 mile warning is just about perfect - but that is less than 1/2 gallon in this car.
Thing is - HOW to do this? With the float method used currently in most cars, measuring this little fuel is really a problem. It is not a problem in other cars, because you might only have 20 or 30 miles left with 2 gallons!
The only way I know of would be to make the sensor area - the pool of fuel where the float is placed - quite tiny. A vertical float would have to be used - most today are swing-arm type, but vertical displacement shouldn't be a big issue technically.
What I don't know is if shrinking the measurement area presents other problems such as sloshiness (the effect where the guage would change radically with radical movement of the car) or not.
The tech of this car has not been matched with inexpensive tech to measure a much smaller quantity of remaining fuel. That is all I am saying here. Guess one more patent in the car was just too much of a good thing!
but you know - I bet we see it happen inthe next year or two. I am really impressed with those engineers at Toyota. And they do seem to be listening.
Jack