I'm new to the forum. I have a '07 FEH which is about a month old. I'm quite pleased with the vehicle. I'm getting about 32 MPG and have about 1500 miles so far. One thing is bothering me though, when I fill up (the fuel guage reads E and the low fuel alarm is on as well) I can only get about 12 gallons in the tank. The owners manual says that it has a 15 gallon tank. Does any one else have this problem? I thought maybe it was a break in sort of thing but I just filled the tank for the 5 time today and only put in 11.6 gallons. I have thought about carrying a gas can and driving till I run out but haven't done it yet.

The information I have read at this forum has been very informative and has helped me to get the most out my FEH. Thanks!

 

What does your Miles To Empty gauge say? At 32mpg it shoud be reading aprox 480 miles at at tank top off.

 

Your vehicle isn't unique but yours seems a little worse than both of mine.

If I drive mine to 50 miles to empty I usually take around 13 gallons or so. At 0 MTE it takes right at 14 gallons.

I have gotten to where I don't even look at the fuel gauge. I either look at the trip odometer or the miles to empty gauge to know when to fill up.

The gauge is only accurate at full and empty. Everything in between is non-linear and seemingly arbitrary.

 

I'll have to check what MTE says at full but it only shows 10 or 20 miles when the guage it indicates empty. I think the low fuel alarm goes off at an MTE of about 60.

I don't really care much about any indication but full or empty. I intend on getting a Scangauge, but I would like for the MTE for the two devices to sort of match.

 

LOL, I even mention that in the FAQ.

On my last tank, I was at 3/4 after having driven about 60 miles, yet I was at 1/8 of a tank, and still had 120 miles to empty on my display.

Also, you get more than one (or at least on the older models) low fuel warning, you should get them at 50, 25, and 0 MTE. You can press set to clear the low fuel warning.

In addition, keep in mind that your FEH is brand new, so until you hit some of the break ins, you're not going to be at a fantastic performance rate, which means a slightly reduced range. While it's common for me now to get around 500 miles on 13 gallons of gas, I wasn't when I first got her; generally I fill up with 5-15 MTE.

 

I believe this is pretty standard practice among most cars. Lots of cars intentionally misreport their "empty" status to avoid people running out of gas. All cars I've driven in the past have fit this behavior (Volvo, Chrysler). On all of them the fuel guage won't report about 2 gallons.

I've confirmed this on my FEH by driving until "miles to empty" hits 0 (and even past that) and then fueling up ~13 gallons to "full".

So it's a good thing for most people to have this "feature".

 

My Jeep Wrangler would run out of gas with the gauge showing 1/8 of a tank.

 

My experience is like Ray's in that it seems predictable at fill-up and empty, and unpredictable in between. Right now I am getting around 41 mpg (computed) and when I fill-up, it's estimating a little over 600 MTE (41 mpg X 15 gal =~ 610 MTE) while at fill-up its 41 mpg x 13.5 gal to fill-up =~550 MTE. Not really sure what values it actually uses, but I am consistent in predicting what the FEH is going to read using the current mpgs and these estimates.

 

My God Chuck, a 41mpg tank in an AWD FEH???? That's just great and proves that the AWD can use the same bag of tricks I use in my FWD to punch out those big numbers.

Anyway, the fuel tank volume has been an issue since day one. I've drain her dry and keep an eye on how much gas I had left after 0 MTE. It's about 1.3 gallons. The size of the tank is said to be 15 gallons, but you can put up to 17 gallons in it.

A fuel tank mounted fuel vapor vent valve and vapor control valve prevent fuel tank overfilling during refueling. They keep liquid fuel from entering the EVAP canister even during rollover ('05 PCM/ED manual page 1-101). My guess is that this is why you can put more fuel in the tank sometimes, and less other times. This is the reason I go by the SG for MPG. It seems to be the best I've found. I've narrow down the Nav Sys to 10 hours of data before it drops old data, but it's still better than basing your mileage on fill up gallons.

GaryG

 

Gary:

Thanks for the nice thought, but my wife now drives the AWD and I now have a FWD.