hey_mikey
Well-Known Member
Not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but I've had several customers come in and tell me that the fuel gauge never went up even tho they put a little gas in. Well, I always just chalked it up to them not pumping gas right, until today when I found myself with less than the minimum amount needed to ship my car.
Matson, the shipping company, requires vehicles be dropped off with no more than 1/4 tank and no less than 1/8 tank of gas. I was just under 1/8, and they wouldn't accept the vehicle, so I run to the gas station and put $5 in, which comes out to just over a gallon and should have added two bars to my fuel gauge. long story short, the first $5 does nothing. the 2nd $5 also shows nothing. even after shutting the car off and restarting a few times and driving around the block, the fuel gauge still refuses to budge. at this point, i know I've put in more than two gallons, which should have put the gauge at over a 1/4 tank, but it still showed no change. Finally, I put another $5 in, and low and behold, the fuel gauge shows 1/2 tank.
we're flying out tonight, so i absolutely had to get the cars dropped off today, so I start driving to burn off some gas. One-and-a-half hours later, I finally drive enough miles (which is kinna hard when you're stuck on an island) to get my gas tank in the proper range. so my wife and i drive back to the dock, and apparently, we missed the morning drop off window by 5 minutes, and the union dock workers were now on their 90 minute lunch break. so we had to kill another hour-and-a-half, which we really couldn't spare with all the other crap we had to do before leaving tonight. so we drive back up the mountain to our home and start finalizing everything for our trip, and by the time we drive back down, I gotta put gas again. of course, $5 doesn't show up. i had enough showing still that they accepted the vehicle, but this stupid gas gauge has caused us a shitload of grief this morning.
apparently, it seems like the car doesn't read the actual tank level unless someone puts in more than half a tank. My theory is that after the car burns that half tank, it guesses the remainder based on the trip computer's readings. that could be why the gas light comes on so inconsistently. sometimes, it'll come on when still have about 3 gallons in reserve (10.0 gal to fill up), and other times it'll come on when I have less than 2 gal in reserve (11.0+ gal to fill up). To test it, i checked to see if the extra $5 would show up somewhere else like maybe the range not dropping as quickly, or dropping much less slowly, but it never did. the range kept ticking lower and lower, even tho I knew there was gas in the tank, the car never recognized it until enough was pumped in to show over half a tank.
sorry for the long rant, but i guess my question is, what gives? is it that hard to make an accurate fuel gauge? I read of similar problems on the other 9th gen forum, but I always thought they were isolated incidents. after this, i'm wondering if all the civics are like that? maybe i'm just one of the unlucky ones. i never thought i could catch so much grief from a stupid fuel gauge, but if honda can't even get such a simple thing as that right, it makes me wonder where else they took shortcuts. I've always had good experiences with past hondas, but between this, the transmission whine, and some other issues i've had, all on a car that's less than 3 months old, i wonder if my money could have been better spent elsewhere.
Matson, the shipping company, requires vehicles be dropped off with no more than 1/4 tank and no less than 1/8 tank of gas. I was just under 1/8, and they wouldn't accept the vehicle, so I run to the gas station and put $5 in, which comes out to just over a gallon and should have added two bars to my fuel gauge. long story short, the first $5 does nothing. the 2nd $5 also shows nothing. even after shutting the car off and restarting a few times and driving around the block, the fuel gauge still refuses to budge. at this point, i know I've put in more than two gallons, which should have put the gauge at over a 1/4 tank, but it still showed no change. Finally, I put another $5 in, and low and behold, the fuel gauge shows 1/2 tank.
we're flying out tonight, so i absolutely had to get the cars dropped off today, so I start driving to burn off some gas. One-and-a-half hours later, I finally drive enough miles (which is kinna hard when you're stuck on an island) to get my gas tank in the proper range. so my wife and i drive back to the dock, and apparently, we missed the morning drop off window by 5 minutes, and the union dock workers were now on their 90 minute lunch break. so we had to kill another hour-and-a-half, which we really couldn't spare with all the other crap we had to do before leaving tonight. so we drive back up the mountain to our home and start finalizing everything for our trip, and by the time we drive back down, I gotta put gas again. of course, $5 doesn't show up. i had enough showing still that they accepted the vehicle, but this stupid gas gauge has caused us a shitload of grief this morning.
apparently, it seems like the car doesn't read the actual tank level unless someone puts in more than half a tank. My theory is that after the car burns that half tank, it guesses the remainder based on the trip computer's readings. that could be why the gas light comes on so inconsistently. sometimes, it'll come on when still have about 3 gallons in reserve (10.0 gal to fill up), and other times it'll come on when I have less than 2 gal in reserve (11.0+ gal to fill up). To test it, i checked to see if the extra $5 would show up somewhere else like maybe the range not dropping as quickly, or dropping much less slowly, but it never did. the range kept ticking lower and lower, even tho I knew there was gas in the tank, the car never recognized it until enough was pumped in to show over half a tank.
sorry for the long rant, but i guess my question is, what gives? is it that hard to make an accurate fuel gauge? I read of similar problems on the other 9th gen forum, but I always thought they were isolated incidents. after this, i'm wondering if all the civics are like that? maybe i'm just one of the unlucky ones. i never thought i could catch so much grief from a stupid fuel gauge, but if honda can't even get such a simple thing as that right, it makes me wonder where else they took shortcuts. I've always had good experiences with past hondas, but between this, the transmission whine, and some other issues i've had, all on a car that's less than 3 months old, i wonder if my money could have been better spent elsewhere.