Party on.

 

I don't get it. The largest thing on our dash is the analog speedometer. It doesn't take much to glance at that when the gas light is on.

 

but dude, that's HARD.

 

 

Regarding the possibility of recoding with NCS Expert:

The setting for when the warning is issued is already at its minimum (~1.5 calculated gallons remaining). You can change the threshold for the warning point to 2.0 gallons or 2.5 gallons. You cannot disable the warning nor its persistent behavior.

Please see THIS thread and review posts 173 through 177. If anyone is an expert on this stuff, it would be theta, GeoffreyM and GTECKO. Their research has been accurate and extremely informative.

HTH,

Theo

 

But you are filling it up more often, the gas tank is to small for that for my use, I know if I filled it at half every time, I'd be at the gas station every 2-3 days, and that would be unacceptable to me.

 

with the nav screen there, it's not as readily apparent where the speedo needle is. I don't have a giant arrow pointing at the speed. I have a small orange thing that slides around where the numbers are.



I prefer not to hunt around that dial for the indicator while I'm driving at freeway speeds with other cars on the road.

Yes. It IS hard.

go troll someone else.

 

To answer the original question, mine is a 2012 as well and I experience this too I think. When I hit ~60 miles left, the pips on the gauge turn color and the gas icon shows up, but I noticed on mine when it does this the speed is displayed just above the odometer (where it show miles to empty in your picture).

 

it's too hard to look at the speedo? i have mini connected as well and i can tell where me speed is out of the corner of my eye. It really doesn't sound like he was trolling you. If it's so hard to see your speed when the digital is not showing you really should learn where your needle is and how to view it.

 

fine. it's just me.

today i filled up before the warning even showed up. aren't you all so proud??

 

Lol.....
You know how it goes....some good natured ribbing!!
We all laugh at how some one single item on a car can for some reason get under our skin....the only thing funnier is how that one item/behavior is sometimes avoided by a simple change....rather than reinventing the wheel. The engineer had a reason to make the dang thing annoying...if the guage is only a few % off...the car could stop in a bad location (think a bridge, tunnel or construction zone with no breakdown lane), possibly leading to a dangerous situation...nevermind the stresses on the mechanical compotents!!

 

I think everyone agrees we are nitpicking here, but my Mercedes has a similar situation where you "lose" the default display (I always have it set for digital speed) anytime you get a warning message, whether it be low fuel level or otherwise. But at least Mercedes gives the driver the option to turn off the warning and return to the default display (if the condition that caused the warning is still active, the warning message returns every time the engine is restarted). For those of us with short term memory loss that need to be continuously reminded that we are running out of fuel, you can to nothing and the warning message will remain displayed :-) My '03 MCS does not have a digital speed display, and I have always wished it did because I have to take my eyes off the road for a longer period to read the center speedo.

 

Trolling? No.

But seriously, if you can't see stuff on your dash, go get your eyes checked, or take the bus. It's not that hard.

Also missing: any sense of humour at all.

 

The plastic protective cover is still on your dead pedal!

 

So I got the "Low Fuel" warning today. I pressed the "BC" button on the stalk, and the warning goes away, and the MPH comes back, until you restart the car.

 

I sort of replicated this last week. My fuel gauge usually goes to red with two lights left. At that point, the fuel icon will pop up in the tach window, but goes away. Once I got down to ~32 miles estimated range and the lights dropped to only one light, the icon popped up and pressing the stalk button only cleared it for maybe five seconds or so. I usually keep my tach window on the estimated range and trip odometer.

 

I do love my dead pedal. That's a feature you don't miss until you drive a few good cars with one--and the miata has a nice one too.

but I always have my foot on it and never noticed it's got a protective cover! I'll go fix that today.

I guess there's a two-tier warning.

To address the personal aspects of this thread (my annoyance versus those who think I have no sense of humor), keep in mind this is a minor annoyance for me. It doesn't make me hate the car. I just wanted to know if I could change it to suit my preference instead of having to bend my will to that of the car.

I mean don't you have to have at least some sense of humor to buy a MINI "SUV"?


---

Oh and also, the miata has zero warnings about low fuel other than a gauge that points to "E". I have not ever run it out of gas in 11 years of ownership. Never.

 

I agree with MCS Fever: I hate the stupid gas icon replacing the speedo. And no, I don't want to look off to the right at the center console for my speed when I am used to looking straight ahead. It should not be reappearing so frequently when you clear it. I do not make a habit of driving with little gas. If driving with so little gas damages the fuel pump, then either the pump design is bad or the out-of-gas warning is technically too late.

 

FYI. Running tank low on gas can overheat your in tank fuel pump which is $$$$.The gas around it helps keep it cooler.

 

If you press the end of the BC stalk will it go away? I like the reminder if I let it get that low. It's more important than speeding. Plus I use the big speedo and keep more info in the tach display (2011 cant see everything I do).

 

Yes, pushing the button on the left stalk will override and return the icon back to the speedo, but for only a very brief amount of time. Then the button pushing war starts, which is distracting, annoying, etc.

And while I realize driving with too little gas is not good for the fuel pump, my previous point was that if it is so bad for the car, then perhaps it should be reading completely empty at the point where fuel pump damage might occur instead of at 2 more clicks on the dial to empty (which is how it is currently functioning).

 

agreed, I like my tach speedo too! its very annoying for it to get hidden every few seconds while enroute to get gas or on trips i don't need to fill up on

 

If this were the case everyone would complain it wasn't accurate and it wasn't showing the true level. The 10 wedges/candy corns/nuggets/etc are inaccurate enough already. The car already overestimates speed and is displayed that way, people complain about that. Having a gauge read empty when where are 2 gallons left will either make people complain way more than now or have folks driving below E all of the time just to use that extra range. Technically the last 2 gallons are called Reserve. See below for the copy of text from the manual in my car.

Knowing you cant make everyone happy and they needed to CYA, they put in the manual to refill with top tier fuel when the distance is ~30 miles. This way if you fry a fuel pump and the car can see it was never running with more than $5 in it they could deny warranty.


"Reserve
Once the fuel level has fallen to the reserve zone
of approx. 2.1 gallons/8 liters, the remaining
indicator lamps change from orange to red,
arrow. The tachometer displays the remaining
cruising range. An indicator lamp comes on
when the remaining range is less than approx.
30 miles/50 km.
If the range displayed is less than
30 miles/50 km, be sure to refuel; otherwise,
engine functions are not guaranteed and
damage could occur."

 

I normally get 30-32 mpg. In my car, the first of the 2 red reserve indicators comes on around the 50+ mile range. I just took it on a trip with my other half; he is less nervous about running out of gas while I was getting antsy at the 50 mile range and counting down, simply because it had now gone into the red (and yes I refueled with 40 miles left at the nearest station). So why they would state "30 mile range" when it can click on much further out even when getting their maximum estimated fuel economy is a bit odd. Perhaps they meant but did not include that this is at the second of the 2 (last) indicators?

So back to the original complaint/request: we just want a longer time interval between nags to get gas, as a gas icon usurping speed info is not helpful.

 

As I discovered this morning, once you get down to 1 carrot and the fuel pump display comes on, besides not showing the speedo in the tach display (not something I do) it also will not show what speed you set your cruise control at (which normally pops up for a few seconds after you set it). That was annoying.