Just had my Clubman S towed via flatbed to the dealer. Dealer said that the Germans sometimes put bad gas in and it sits there causing deposits. He said two injectors were clogged. I don't buy this explanation because my car has 28,000 miles on it, but that's what he said. They changed the oil and reset the computer.

Now my gas gauge is going crazy. Filled tank, drove 250 miles, and the idiot light only has two bars that are not lit. The rest are still lit. At this rate I will not be able to trust the gas gauge and will have to keep track of mileage between fill ups.

Is there anyway to re-calibrate the fuel gauges. This one is going crazy for me to believe what it is reading. Anyone having similar problems?

 

could be the sending unit. common issue. call yr dealer

the gas guage is funky to begin with. with my car only three candycorns gone and it needs over a half tank.

 

Definitely take it back to the Dealer and tell them to fix it right this time!!

 

What Germans? the car is made by the English. And with 28K on it there would have been a problem long before this if it was the gas from the factory.

As for the gas gauge I get about 160-180 miles before the third candycorn goes off. So 250 miles seems like a new sending unit is needed, OR you are now getting really really good gas mileage. Have you checked your gas milage lately.

And No there is no way to adjust/calibrate the gas gauge.

 

I don't use the gas gauge at all... I just use the remaining miles indicator. I don't know who calibrated the gauge, but he surely wasn't aware of linear measurement systems...

 

I did not believe the "German fuel" story either, especially since I have 28K on the car. How much of a moron do they think the customers are? Will do like they say and add injector cleaner periodically.

And I may have to do like the previous poster and just keep an eye on the number of miles between fill ups. The gauge is no where near accurate.

 

I have just learned what level indications means how much gas will go in. Don't really care if it is linear as long as I know what to expect. A change in that though would drive me crazy.

I have never had a car where the gas gauge was accurate. My dodge pickup for instance. 26 gallon tank. 3/4 full meant add 4 gallons. 1/2 full meant add 15 gallons, 1/4 full meant add 18 gallons, empty meant empty add 26.5 gallons.

 

The MINI fuel gauge and the "miles to empty" OBC readings are just two examples of how MINI engineers have gone to great lengths to keep the MINI experience exciting and unpredictable! There's nothing like having the OBC tell you there's 100 miles to go, then telling you there's 60 miles to go, 10 miles later! If you like your gauges non-linear, MINI's the car for you!

 

You are not kidding, I get 3/4 of my total tank mileage in the first 1/3 of the bars. The last few bars seem to last so short it makes me crazy. Not to metion when you get down to the last bar the MTE (mile till empty) plays games with you by dropping 20 miles in about 3 miles then going back up 15 miles in the next 2 miles.

 

After playing with it for a while I now believe that the first candy corn is 3 gallons, the second one is 2 gallons, and all the rest are 1 gallon, when all the lights are out, your walking.

 

Yes, the above is true with mine as well as most other posters on NAM and actually the third one is also about two gallons.

A more graphic way, is to look at it as a clock face:

Twelve O'Clock, you are at Half Tank and at Nine O'Clock candy corn, you are at Quarter Tank and Six O'Clock, you are running on empty.

The Scan Gauge has a 'Fuel Used' function that allows calibration with each Fill-Up and has a greater than 1% accuracy.

 

My Mini's gauge is also more than 1% accurate, but not much more

 

I did a 3,000mi. round trip back in March, I ran Molly until the Red Lights came on and I was sweating bullets the whole time. She made it to the next Station, luckily I had my GPS. I was fairly familiar with the area, but still I've learned my lesson.

Before and after this trip I always fill up on Friday Nights, she usually takes about 8gal. driving 200 miles per week. 5 Candy Corns are usually gone though.

 

i've always assumed that each bar in the cooper S is equal to 1.32 out of a 13.2 gallon tank. the way i've figured is that if i fill the tank before doing some highway driving that i'll average 38-43 miles to the gallon highway depending on how i drive, Ex: if im down to say 5 bars, like that 5th bar just clicked off so i should have technicly 6.6 gallons left in the tank, so if i put in 6.6 that will fill it to 13.2 so all bars are lit. reset trip and MPG ave and once up to speed and cruise control on, if i do 65mph i'll get about 40-43 MPG so i do .32 of a gallon X my 40-43 MPG = on one bar i should be able to drive approx 53-56 miles at that rate per bar. and i have before. give or take a few miles each way.
that was when i did the math right off of the fuel guage and just fillled it for how many bars i needed. over the summer i'll let it get down to about 2 bars before filling up and at 2 bars i need about 10.56 gallons so i'll put in more for good measure. the other night i got down to 1 bar and and drove another 16 miles before getting while on the highway bascily using ~.32 of a gallon before getting gas. i filled my tank with 13.398 gallons and assumed i had 1 gallon left so far this week i've driven ~80 miles (very easy driving) and havent clicked off the first bar, so bascily saying when i overfill i throw off my first bar average. hahahaha...

 

Isn't it easier to just fill the tank? That sounds like a lot of math to do at the pump. Any reason why you don't just fill it up?

 

+1

 

I agree with pilotart, I think gallons gone/candycorn is 3-2-2-1-1-1-1-1 until empty, so the first 3 represent about 1/2 a tank.

 

I would agree, but my gauge has 10 corn kernels, and this only accounts for 8 of them. I think it's 3-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1, =13 gallons.

 

I drove my 07 MCS until ALL of the lights were out. Didn't mean to, but once i realized i high tailed it to a gas station. I made it. With my 09 i had 2 lights, then one light, and the car stopped dead. Out of gas.....def not the same measuring system

 

The problem with pretty much all gas gauges in newer cars is the shape of the tank is not consistant, it's not a rectangle or even a circle; they use blow molded tanks that fill the available nooks and crannies to get enough size to make a decent range per tank. The gas guage has always been more of a "guestimate" than an actual measuring device........I find my trip computer a fairly good estimater of miles left, and I don't try to run it down to nothing, but always refill at about 1/4 tank (indicated )

 

Hey I know this thread is old but I’m having a gauge issue too, but it’s the opposite of what OP has described. My gauge lights Dont move until I’ve driven at least 90-130 Miles (depending on how I drive) the car is an 09 base hardtop with 155k miles. Any suggestions??

 

150kMini
Go into my 'profile' page and you should see a photo of my "Scan Guage". No idea if they're still available, but eBay likely has them. I'm also sure there are many other options as it plugs into your 'OBD' port under the left edge of your dash and reads information from car's computer.

In addition to constantly displaying four values from your cars computer (like coolant temp Volts etc., selectable from a list) it offers "Fill Up" mode predicting how much to fill your tank. You do have to correct its prediction the first few times, but after that, it's accurate to the tenth of a gallon. But you do have to enable that function for every fill up to maintain its accuracy.

I also drive 80-100 miles before the first 'candy-corn' led extinguishes.

Art

EDIT:> just click the link at bottom of this post (my sig). I see they have Scan Guage III now, mine's a II which is still sold.

 

I have a Scan Gauge II as well. I haven't used it in my Coupe since I installed an Android head unit with Torgue Pro. I used it all the time my 2006 Chevy 3500 dually Duramax. I had the work truck config so nothing electric (windows mirrors etc all manual) and no DIC (Driver Information Center). I agree after 3-5 fillups, and entering the data, the fuel mileage/fillup info is EXTREMELY accurate. I haven't dug into the way to correct it in Torque. There are several things to try but just haven't went there as my Mini's average fuel economy has been within 1 MPG of hand calculated.