Reserve fuel roulette

[big_boz]

Played a bit of fuel roulette last night in our 2.4 CVT. I had 60miles left of range (dash is converted to miles) and I was 45 miles from cheap super unleaded at Costco on my way home.

 

I arrived at Costco with 4 miles range left on the dash following a 68mph cruise along the m1.....mild squeaky bum but I had faith we would make it.

 

Now here's the rub, I could only get 55l in, and that was filling the filler neck to the max. That means I actually had over a gallon and realistically another 30 ish miles left in the tank.

 

Is this to be expected, anyone else seen similar?

 

Il be trying it again at some point and see if I get a similar result.

[threepot]

Found it started losing power on right turns, roundabouts and acceleration, but if I was really smooth it kept going.

 

Think I got 58 litres in it that time. I've played this game a couple of times, I've been deep into the fuel light roulette a few times.

 

I have this joke, if you ever want to know where a petrol station is, follow a vellfire/alphard because it's probably driving to one 🤣

 

The estimated range will be a combination of the fuel gauge measured quantity litres, multiplied by the measured average litres/km, so your driving style will effect it.

 

If you have a speed pulse converter thing it might warp the distance calculations somewhat, unlike a mph facia swap which won't warp the maths.

[big_boz]

At the time the dash was showing 6.1 miles per litre at the point of filling it, so in theory 30 miles left.

 

Speed pulse converter might very well be an effector.

 

I do think the tank could be a bit bigger for sure, I don't find it too thirsty by the tank is too small, I'd happily pay £100 for a tank to get 500 miles range or there abouts

[Michael Brown]

70 Litres

[big_boz]

60 isn't it? 

 

If it's 70 that would imply I had over 15l still in the tank when it said empty with a range of 4 miles.

 

15 litre would be about another 100 miles!

[pipsyp]

Depends on the Alphard.  I think the AH10 2.4 and 3.0's both have 70 litre tanks.  The Hybrid I am not so sure on.

 

The 2nd gen (AH20's) have a smaller tank and I think the 30's smaller still.

 

I think last time my light came on, I managed to squeeze about 62 litres into it, which would imply the reserve is about 8 litres.  Figure it's probably good for between c.20 and 40 miles depending how it's driven.

[big_boz]

Just had a look in my owners manual and with the use of Google translate it's got a 65l tank..... that's 10l left when the dash said zero!

 

[big_boz]

Also proves regular E10 fuel is ok!

[Rojie]

37 minutes ago, big_boz said:

Just had a look in my owners manual and with the use of Google translate it's got a 65l tank..... that's 10l left when the dash said zero!

 

 

I guess that is why it is called reserve; just in case !

[big_boz]

That's a hell of a reserve, that's 15% of the total fuel tank!

 

15l of fuel in my old TDI Passat would go 150 miles! 

 

Ok it's probably about 60 with a fair wind in the vellfire....but still! Lol

[threepot]

If you think about how long and wide a fuel tank is, even like the little tanks on the MR2 I've dropped a fair few times. When you pour a 5 litre can into one from empty its barely an inch deep, and the fuel pickup gauze is about an inch off the bottom.

 

So you'll never get the last gallon out, and to actually pickup any fuel while the vehicle is moving sloshing about you need a fair bit more than a couple of inches.

 

Thus your total official tank capacity on the specs is far from what you can actually consume in the real world.

[big_boz]

6 hours ago, threepot said:

 

 

So you'll never get the last gallon out, and to actually pickup any fuel while the vehicle is moving sloshing about you need a fair bit more than a couple of inches.

 

Thus your total official tank capacity on the specs is far from what you can actually consume in the real world.

 Fair shout

[Michael Brown]

The most I have put in is 65 litres. The only way to test the tank is have a can of petrol in the back and run the tank dry noting how long  alfie went on the orange  reserve light for future

[Chris.ac]

20 series has 65ltr tank.

If you connect an obd2 reader, the fuel gauge sender has a range of 0 to 50.

 

I've let the obd2 drop to zero, I believe there is at least 10 litres in reserve, this will be by design, as the pump will need to be kept cool.

The most I've managed to pump back in was 54litres, not wanting to force more in to avoid damage to the the evap system.

 

 

There are a few YouTube videos of a few Toyotas driven until they cut out and refuse to start, I think it was a corolla that still had 100 miles of fuel after the needle had stopped moving!

 

 

 

 

[pipsyp]

Just refilled, had about 1/8th of a tank left, fuel light hadn't come on but was probably about to.

 

Got just under 58l into it, so about 12l left in it.

 

I think we can universally say the reserve on these things is pretty big (perhaps about 15%).