I read an article a while ago in Car & Driver that explained that fuel
gauges are built intentionally inaccurate. In a modern American car,
the gauge will read full until the tank is a few gallons low. The gauge
will read empty when there are a few gallons left in the tank.
The first issue is one of perception. When a driver fills his or her
tank, they want to have that good feeling of having a full tank for
awhile - not just twenty miles or so when the first gallon is gone.
Customer satisfaction suffers when the driver feels his car is a gas hog
which can never be kept full.
The second issue is one of perception, but also of prevention. Just
like the first issue, a car which will run out of gas as soon as the
needle touches the "E" has less consumer satisfaction than one which
will run for 50 miles after that point. People will let their gauge hit
empty in a pinch, and hope for a gas station on the way home when they
won't be late to the time clock. If the car dies every time the user
tries that stunt, they'll be less inclined to buy the same car next
time. The prevention issue is that electric fuel pumps don't do well
when they run dry. I don't recall the specifics from the article, but
it was said that in order to prevent damage, the gauge would read empty
when there were still a few gallons in the tank in order to get the
consumer to the gas station before running the pump dry.
Matt Kulka
'74 B - still half full. Been that way since August.
>>> Douglas Gaither <gaither@ix.netcom.com> 01/12/98 03:41pm >>>
...Does this mean that my gas gauge will never quite read full and that
it
will read bone dry when I still have a little gas left? I hate
inaccurate
gas gauges!
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