Fuel Light Switch.

[KiwiBacon]

Is there any standard for the fuel light on cars?

Do they aim for a percentage of the tanks volume or a minimum distance to empty?

[UncleBob]

pretty generic question....maybe someone has researched this I guess.

I would take a stab at it, and say 1/8th a tank is left or so on average.

I'm just guessing that a car that gets 600+ miles per tank vs a car that gets 250 miles per tank, would be different. But maybe not.

bikes, for example, usually give you 20-30 miles as a general rule. But they have much smaller tanks

[KiwiBacon]

Originally Posted by UncleBob

pretty generic question....maybe someone has researched this I guess.

I would take a stab at it, and say 1/8th a tank is left or so on average.

I'm just guessing that a car that gets 600+ miles per tank vs a car that gets 250 miles per tank, would be different. But maybe not.

bikes, for example, usually give you 20-30 miles as a general rule. But they have much smaller tanks

The main problem with finding out for yourself, is you've gotta run out of fuel to do it.
My truck has roughly 15l left when the light comes on, that's about 20% of it's 80l tank.

The wife won't let me find out properly on the other car, but I've never put more than 50l in and it's supposed to have a 60l tank. So that'd be the 20% again.

[Moppie]

As a general rule, Iv found that English, German and Japanese cars all set the light to come on when you have roughly 100km left of petrol when driving at average speeds and loads.
This id based on personal experience running out of petrol in a number of cars, as well as from working on them, and filling them up.
I have yet to find a car that differed from this rule, but have no experience with American cars.

[KiwiBacon]

Originally Posted by Moppie

As a general rule, Iv found that English, German and Japanese cars all set the light to come on when you have roughly 100km left of petrol when driving at average speeds and loads.
This id based on personal experience running out of petrol in a number of cars, as well as from working on them, and filling them up.
I have yet to find a car that differed from this rule, but have no experience with American cars.

That rule of thumb would fit pretty well with the vehicles I've mentioned above.