Fuel mileage - remaining miles caution

I'm sure this has been covered before, but with the summer months and the resultant road trips, it worth mentioning again...

The remaining miles or miles to empty feature on the 2011 Productivity Screens can get you in trouble. When the remaining miles get close to 50, they have a habit of decreasing far faster than the actual miles you drive. This issue is compounded when you have just racked up a lot of freeway miles and your average miles is skewed higher than it normally is.

For example: This past weekend I made the trip up to Seattle from Portland. Got back into Portland late Sunday evening with about 75 remaining miles showing. This morning I jumped into the truck knowing that I needed gas but figured I had enough to get to the office and a meeting before I absolutely had to stop for gas. When I left home it still indicated roughly 75 miles remaining. Five miles down the road it indicated just over 50 miles remaining, hmmm... Another five miles and I was down to 30 miles remaining. At that point I made a beeline to a gas station that was just a couple miles away. By the time I got there, I was down to just eight miles remaining. The truck took 24.7 gallons (SCab).

Point of the story, when you get to 50 miles remaining you better be hunting down a gas station.

It is that way in my 09 F350 too. The gas tank itself tapers down to the rounded corners and the fuel remaining goes fast. With 50 miles remaining, you've really got around half that.

You'd think the miles left would slow down being with less fuel the truck is a hair lighter but nontheless I believe ya'lls.

I've never had such a drastic change in mine once it reads 50 to E. Not on my Scab nor the Screw. Maybe I have a fluke truck. It's usually pretty damn accurate.

swoop1156 said:

I've never had such a drastic change in mine once it reads 50 to E. Not on my Scab nor the Screw. Maybe I have a fluke truck. It's usually pretty damn accurate.

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Same as Swoop. Mine is eerily accurate.

Cerberos, you still had 1.3 gallons left. Could've easily gone another 15 miles.

swoop1156 said:

I've never had such a drastic change in mine once it reads 50 to E. Not on my Scab nor the Screw. Maybe I have a fluke truck. It's usually pretty damn accurate.

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Madcowranch said:

Same as Swoop. Mine is eerily accurate.

Cerberos, you still had 1.3 gallons left. Could've easily gone another 15 miles.

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Double ditto, mine is pretty damn accurate.

Madcowranch said:

Same as Swoop. Mine is eerily accurate.

Cerberos, you still had 1.3 gallons left. Could've easily gone another 15 miles.

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I've let the truck get below 50 miles remaining a couple of times and each time the miles have decreased significantly faster than the actual mileage. However, this time was much more pronounced.

For now, I'm just chalking it up the skewed highway mileage. I had a 15.6 avg. starting out this morning. If it is truly not a common issue, I'll bring it up at my first service appointment.

Thanks guys!

Thanks for the tip, but just me personally, I never let the tank on any of my cars get blow 1/2 a tank and I keep 80 gallons of fuel in the garage.

Back in July 2008, we had a hard time finding gas, I almost didn't have enough to keep making it to work. So I bought a bunch of fuel cans, and added double the preservative which makes it good for 2 years. I rotate it out once a year.

i have been down to like 5 miles to empty before but i dont remember how much fuel i put in. i took it down to 20 the other day and it said i had put 25.8.. gallons in. must have been running on fumes. not really sure how i made it but when you have that little of fuel iin i thought it would have started sputtering

Hahaha
I have gone atleast 10 miles when it said 0 miles to E

Sometimes when im on the phone i completely forget to stop and fuel up!