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Fast fuel range decrease!

4K views 10 replies 10 participants last post by  Matt-Volt 
#1 ·
Hope im not alone but, today as soon as I enter on the highway, the engine take the relay. No problem.. 90km left.. and I have only 45km to do until home.

Fuel decrease as normally.. no problem there. I take the exit and boom! The car say I must go at the pump right now. WHAT!?!?? I was driving at 105km/h which is more than respectable.. suppose to have 90km of fuel range.. 45km remaining to the house.. what the !?

Someone know !? This is my first tank I use since ive the car..
 
#5 ·
Bonjour Matt,

Welcome to the forum! As the others said in various ways: yes, this is perfectly normal. When the Volt gets to around 50 km of gas range remaining, the display changes from the number of kilometres remaining to the message 'LOW', and it won't allow you to see how many km of range remain until you add more gas to the tank.

It's been discussed here before, that this is a pretty useless feature since many Volt drivers use very little gas, and some of us want to know how much range we have remaining without having to put more gas in the tank. However, many vehicles behave the same way when they're low on fuel, so the Volt is not unique in this sense.
 
#7 ·
As noted by several other people, the car sets Low Fuel with ~4 liters still in the tank, somewhere in the 50-60 km remaining area. GM doesn't want someone to get into trouble based on their estimate being slightly optimistic (folks have sued for less these days,) and they use this approach across their product line.

If you want to know how many miles of gas the car thinks it has while it's in this region, go to the OnStar app. The gas screen will just show Low - but on the Electric screen, the "total range" will continue to include the car's best guess. Just remember it's an estimate from a system that loses accuracy at that end, and try not to put yourself in a situation where you are at risk of running out.

I also use the trip odometer method to drive into that range. A service area was a little further into the mountains than I thought, and I did put 9.5 gallons (35.4 liters - more than the rated tank capacity) into mine a couple weeks ago (didn't quite run out - at least the Volt makes running out relatively painless, and I was in Mountain Mode so there was battery left.)
 
#8 ·
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If you want to know how many miles of gas the car thinks it has while it's in this region, go to the OnStar app. The gas screen will just show Low - but on the Electric screen, the "total range" will continue to include the car's best guess. Just remember it's an estimate from a system that loses accuracy at that end, and try not to put yourself in a situation where you are at risk of running out.
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I have run mine out, during the FMM. Still drives fine with no gas. I noticed the inaccuracy you mentioned with the OnStar app. Since I had a fully charged battery when I ran it out of gas, the app reported my battery range as some number, but it reported total range as 1 mile less than the battery range. (Gas range of negative 1!)
 
#9 ·
I fill up when I'm down to 1/4 tank. I buy about 5gal every month unless on a trip.

I got better things to do than worry about running out of gas.
 
#10 ·
I also ran mine out during FMM. It was under reduced propulsion mode when I drove it. It was fine driving to the gas station where I "filled up" with 1.2 gallons. That was the minimum to turn off FMM.

Now, I always have a low fuel warning no matter where I go!
 
#11 ·
Well. Thank you very much guys. I know many things about cars, I make my own mechanic for my cars including my Porsche. I did know what you guys mean by warning pop when about 50km remaining. Its the fuel "reserve" that is normal cars (light pop). I though it was the same popping light for the volt! Guess not.. hahah Now I know the warning is the fuel "reserve".

New car for me.. :p And new kind of car.. need to tame the car!

Very big thanks! :D
 
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