Silly me, I have driven for years without a "I'm to stupid to know when to get gas" light.....So no it does not bother me a bit.

 

When you get crappy MPG and drive a lot, you want to drive the full tank! Or at the very least, I want to KNOW EXACTLY what I have! Just like I hate it when I have a 9:30am appointment and someone tries to tell me it's really at 9am to make sure I'm not late. I'M A BIG BOY, tell me the facts!

Besides, if my DTE is really calculating Distance to 2 gallons left. And now my DTE turns to an idiot "LOW FUEL" light with 30 miles left. So at 15MPG, I have 4 gallons left when my gauges go blind on me. That's 60 miles!

 

Exactly, if you let your tank get that low frequently you're looking at frying your fuel pump. The gas sloshes around in the tank so at some level you're going to be starving it for fuel. That could even be just when you're stopping and going as the fuel sloshes back and forth.

 

I would rather the light come on prematurely than too late...for sure. Then again, I never wait for it to come on at all. I only know it's there cause it comes on when I start the Jeep.

 

I have a pretty basic X Unlimited that didn't come with the computer display. The low fuel light does come on, however, and I mostly end up putting in about 18 gallons at that point.

I just ordered a ScanGage II, which plugs into the ODB II port and will display 4 of 12 selectable outputs (realtime MPG, distance to empty, fuel remaining, speed, RPM and some temperatures and pressures). It will be interesting to see if my experience correspond to those of you with the factory display. I suspect any distance to empty information will be the same.

By the way, this thing will display trouble codes, snapshots of what the other indicators were at the time the code was thrown and allows you to reset the check engine light, but does not allow programming the JKs computer like the Hypertech units.

-meljr

PS - This is all slightly academic from my perspective as I also carry 2 5 gallon jerry cans!

 

I have to disagree. These are not the cars of yesteryear. If you suck air, the engine stalls, nearly instantly. In 25 years of driving, I had it happen once as I rounded an exit ramp VERY HARD and was VERY LOW on fuel (trying to make it from San Antonio to Fort Worth in 1 tank of gas in a Talon). The car stalled as I coasted down the ramp. I restarted it and it drove fine to the gas station. So normal driving won't slosh fuel and let the pump run dry with 4 or even 2 gallons left. I've driven my KJ MANY MANY times down to 1 gallon left. And I knew EXACLTY how much fuel was left! It never once sputtered.

Also, with a daily driven vehicle and modern gas that is filled up each time, you won't wind up with "junk" in a gas tank like the old days either. Now, don't let it sit for a month low on gas during the winter, as that invites moisture issues, but that's really a different story. And again, modern fuels have so many additives including an agent of "dry gas" that moisture is all but eliminated if you do this occassionally.

Bottom line is that most "enthusiasts" of any kind, want gauges for a reason. We want to know what's going on. We detest idiot lights. And turning my DTE gauge into an idiot light when I need it most is, well, idiotic!

There's my soap box speach for the day.

 

There is a light that tells me how far I can go before the tank goes dry in my JK? Who'd of thought? I guess my putting gas in the tank is spoiling my fun.

 

I can drive for a while when the Lo Fuel indicator comes on. Who cares, what did we do before that gimmicky crap? Read the needle.

 

I believe the point is that the gimmicky crap is programmed in such a way to defeat the real purpose of having it.

It's like having a thermometer that hits 98.6 then stops telling you the temperature, and instead starts telling you that you have a fever. You probably already knew that, or you wouldn't be taking your temperature.

Likewise, you probably know you're running low on gas when you check the DTE, and it would be logical for the software to display the calculation rather than LO, which is already a known.

For some people, that can make the difference between gassing up in a sketch neighborhood, or not.

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Now playing: Stone Gods - Defend Or Die
via FoxyTunes

 

This does bother me, too... I don't usually rely on the CPU to tell me when I need gas (that's what the needle is for), but on 2 separate occasions I was driving through rural areas on long highway trips, and was trying to decide how soon I'd need to find an exit with gas, when the DTE display went to "LO FUEL"...

I do understand that they're trying to save me from myself, but if I'm about to run out of gas I don't need an electronic nanny - I need info on how much further I can go!