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Fuel Tank Gauge Didn't Reset

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by jchu, Dec 24, 2004.

  1. jchu

    jchu New Member

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    In preparation for a 500 mile road trip (and to make sure I cleared Oregon where there is no self-service refueling by law) I topped off the Prius fuel tank. At the time it was down to 6 bars. After filling up. the gas tank gauge REFUSED to reset despite several restarts that night and 2 the next morniing. Paranoid, I hit the reset on the energy screen (wasn't sure it would reset either as I remember that doesn't happen if the tank isn't empty enough to start with) so as to track miles on the tank at least. The fuel gauge never reset but seemed to wait until the tank matched the fuel gauge to continue downward. Ultimately, it did seem to reach the single bar state at the appropriate time but until I knew for sure it was very unnerving to wonder if it would get back in sync with the actual gas in the tank.

    Thoughts Anyone?
     
    #1 jchu, Dec 24, 2004
  2. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    There's a minimal amount of fuel that must be added for the reset to occur. If you still showed 6 bars at fill up you probably didn't add the nominal amount (whatever that is) for the auto-reset to occur.
     
    #2 efusco, Dec 24, 2004
  3. ceric

    ceric New Member

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    I recall that the manual says, at least 4 gallons of fill-up to trigger the Auto-Reset of Average Mileage value.
     
    #3 ceric, Dec 25, 2004
  4. jchu

    jchu New Member

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    Guess I thought that that only applied to the Energy Screen of the MFD. Didn't think that it applied to the gas tank guage as well. Live and learn.
     
    #4 jchu, Dec 25, 2004
  5. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jchu\";p=\"59905)</div>
    Huh! You're saying that you filled up but the guage didn't show you to be full? I think you threw us off with the "reset" thing since the guage just changes levels. I would think you should still have the guage show full if you were actually full....no matter the amount added...but maybe not.
     
    #5 efusco, Dec 25, 2004
  6. Canuck

    Canuck Member

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    #6 Canuck, Dec 25, 2004
  7. jchu

    jchu New Member

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    Evan,

    Yes, I meant the gauge for the gas tank NOT the energy screen display of the MFD.

    Sorry that wasn't clear in the first post. I had filled the gas tank to brimming and got 450 miles out of it in coldish weather before I hit one bar, but the fuel gauge did not ever reset from 6 bars to 10 bars. Instead, it seemed to wait until I had burned up 5 bars worth of gas to start going down.

    What made me paranoid was that when I started, I wasn't sure that the gas tank gauge would ever read right for that fill.
     
    #7 jchu, Dec 28, 2004
  8. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    Hmmm, weird....hadn't heard of that happening before. I'm curious if it will ever do that to you with a full refill (like from 1 bar or 1 flashing bar)....if it does it certainly may be malfunctioning.
     
    #8 efusco, Dec 29, 2004
  9. Frank Hudon

    Frank Hudon Senior Member

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    happened to us on the wife's 2k1 the day we traded it in. Gas gauge showed 1 bar and was probably ready to start flashing so I put about 4 gallons in and it never climbed 1 bar for the whole trip out to the dealer, about 25 miles. I figured that it was just a quirk. Since we never just put a bit in, always refilled to the top, we never really noticed this quirk before. I wouldn't worry as the gauge is a computer and it didn't start to drop till you were well into the trip the next time this happens you'll remember it's normal.
     
    #9 Frank Hudon, Dec 29, 2004
  10. HTMLSpinnr

    HTMLSpinnr Super Moderator
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    I've had this happen where I was one bar down, and I actually nursed 2-3 gallons into the tank to make it from AZ to SoCal. This was before I had the tank TSB done. The gauge never reset, but stayed put until presumably the fuel level dropped below 9/10 or 3/4.

    Hasn't happened since.
     
    #10 HTMLSpinnr, Dec 29, 2004
  11. DanMan32

    DanMan32 Senior Member

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    Although I haven't done exactly as you all have described, I have on some occasions put less than a full tank of gas, once about a month ago $5 worth (about 2 gal), and the guage did change about 3 or 4 bars, but was glad the MFD did not reset.
     
    #11 DanMan32, Dec 29, 2004
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