I love the GS, just want everything to work the way it should. Car has been perfect. Crysta Red with black/cashmere interior, chrome wheels, etc. @ $68K new, 4K miles. $30K is a "little" short, but as soon as I can get a C-7, add $15K and we can talk.

 

The thing is in my GS Range never updates quickly. It basically starts where it was the last time I filled up (roughly) and it will change slowly, often only a mile or two. I can drive 50 miles averaging 20+ MPG and it might move 15 miles.

The calculation is really very simple. First, filling up the car without resetting is going to throw everything off, but I think as you get near empty the sensors can tell and will show a warning.

Otherwise all the computer has to do is calculate MPG, which it can do to within 1/10 MPG of actual, then multiply by the tank capacity and deduct the miles driven. Why a lot of comments talk about 50 miles I don't know. Anybody who looks at average MPG knows the display reacts instantaneously. Fill up, drive 75 for 20 miles on freeway and you should be at @ 24 MPG. Now floor it to get around traffic for 5-10 seconds and I guarantee you will see a big drop, so if the computer can do this it can certainly do the same with the Range indicator.

From the manual: The fuel economy data used to
determine fuel range is an average
of recent driving conditions. As your
driving conditions change, this data
is gradually updated automatically.
If the vehicle has been idling for
a long time, the range displayed
on the DIC could be abnormally
low. The vehicle must be driven
8 to 16 km (5 to 10 miles) to get
an accurate reading.

5-10 miles to get an accurate reading. Sounds like a pretty fast response to me and it sure isn't what I'm getting, so all of HOXXOH's comments and recommendations don't seem to agree with the owner's manual DIC statements he keeps referring to. Bottom line is the car should display an accurate Range within 10-15 miles regardless of how you were driving previously.
Again from the Owner's manual:
Fuel Range: The range calculates
the remaining distance you can
drive without refueling. It is based
on fuel economy and the fuel
remaining in the tank..

 

Thought I would copy you on my response to another post, since you keep referring me to the DIC section of the Owner's Manual.
The thing is in my GS Range never updates quickly. It basically starts where it was the last time I filled up (roughly) and it will change slowly, often only a mile or two. I can drive 50 miles averaging 20+ MPG and it might move 15 miles.

The calculation is really very simple. First, filling up the car without resetting is going to throw everything off, but I think as you get near empty the sensors can tell and will show a warning.

Otherwise all the computer has to do is calculate MPG, which it can do to within 1/10 MPG of actual, then multiply by the tank capacity and deduct the miles driven. Why a lot of comments talk about 50 miles I don't know. Anybody who looks at average MPG knows the display reacts instantaneously. Fill up, drive 75 for 20 miles on freeway and you should be at @ 24 MPG. Now floor it to get around traffic for 5-10 seconds and I guarantee you will see a big drop, so if the computer can do this it can certainly do the same with the Range indicator.

From the manual: The fuel economy data used to
determine fuel range is an average
of recent driving conditions. As your
driving conditions change, this data
is gradually updated automatically.
If the vehicle has been idling for
a long time, the range displayed
on the DIC could be abnormally
low. The vehicle must be driven
8 to 16 km (5 to 10 miles) to get
an accurate reading.

5-10 miles to get an accurate reading. Sounds like a pretty fast response to me and it sure isn't what I'm getting, so all of HOXXOH's comments and recommendations don't seem to agree with the owner's manual DIC statements he keeps referring to. Bottom line is the car should display an accurate Range within 10-15 miles regardless of how you were driving previously.
Again from the Owner's manual:
Fuel Range: The range calculates
the remaining distance you can
drive without refueling. It is based
on fuel economy and the fuel
remaining in the tank..

 

It`s not a problem just a gremlin in the car. My Cruze ,Equinox,Impala, Blazer all did it. My 06 does it. It eventually evens out. Never ran out of gas, ever. I wouldn`t know how the Camry or Volvo system works as I have never driven one.

 

The Camery and Volvo work the way its supposed to work. Fill the tank and the computer calculates distance to empty as soon as you start the car using current mpg readings compared to volume in tank. Previous driving habbits are not involved.

 

I don't understand how this can work as you explain...as soon as you start the car, it is sitting still, so it has no info to calculate anything unless it uses previous driving experience. If the car is sitting still and it only uses absolutely current data, then the range when sitting still would always be zero. Some fuel is being used while there is no forward progress...therefore range is zero. Any of these systems must use some past data as a starting point.

 

I know nothing about Volvo or Camry, but based on my endless Corvette posts on this subject, you are technically right. When you reset the gauges (you can't rest range and the car never resets it to zero), the only thing the computer has is the last setting, so it will use that and if you stay parked with the motor running, then the range would drop, but once you start driving, the computer now starts calculating from that point and will rapidly adjust the range to current conditions giving you accurate average MPG and Range.

 

These guys think that resetting the average economy readout also resets everything else and they get to start from scratch. If that were true, the range number would fluctuate wildly as they left the gas station and accelerated down the street. It would bounce around until they had driven far enough to establish a reasonable average. They never think about what would happen if they didn't push the reset button. As I typed that, I remembered that I never pushed any resets for the first 25,000 miles, just so I would know what "real" long term averages were according to the car.

Maybe a trip to the dealer, so they could check what a brand new car's range reads when it only has 1.2 miles showing, will open some eyes. That average mpg would be real low since it probably never got out of first gear yet. The DIC would only show "RANGE LOW", because it hasn't gone far enough to establish an average to get a distance over 40 miles.

 

If you normally do a full fillup, then the average should reflect mileage over 25,000 miles. Even if you occassionally do partial fill ups, it would still be close. In the Corvette, at least, it reads the amount of gas in the tank as well as calculates mileage, so when you do a partial fill and still drive pretty far, you will in up with pretty accurate numbers.

I would imagine that a brand new car has zero range or range low, and once you start driving it starts calculating. Unless there has been a bulletin on this kind of problem, the service dept won't have an answer. If you want it checked, they will plug in their diagnostic system and most likely it will show there is nothing wrong.