Inaccurate miles to empty readout

Just bought a 2011 4 runner, previous owner said the fuel gauge works right but the miles to empty readout is about 50-70 miles off. When the readout says around 60 miles to empty you are really out of gas. He said he ran it out of gas looking at the miles to empty instead of the fuel gauge. Is this just a calibration of some kind to fix?

 

Welcome. If the gauge is working correctly then could be the Fuel Sending Unit in the tank sending wrong information to the gauge.

 

so does the fuel sending unit send information to the actual fuel gauge? Or does it also send information to the computer for the Miles to empty read out?

 

No. The fuel sending unit sends info to the ECU which in turn sets your fuel gauge.

 

welcome

 

Welcome

 

The truck estimates mikes to empty. It doesn’t know exactly how much fuel is in the tank. It doesn’t know how you’re going to drive.

 

If the miles to empty is just an estimate, then why even put that feature on the vehicle. I drive a ford truck and the miles to empty is always spot on with the fuel gauge.‍♂️

 

On my 4th Gen, it’s the opposite of the OP’s issue - I can go to 0 range and still have 40-50 miles left. The low fuel light is also very conservative like that - usually comes on with 3ish gallons left. I believe Toyota wanted to make it really hard to run out if gas.

 

Resistance changes versus the actual float arm angle is what reflects the empty to full level on the fuel level gauge via an ohms rating, example of lowest float level 0-1 highest 16 ohms.. I am unsure as to what Toyota what algorithm is used to update the driver information center to determine "estimated time to empty"

 

I wish my 4runner would learn that i do not in fact get 347 miles after fillup, more like 275 miles. When i get low, down to like 20 miles to empty, in a few miles that number can drop to 6. MPG is always consistent, just the MTE feature never calculates realistically.

 

Me too. I can go a bit more once 0 range shows, definitely 20+ MI more since i filled at under 0 and still didn't completely fill the 23 gallons.

 

what about disconnecting the battery for 24 hrs like a hard reset?

 

The previous generation Tundras with the 38 gallon tank were off by 5-6 gallons…e.g. it would display 0 miles to empty and you’d have a good 80-100 miles left of real range before actually running out of fuel. I have owned 4 Tundras and the behavior was the same on all of them.

i believe that this was very intentional on Toyotas part over concerns of stressing the fuel pump given the surface area of the large tank.

 

Closest I’ve been to empty would have been at the worst time and place. We had picked up a travel trailer in Reading, PA. Filled up right before and figured no problem since the campground was less than 200 miles away. Ha! I’d never towed 4K lbs on the highway and was shocked to find the light on 160 miles later - on the NY Thruway with no exit in sight. Finally made it to a station and put in 22.6 gallons - around 8 MPG. I eventually got it to 11 on that trip by driving more conservatively.