When you run low and/or hit reserve fuel level, what happens?

[L.B.S.]

What, if any, lights flash or come on, and do the LCD bars simply disappear, or do they flicker, or turn a different colour, etc?

I swear I have seen someone on this forum mention something about a red colour, or a light, but I cannot see in this picture where such lights or colour changes would occur?



My '09 BMW F800ST is so confoundedly hideous, that I won't even start a rant on that abomination of a system. Blood pressure worries.

My CBR125R has EFI and a simple analogue needle fuel guage, and it's awesome. Extremely accurate. My sadly departed CX500Turbo had EFI (1982!) and it's low fuel warning was perfect as well, it would slowly over time begin to flicker an orange light, gradually becoming a solid very bright orange once lowest of the low level was reached.

Does the NC give a relatively accurate display, and reasonable warning?

Warns too soon, for too long? (could be annoying)

Everything's ok, and BAM! you are pushing the bike for miles in the pouring rain? *coughbmwcough*

 

[Rocker66]

The last bar flashes and shows as red

 

[L.B.S.]

Ahh! Thank you, kind sir. I feretted around the 'net for a fair bit, but couldn't find a picture of a low fuel NCX dash display, or confirmation as to where/what it looked like. (I'm taking this as a good omen, lol)

Appreciated.

 

[gpd211]

What rocker said. Under the last black LCD segment is a red bar. The black LCD segment flashes on and off to appear to turn red. Honda does this on several models for years so if you've seen any they are the same as this bike

 

[L.B.S.]

Cheers mate

 

[wgwgoldwing]

I hit the low fuel for the first time today. I thought that the last bar would stay solid for a bit, then flash, but it didn't. As soon as it hit that last bar, it started flashing. Not a big deal. Just an observation. Also, I ran about 8 miles with it flashing and pumped 2.88 gallons into it. The manual says that reserve is around .77 gallons. So I had just under a gallon when I hit the blinky fuel guage. I know it's not exact and certainly isn't a problem for me, just an observation. My first tank full got me 61.7 mpg. Not too shabby.


WGW

 

[tromba]

I hit the low fuel for the first time today. I thought that the last bar would stay solid for a bit, then flash, but it didn't. As soon as it hit that last bar, it started flashing. Not a big deal. Just an observation. Also, I ran about 8 miles with it flashing and pumped 2.88 gallons into it. The manual says that reserve is around .77 gallons. So I had just under a gallon when I hit the blinky fuel guage. I know it's not exact and certainly isn't a problem for me, just an observation. My first tank full got me 61.7 mpg. Not too shabby.


WGW

Yeah...I got flashed today too! I ended up putting in 2.92 gallons. My first tank from dealer got 57.9 MPG. I hope this increases over time!

 

[Thomasec]

However, when you get to that last bar and the gas sloshes around a bit, you might see it go back up to two bars and then back down to the blinking red bar for a short while. (I too was surprised that the last bar immediately flashed the first time I got there.) Figure when it FIRST starts blinking that you have about 50 miles of range left (with a small safety factor) before you completely run out of fuel.

 

[Crilly]

Mine drops a bar at 68 miles. Another bar at 108, again at 148 and again at 178. I know at these numbers I am getting 65 miles to a gallon.

 

[TechiePilot]

Indeed. I thought it was cool to see the low fuel warning, then I was puzzled when it went back to two bars (probably because fuel sloshed around). In my experience, I found I have about one gallon remaining when it first starts to blink red. Its a decent warning considering we don't have the luxury of a "reserve" as on other bikes... The red bar and everything else is visible during the self test.

Its quite an adrenaline rush to get the blinking red light when in unfamiliar territory, then guesstimate how long your can run to find a refueling station before the machine goes silent ;-).

 

[dduelin]

After 4000 miles I am confident there is at least .7 gallons left when the last bar starts blinking. At the average mpg I have been getting that is about 50 miles reserve.

 

[duk2n]

I ran out of gas on purpose sometime ago. Since the reserve started to flash, my NCX did 80 km 50% road 50% town. I'm pretty sure the bike had done 100 km of pure road without issues.

Before someone comes saying something about running out of fuel, I will say it is something I do with all of my vehicles to know how much fuel I have on reserve, despite what the manual says. I know it can be a little bit dangerous, but I do it when the vehicule is new so there is no dirt in the tank.

HTH

 

[Rocker66]

The bars will often magically reappear when you are on a gradient

 

[KGround]

The fuel gauge sucks. As a controls engineer who designs electronic stuff like this I would be fired or quit in shame if this was the best I could do. My main complaint is the action of that last black bar. Instead of actually showing you anything all it does is cover the red light which I think stays on constantly but is just hidden by that bottom bar. So you never see just one bar. It goes straight from 2 bars to blinking red light (or at least that is how mine behaves, very consistently). Each bar should represent approximately equal miles assuming the same kind of riding conditions, and the last bar should also convey meaningful information (i.e. it should stay on for about he same number of miles as the others, again assuming the same riding conditions) before exposing the red light. I have seen all of the bars steady on until over 100 miles into the tank, and I have started with two bars showing only to find within less than 5 mile that I have a low fuel warning. None of this would cost a single yen in extra hardware to fix - it is just a question of proper programming of the hardware that is there.
Then there is the apparent problem with the sender, which seems to stick a lot and also be very susceptible to widely varying readings when the fuel sloshes around in the tank. That probably has to do with tank geometry and may not be as easy to fix as the indicator problem, but in this case I don't accept that excuse, when the alternative is a proper reserve fuel valve. What could be simpler than that ? If you get left without gas because you forgot to switch back off reserve after a fill up at least you know who to blame and it is unlikely you will make the same mistake again. My guess is that these valves went away because
1) EFI systems really don't like to be run dry and
2) somebody probably got in a accident while trying to switch the valve in motion and won a ridiculously large lawsuit against some motorcycle manufacturer over it.

At least the trip odometer is accurate. When it gets to 200 you should be near a gas station. 175 if you have been cruising over 80 or in stop and go traffic

See my rant on this elsewhere here if you want more. In my opinion as the fleet gets old these electronic gauges are going to start failing and the replacement costs will be large, if replacements are even available by then. I build this stuff for a living but I wouldn't design them into any vehicle that isn't going to be disposable after a few years. They are used for one reason only - cheaper to manufacture initially than mechanical gauges.

 

[RiderCoach]

I set the trip meter after each fill up and start thinking about fueling at 200 miles. Never came close to running out. Do we really need a fuel gauge?

 

[Old Can Ride]

I set the trip meter after each fill up and start thinking about fueling at 200 miles. Never came close to running out. Do we really need a fuel gauge?

At the speeds I drive, if I waited to 200 miles, I would be at least 50 miles out of gas! I run out of gas so often that I try to always carry extra gas with me!

 

[SergeantChuck]

The fuel gauge sucks.

Its been talked about a lot. Most people don't trust the fuel gauge and most everybody used the trip meter instead. I just remind myself of the days I didn't have a fuel gauage and never ran out of gas.

 

[ziggie]

I think of the fuel gauge as a guide,but always use trip b for gas fill ups.

 

[Old Can Ride]

Its been talked about a lot. Most people don't trust the fuel gauge and most everybody used the trip meter instead. I just remind myself of the days I didn't have a fuel gauage and never ran out of gas.

That is because you had a reserve petcock valve in those days. When bike engine started missing out, turn valve and keep rolling.





But, that sooner than later ran out of gas also.

 

[Mojave]

I'm not trusting my gas gauge at the moment, last weekend it seemed to hang up at the second to last bar. Since I was on a freeway with lots of businesses I kept going, waiting for it to drop to the last (flashing red) bar, but finally at 213 miles I got off for a fill up - 3.47 gallons! So now I'm just going to go by the odo and fill up at 150-180 no matter what.