I know here are other threads on here about this (but they are now old and unresolved) my MK4 focus with the needle just under half on the fuel gauge was showing 45 miles left in the tank and fuel light on. It's a 1.5 diesel estate. None of the threads I have found on it give a potential solution. I know the mileage hasn't been clocked as all the modules reported miles match up (apart from TCM which I'm assuming is due to presumably the car getting a new one early in its life).

Did you buy from Ford dealer?  Get them to update the cluster if so.

It was from an AA approved dealer, but not a ford specific one

Do you know if they charge for this?

18 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Did you buy from Ford dealer?  Get them to update the cluster if so.

So I have just phoned ford, apparently there is no updates for my car including modules.

31 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

So I have just phoned ford, apparently there is no updates for my car including modules.

Ok, that's a shame.

Just for reference, Ford dealers usually charge an hours labour to do a software update.  But if you'd just bought the car from them, I would expect it to be free.

I don't have any further suggestions for this fault unfortunately.  If you don't know how much fuel it came with, it's probably safest to brim it until the click, and reset the trip mileage until you fill up again.  Easily get 500+ miles to a tank in these.

As TomsFocus said, fill it up and maybe ignore the mileage-to-empty reading, you can live without it.  If the needle doesn't go up when you fill up, or doesn't go down when you done a couple of hundred miles, the float may be stuck in the tank. Can't think how the mileage-to-empty is measured if that were the case tho'

5 hours ago, RMurphy195 said:

As TomsFocus said, fill it up and maybe ignore the mileage-to-empty reading, you can live without it.  If the needle doesn't go up when you fill up, or doesn't go down when you done a couple of hundred miles, the float may be stuck in the tank. Can't think how the mileage-to-empty is measured if that were the case tho'

The needle goes down as does the distance to empty, it's just very very pessimistic for the amount of fuel in the car.

12 hours ago, Neb_engineer said:

The needle goes down as does the distance to empty, it's just very very pessimistic for the amount of fuel in the car.

Maybe the car thinks that you are taking it drag racing.

11 hours ago, Nimrodmk8 said:

Maybe the car thinks that you are taking it drag racing.

Interesting take, but it did it a day after I bought the car, we'll see what it says after I have run the tank out and then brimmed it

I have now brimmed it twice from empty and it's still only showing a maximum of 193 miles to empty. As I run the tank down it does reach 50 at just under a quarter of a tank left but it's odd that the trip computer is being so pessimistic about distance to empty considering I have done 470 miles on a single tank twice.

I would be tempted to disconnect the Battery for 20 minutes and see if that resolves things.

1 hour ago, Tizer said:

I would be tempted to disconnect the Battery for 20 minutes and see if that resolves things.

I have done that already as I had to disconnect the battery whilst I was fitting the towbar module to make sure I didn't accidentally damage the bcm

12 hours ago, Neb_engineer said:

I have done that already as I had to disconnect the battery whilst I was fitting the towbar module to make sure I didn't accidentally damage the bcm

Hi Benjamin, an interesting little problem you have.

Firstly can I just ask have you completely reset all trip values of both trip computer one and two, to zero ?

In normal driving as well as the estimated remaining range the display should be showing 'live' mpg and 'average' mpg, do both of these displays show values that would seem to be correct ?

On 5/23/2025 at 1:08 PM, Neb_engineer said:

So I have just phoned ford, apparently there is no updates for my car including modules.

I doubt that very much on a 2019 MK4, they probably can't be bothered to look

PCM and IPC need updating

PCM takes about 5 minutes but IPC takes about 45mins

failing that the tank sender is faulty

1 hour ago, DaveT70 said:

I doubt that very much on a 2019 MK4, they probably can't be bothered to look

PCM and IPC need updating

PCM takes about 5 minutes but IPC takes about 45mins

failing that the tank sender is faulty

I doubt the tank sender is faulty as the actual fuel gauge is showing the correct value

1 hour ago, unofix said:

Hi Benjamin, an interesting little problem you have.

Firstly can I just ask have you completely reset all trip values of both trip computer one and two, to zero ?

In normal driving as well as the estimated remaining range the display should be showing 'live' mpg and 'average' mpg, do both of these displays show values that would seem to be correct ?

Both trip computers were reset and live and average were showing the correct values

46 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

I doubt the tank sender is faulty as the actual fuel gauge is showing the correct value

If you are set up on FORScan that will tell you the installed calibration levels and if any updates are available
You could also perform a module reset and see if it starts working

46 minutes ago, DaveT70 said:

If you are set up on FORScan that will tell you the installed calibration levels and if any updates are available
You could also perform a module reset and see if it starts working

It didn't give me any of those options last time I had forscan plugged in

1 hour ago, Neb_engineer said:

Both trip computers were reset and live and average were showing the correct values

That's even more puzzling.

To work out the estimate range, the computer uses a few bits of information.

1. How much fuel is in the tank. We can assume that the tank sender unit is  working as the normal analogue fuel gauge is working correctly.
2. How much fuel the car is using. This is taken from the 'Average' mpg, and since this seems to be displaying correctly, we again have to assume this is not the issue.
3. Then there is the rolling mpg verses range based on the previous 100 miles covered at the previous average mpg. So if the car was driven hard, and around town the fuel computer would estimate the range to be much lower than if say it had been driven carefully at a nice steady 50Mph on a long trip on a motorway.

From what you've said 1 and 2 are working as expected. So that only leaves point 3. If this is the cause of the poor estimated range then it could have been caused by the vehicle doing much idling, many short journeys, and the engine never getting up to normal temperature. Should this be the case then I'd expect over the next couple of weeks for the estimated range to improve. Otherwise my thoughts would be that somehow the fuel computer software is corrupt.

 

16 hours ago, Neb_engineer said:

It didn't give me any of those options last time I had forscan plugged in

Module reset/reboot should be there

Calibration level will be in the software update section

So update, it still only maxes out at 193miles to empty and I haven't had a chance to plug forscan in yet (got busy then the oil pressure sensor failed) is there any downside to doing the module reset?

Also my dash and TCM show same mileage and my pcm shows about 4k more.

2 hours ago, Neb_engineer said:

Also my dash and TCM show same mileage and my pcm shows about 4k more.

The Mileage should be shown in a few Modules on that car, when you connect FORScan up are they all the same as each other and what is shown on the Dash?

On 7/28/2025 at 9:36 PM, Tizer said:

The Mileage should be shown in a few Modules on that car, when you connect FORScan up are they all the same as each other and what is shown on the Dash?

So I have just gotten to doing it (life is hectic) all modules are reporting the same as the gauge cluster according to forscan apart from pcm

On 6/4/2025 at 7:38 AM, DaveT70 said:

Module reset/reboot should be there

Calibration level will be in the software update section

So I looked, and I don't seem to have software update as an option. I tried rebooting it and it stayed the same.