Hi all, so yesterday my fuel light decided to come on with me having a 1/4 tank of petrol, also the message appeared saying 50 miles left. The fuel gauge is still working and I have not yet filled up. 

Anyone know why the lights come on so early? It’s never done it before. 

I have a Focus mk2 (55 plate) 1.6 zetec. 

Thanks in advance!! 

50 miles to quarter tank sounds about right for a petrol... 

The light isn't linked to the gauge, but to the range, when it hits 50 miles the light will come on.  If you've done a few short, cold journeys or sat in a lot of traffic in the last few days it might have worked out that you only have 50 miles to go under those conditions.  

This happens all the time with my mom's Fiesta. She drives extremly short trips, so the fuel consumption calculated by the car computer is terrible. When I fill the tank to half, it still can sometimes light up the fuel light 

But the thing is Saturday I did around 250 motorway miles so my mpg is sat at 27.2 which is higher than usual (for me anyway) and it’s still never come one so early before

1 hour ago, Jordan99 said:

But the thing is Saturday I did around 250 motorway miles so my mpg is sat at 27.2 which is higher than usual (for me anyway) and it’s still never come one so early before

27.2mpg? Are the earlier 1.6's a little more thirsty than the facelift? I struggle to get mine to below 34 and that's not holding back!

I’m convinced the owner before me used magical fuel! I brought the car on 32mpg 18 months ago, it doesn’t matter how gentle I drive I can’t get it above 27! 

11 minutes ago, Jordan99 said:

I’m convinced the owner before me used magical fuel! I brought the car on 32mpg 18 months ago, it doesn’t matter how gentle I drive I can’t get it above 27! 

Automatic? Brim the tank, then drive, then brim again, and work out how much distance you have travelled to physical fuel used.

Might be worth checking tyre pressures and making sure you haven't got any brakes sticking.  Even for a 1.6 petrol in a heavy Focus that's bad!

Mines does it bang on 50 miles always.

I do have a slight warp in a disk & I don’t believe any are sticking & I check my tyres quite often, due to them being 18” low profiles you can never tell if they’re low on air!. My mpg has been averaging 26 since I brought the car. Anyway I’ve filled the tank now and the light has gone off, computer says ive got 311 miles in the tank (already drove 20 since filling). I’ll update again if the light comes on really early again. 

4 hours ago, F0CUE said:

Mines does it bang on 50 miles always.

Mine does normally, but this time the light came on with the 50 mile message with 1/4 tank of fuel, it usually gets really close to the red before that message appears. 

19 hours ago, Micro said:

Automatic? Brim the tank, then drive, then brim again, and work out how much distance you have travelled to physical fuel used.

No it’s a manual. I did put a post up about the mpg a few months ago asking if it was low. A few people said that sounds about right taking into account the age of the car and the fact that it’s done 130k 

29 minutes ago, Jordan99 said:

I check my tyres quite often, due to them being 18” low profiles

Just a thought : these are obviously not the original wheels. If the rolling circumference is greater than the originals this would cause the odometer to read low (& also the speedometer which could be illegal) unless the ECU has been recalibrated. It would record a shorter distance travelled than you'd actually done, hence a lower mpg. Do you have a GPS to check your true speed? The speedo on our Mk2.5 reads about 74-75mph when the satnav shows 70. If yours reads lower than this it's probably not been recalibrated. As long as it doesn't read lower than the satnav you're probably ok but the odometer will also be reading low.

I’m with the understanding that no car is 100% true to the Speedo and that all are out by 1 or 2 mph, mine is about the same as yours though & im am aware that putting the bigger wheels on would alter mpg aswell as acceleration. The mpg I’m getting at the moment isn’t the issue I have (allthough id like it a bit higher). My issue was simply the fuel light coming on so early for no known reason.  

UPDATE: this issue has not happened since! I have no idea what caused it, all I know is it hasn’t happened again. Strange cars..

I'm having the same issue regarding my fuel indication, how do i fix it?

On 2/27/2018 at 2:03 AM, Jordan99 said:

UPDATE: this issue has not happened since! I have no idea what caused it, all I know is it hasn’t happened again. Strange cars..

Don't know if the Focus is smart re: uses calculated values to determine when to turn the fuel light on, or just level of fuel. I guess if the mpg figure is so totally wrong it thinks you can only do a tiny distance on a quarter tank then mayeb it would show this issue...

Yeah on mpg it comes on when it thinks you have 50 miles left. If your car had spent most of its time idling then it would hit that 50 threshold earlier than if it had been cruising getting good mpg.

 

When I got my car the light came on early and was concerned with it, but on next fill up and me reseting computer it all looked normal and has been since.

 

 

1 hour ago, gillyallan said:

Yeah on mpg it comes on when it thinks you have 50 miles left. If your car had spent most of its time idling then it would hit that 50 threshold earlier than if it had been cruising getting good mpg.

 

When I got my car the light came on early and was concerned with it, but on next fill up and me reseting computer it all looked normal and has been since.

 

 

Yes you're right, it does come on at 50 miles doesn't it.

3 hours ago, AmirulIsmail said:

I'm having the same issue regarding my fuel indication, how do i fix it?

In which case, you may find disconnecting the battery for a short time may reset the values. Ensure you do actually have enough fuel in the tank, and your radio code.

i solved mine by resetting the mpg (done by scrolling through the menu to find mpg then holding the button at the end, same button used to reset miles done after a fill up). after doing this, mpg was a bit erratic but leveled it's self out after around 30 miles. that is all i did and it seemed to have worked.