Fuel gauge/miles to empty

Might be a dumb question but I’m used to older vehicles with out the computer systems. In my 2019 Tacoma TRD Sport 4x4 the gas gauge and miles to empty doesn’t seem to line up. When I top off I get different numbers every single time. The longer I go between fill ups the numbers get lower, the more frequent fill ups, the numbers go higher. On road trips, filling up every few hours, I’ve had the numbers as high as 360ish, on city driving and filling up about once a week it’s down in the 260-290 range. I know 308/309 range is what it’s supposed to be. The gauge itself seems to be correct and I rely on that for when I need gas. Also, my low gas light doesn’t come on until the miles till empty says about maybe 5 miles left. (I usually don’t let it get under 1/4 tank but have tested this out a few times cuz it seemed odd to me) My truck is completely stock apart from one size bigger tires which it did this before the tire swap. I’ve had the recalled fuel pump replaced several years ago and can’t recall if it did this before hand. Could it be something with the fuel system (computers), sticky floater, or a bad fuel pump? I bought the truck brand new with only 90 miles on it, it now has 93,000 miles.

 

It's normal.


DTE is calculate off of current MPG.
Not the over aver all tank average.

In short, the DTE is a "guess".
The gauge is true. The gauge goes off the amount of gas in the tank. The gauge has nothing to do with the MPG or DTE.

 

Thank you. This is my first brand new vehicle so wasn’t sure. I knew miles till empty was an estimate but the range was so wide it didn’t seem right to me. From what I can remember though before they put the new fuel pump in every time I would fill up it would always say 308 and then after they changed it, it started doing this. I did the recall maybe about 6 months or so after I bought it. Didn’t know if they may have put a faulty pump in as the replacement. Didn’t have any issues with anything before. But I guess the truck wasn’t fully broke in yet either.

 

The fuel pump is fine. No worries there.
I don't know the exact logic of the DTE. But it bases the DTE off the last so many miles you have driven.
It doesn't calculate off ALL the miles you have driven since the last fill up. More like the last 50-75 miles.

 

Thank you very much!

 

When the low fuel light first comes on, you should have 3.2 gal in the tank (see clip below). One the light is on, I do my own math. If I'm averaging 20 mpg, I know I can theoretically make it another 50-60 miles.

In my experience, the DTE gets to zero when there's 2 gallons left in the tank.

 

I just ignore the distance to empty. It's another useless feature. I think they underestimate in order to prevent people from running it completely empty.

By my math, I have around 75-100 kilometres once the fuel light comes on, but the computer says I have 25.

 

DTE calculation is guidance, not gospel. A much more helpful calculation would be miles to the next Buc-ee's.