(Another) Fuel TSB gauge update

A few weeks ago, had my car in for service for the 15k, and had them order the parts for the computer and filler pipe update. Got the parts in the past Monday, had it dropped off yesterday (I kept the car while waiting for the parts). Made sure to mention to them NOT to turn off SS/SE (or SKS), which they noted and didn't, to my suprise!

Got the call yesterday afternoon, 4:15pm, everything went fine, it's ready. Picked it up last night after work at about 7:30pm - mileage was at 15,200 instead of when I dropped it off at 15,900 - as expected. Lost XM radio presets, tank info, etc. Nav info still was there. Tested the SKS before leaving, worked fine.

Being that I was getting more and more annoyed with Koons Tysons, I'm suprised at how smoothly this all went! Oh, and the charge to Toyota for this was $893, in the middle of what others report - of course, since it's all under warranty, I paid nothing as all the others.

Dropped off the car with 2 bars on the gauge, at 443 miles. Picked it up, had 3 bars - after driving 38 miles today, one bar has dropped off. So, I'm standing at about 481 miles with 2 bars left, which seems to me to be more accurate than before. I'll fill up before the week is out and update on that. So far so good!

-m.

 

Ok, update #1:

After driving 99 miles, the last bar started blinking and 'add fuel' came up. This means I went 542 miles, with an MPG of approximately between 52.5-52.9. I have since driven 22 miles, and will fill up within the next mile or two when I leave work today. I will give the final stats there, but from the first tank standing, the fuel gauge started blinking between 10-10.5 gallons. More to come later!

-m.

 

Filled up yesterday afternoon, here are the stats:

Drove 23.6 miles past last bar blinking, total tank mileage was 565, at approximate 52.8 according to the car (had to figure 440 @ 52.4 + 122 @ 54.5 or so). Noticed when filling, the nozzle opening, is that where the 'filler pipe' goes? Cause the opening looks/feels different when I put the nozzle in to fill it with gas. Maybe just me. Anyway, pump clicked off at about 9.5 gallons, was able to put in another gallon with no problems, then filled it to 11.002 (which was tough to do, the tank seemed quite full, moreso than normal when I get to 11 gallons). I haven't noticed the "more green" bars, but I'm going to look into seeing if I have this as well. Otherwise though, I seem to be the only one thus far with a seemingly decent fuel gauge update? We'll see. Next post on this won't come until next fillup, approximately 1.5-2 weeks.

-m.

 

How odd - I was looking over the detail of the work done for the TSB for the fuel gauge, to see if there was anything on there about changing the glovebox light, or perhaps an updated patch to the software, and I came across something -

I had told them, because of Evan's problems with the SKS, to put a comment in saying exactly this: "Do not turn off SKS system". I find out now, it was marked as a 'concern', to which they gave the reason for being the 'gas subsystem', and they fixed it by replacing the "Defective fuel filler neck". I had noticed when I filled the car up the other day that the opening for the fuel tank was different than before - it was a metal opening that seemed wider, or just different. I don't think I was able to get in any more gas than usual from what I noticed, but apparently there is a fix if anyone is having a problem for filling the car with gas. I'll take a picture of it this weekend and upload it to this thread.

-m.

 

Filled up yesterday - the gas gauge has been much more predictable than before. The first bar is still illuminated for the first 140+ miles, but after that drop off from each is fairly even.

Even with morning temps down as low as 39 on one day during my commute (no black ice warning yet thankfully!), I was able to maintain normal MPGs - and got another 600+ mile tank! Here are my latest fillup stats:

Tank Miles: 603
Overall Miles: 16005 ODO, 16691 actual
Car MPG: 53.7
Gals filled: 11.318
Last bar blinking at 545 miles (approximately 10.2 gallons used)

It's only the first full tank since the fix, but if this is standard for me, the fix was definately worth it.

-m.

 

Probably my last post on this topic - my gas gauge seems to be working (fairly) correctly now, and I couldn't be happier.

The 1st bar disappears now around 130 miles instead of previously staying until 150-200 miles. In the past two tanks, my last bar didn't start blinking until approximately 10 gallons - the most recent tank I had, it started blinking at 509 miles at 51.8MPG. Here are the stats from the recent tank:

Tank mileage: 558
Overall displayed mileage: 16563
Car MPG: 51.8
Gallons filled: 11.071

Filling the tank, it still clicks off about 2 gallons early - that doesn't seem fixable. Incidentally, the "replace defective filler neck" seems to be the only different in my TSB to others, so I suggest to others to perhaps look into this added fix.

-m.