Trip Computer
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Trip Computer
Question for fellow GLKers.
When using your trip computer if you leave it in Distance to Empty does the calculation for miles to go ever go up when you're at say a red light? I noticed that sometimes it goes up? As in it says I have more miles to go by sitting at a red light for a few minutes. I noticed because after using a 1/4 tank I now have over 300 miles to empty according to the computer.
I also noticed that at times on the mpg reading "from start" that at times after you start the car for the first time it doesn't drop the mpg as if it's not consuming any gas.
I know it's just a trip computer but it seems odd that it would increase the miles to go after idling at a light. I don't recall seeing this before since it always seemed to calculate something reasonable previously in this regard. The other mpg calculation "from start" sometimes did it correctly and other times did not.
When using your trip computer if you leave it in Distance to Empty does the calculation for miles to go ever go up when you're at say a red light? I noticed that sometimes it goes up? As in it says I have more miles to go by sitting at a red light for a few minutes. I noticed because after using a 1/4 tank I now have over 300 miles to empty according to the computer.
I also noticed that at times on the mpg reading "from start" that at times after you start the car for the first time it doesn't drop the mpg as if it's not consuming any gas.
I know it's just a trip computer but it seems odd that it would increase the miles to go after idling at a light. I don't recall seeing this before since it always seemed to calculate something reasonable previously in this regard. The other mpg calculation "from start" sometimes did it correctly and other times did not.
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Joined: Dec 2005
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From: Pennsylvania, USA
2011 GL450, '06 R500 traded, '08 ML350 sold
The way I understand it is the reason it shows more miles to empty after a few minutes idling at a red light is only for a short time. If instead of a red light you were idling or crawling like when waiting for an accident to be cleared ahead and let's say this lasted an hour then the distance to empty would be dramatically decreased. What it really says is that if you continue with the same driving pattern you will be out of gas after x miles. That pattern is changed after you drive for ten minutes at 2000 rpms and then stop at red light idling at 750rpms or whatever.
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I sat at one light for like 2 minutes and my miles to empty went up like 10 miles. I think that's kind of silly. For some reason on this tank it's calculating my distance as 300+ left with 3/4 tank. In fact after driving the first quarter tank my miles to empty has actually gone up. Never had that happen on previous tanks. I'm wondering if this is related to when my car stalled out. During that time it was running low rpms of ~ 250 and the dashboard was coming on/off.
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Joined: Apr 2010
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From: Tromsø, 69° 41' N
2010 GLK 220CDI 4M BlueEFFICIENCY
The values are calculated based on current fuel tank level and current driving style (pattern), as aggst1 states, meaning the current consumption. When you are driving (more or less aggressively) = consumption accordingly - lesser miles to empty. Idling at the red light = "idling consumption" - increased the miles to go.
Reason for this could be that it is programmed to "hault" computation until it has valid data to provide correct averaged figures. In our former car was these data updated every 10.th minute.
So I would say your findings are about normal. 
