Is there anyone on this forum who can contact mechanical experts or engineers at Ford

[barrys]

I just bought a new Ranger and I've got an issue with it and I don't agree with what the service manager at my dealer is telling me.

The truck is a 2010 Ford Ranger super cab with a 4.0. When the fuel guage reads empty, the fuel tank light does not illuminate and the truck only takes 14.9 gallons of gas to fill it up.

I took it into the dealer. The service manager's response was: "Your vehicle has a 4-5 gallon empty reserve."

Niether the personell at Ford.com customer service nor ther advisors at the dealer think that's possible.

How can I get an opinion on this from Ford Mo. Co?

 

[Superman]

Pray that Henry Ford can answer your prayer and have a vision.


Kidding.

Go to another Ford dealership

Or drive and don't go near E.

I don't trust reserves..thought my 1999 Ranger had one but I guess not. No light came on.

 

[bobbywalter]

there are several i can contact, but none currently ranger specific.


from the glo light you should have 2-5 gallons till it wont run on flat ground or turning hard.

when my oldest daughters started driving 6 years ago or so, i intentionally changed the range on the jeep to turn on around 8 to 10 gallons....but the shitheads still ran it out of fuel. you cant know how pissed i was about that....mostly at myself for out smarting myself...i figured i would not have problems with them running it out of fuel


so if i were you i would fill up a 2-5 gallon can and run it out 4 or 5 times and see right where it is....if its newer you should be ok, if you have some miles on it maybe replace the filter after this test run.

i do this with all of my vehicles periodically, it helps you know if your building shit up in the tank that may need pulled and cleaned as well. when you do harder trial riding you would be surprised what gets in the tank...if you have diesels you would really be surprised by what grows in there...

 

[Bryan101]

I'm i tech for Volvo not ford but if i were you and wanted to challenge him i'd run it down to E then put a 5 gallon jug of gas in the back of the truck and drive it till she dies then you'll know how low she really goes. Just try not to do it a bunch or you will burn up the pump because gas actually dissipates the heat (not my saying Volvo hot line told me). So in theory your pump will over heat and seize. But anyways thats what i would do. and on my 1995 ranger the check gauges light doesn't come on till it is pretty much on top of the E line.

 

[barrys]

That's good feedback -- even the prayer advice...
I stopped by and talked to the service mgr again who just relocated from some huge L.A. Ford dealership. He's as calm and nice as the day is long and didn't budge. He further mentioned that it's like that on all the new Rangers, "But you're the only customer who'd notice. Everyone else would just fill up when the needle went to empty." I don't even take that as an insult since I'm so f'n anal about car stuff.

Specifically he said:
The glo light would come on with between 2-3 gallons left in the tank. The guage will go to empty before the glow light comes on -- perhaps by more than a gallon or so. On "his Lincoln MKS" (lucky him) he can drive 90 miles after his car's computer tells him he's got 0 miles to go.

I'm not going to run it out completely since I'm not into taking that much of a risk and since runnning modern cars out of gas completely is not a nice thing to do to them.

But, I'll let it go way below empty. Wait for the glo light and then see how much gas it takes after that.

In general, I was cursed by owning a VW Passat. That thing ****ed up so much in so many confusing and complicated ways that it's got me all freaked out about cars in general. I got rid of that thing. Now I should just be enjoying the new ride which I do. They've made some nice improvements and it's very smooth and quiet. And, lest we not forget -- way fast...

 

[barrys]

After that last post, I had a message on the voicemail from the dude at Ford Corporate customer service. He was so cool. I called another dealer in my area -- more a truck-centric dealer -- and went over the whole thing with a service writer who talked to a tech.
Their opinion was that the empty reserve should be 1.5-2 gallons which makes sense to me. And he urged me to go see that dealer to get a second opinion. A PITA but probably worth it.

The service manager at the first dealer said exactly what I thought they would: "We checked the sender and the gauge with the computer and everything's working great." Well, I've worked with software for many years. If the hardware's busted, the software won't give you the right info. I'm still sticking to my original guess: fuel level measuring hardware is either the wrong one or malfunctioning. Maybe they put in the wrong tank. Who knows??? Let's see what happens.

 

[wahlstrom1]

I'd run it until it sputters once, recording how far you go. You'll have a baseline figure to work with and go from there.

The way the level sender rides in the tank in rangers, the fuel level will bounce around with different rake of the truck. I went from steep forward street rake, to level, to prerunner stance back to stockish.....my fuel guage was all over, sometimes 150km on full before the needle moved, and light came on before E, others opposite and everywhere in between.

 

[trader007]

my 99 xlt 4x4 has a 2 gallon reserve with a 15 gallon tank. 17 gallons overall. this information is gathered from about 7 years of driving this thing. when my gas light comes on, i got 2 gallons left. the guage shows just a little bit above flat E before the light comes on. for as old as my truck is now, im very impressed with how accurate the fuel guage is.

and running your engine until the tank runs dry just to "suck up all the crap" at the bottom doesnt make any sense. the fuel is always sucked up from the bottom of the tank, thats how youre able to run when its almost empty. if you have dirt in your tank, then youre going to have to pull the tank off and drain it/clean it.

 

[Bryan101]

my 99 xlt 4x4 has a 2 gallon reserve with a 15 gallon tank. 17 gallons overall. this information is gathered from about 7 years of driving this thing. when my gas light comes on, i got 2 gallons left. the guage shows just a little bit above flat E before the light comes on. for as old as my truck is now, im very impressed with how accurate the fuel guage is.

and running your engine until the tank runs dry just to "suck up all the crap" at the bottom doesnt make any sense. the fuel is always sucked up from the bottom of the tank, thats how youre able to run when its almost empty. if you have dirt in your tank, then youre going to have to pull the tank off and drain it/clean it.

How much dirt is in a 2010 or just a 2005 or newer gas tank lol... and on top of that all the newer vehicles that ive seem have duel filters so thats not the issue... It sound like a prob that we at Volvo are having with our P3 cars but urs is not as bad... Our cars read full and then cut off with no gas in them. But we have to replace the whole tank because its impossible to replace the hardware inside with out cutting open the tank. But this doesn't sound like your prob. And yes if you check the resistance they all match up just like the prob your having.

 

[adsm08]

Well, I tried to pull up the D&O from the shop manual, and in a case of epic fail Ford didn't put one in for the fuel indication systems.

 

[feellnfroggy]

I have a 1993 ranger and i was blown away cuz I financially HAD to run it down tothe wire one time, afterward I put just over 18 gallons in it. It ran almost 75 plus miles after I hit "e" I thought we only had a 14 gallon tank, but I guess not.

 

[barrys]

Supercab has a 19.5 gallon tank and regular cab has a 17 gallon tank.

Thanks for all of these responses and do keep them coming. I'll have to just get to know it a little better to have more realistic numbers for all of "e" on the guage, dash idiot light on, and really out of gas (which I'm too much of a wusse to really do). If I think something really is screwed up, I'm hopeful Ford will take care of it.

 

[wintermute]

I've noticed that the fuel senders in newer vehicles are in the rear of the tank, which results in the engine getting every last bit of fuel if heading uphill…not so much downhill, but at least you can coast! (Observed in my '03 Ranger and '05 Impala)

I've only had the "Check Gauge" light come on once in the month and a half I've had my Ranger, and that was after parking it on my sloped driveway, nose down when I was pretty near the empty line while on flat ground. Once I pulled out to go get gas, the needle came back up and the light went out. – I still got gas though…