I have a 19 Signature and love everything about my vehicle. A minor annoyance is that the low fuel indicator comes on with quite a bit of fuel left in the tank. I get being on the safe side but I'd like to know how many miles I can get from a full tank. Anyone have an idea how many miles are actually left in the tank when the low fuel light comes on?

 

Not sure about this but both our Mazda CX-5 and VW Golf have plenty of fuel left when the indicator comes on. Definitely they want to err on the safe side.

 

It seems many vehicles do that. Even my old Tahoe, which got about 18 mpg, would let me drive at least 80 miles after the light came on. I know that because I had to do that once.

 

The in-tank fuel pump requires it to be immersed in fuel to help keep it cool and not overheat & burn out.

 

Not hard to determine for yourself. The next time the low fuel indicator comes on, fill your tank up right away. Note how many gallons it takes to fill. Subtract that amount from the capacity of your tank. Now you know how many gallons are left when the low fuel indicator comes on, right? I'm betting it will be VERY near two gallons. What is your fuel efficiency? 25 maybe 30mpg? Multiply your mpg by the number of gallons left and, like magic, now you know.

 

There are to many negative possible effects to running your fuel tank below 1/8 tank. Why do it? Just to know on one day with the exact set of all circumstance to use in computing exactly empty fuel tank.

It is more practical to get in the habit of filling your tank when it is 1/2 full and keeping a full tank when ever possible then the opposite. And no you are not going to lose MPG with the extra 54lb s of fuel.

 

Thanks for the input folks! Not one of those to push my luck and have never run out of gas. Average about 28 mpg highway so I'll go with that.

 

I have the same model and love it just the same but noticed the same thing. In addition to the low fuel light, as part of the information displayed in the dash, in the area of the speedometer, it can be selected to view the “distance to empty” information. That will give you the true distance to empty at any given moment, with a full tank or a tank that is almost empty. While I haven’t driven my 2019 too much this year (purchased in the summer but due to COVID, just not driving much), I know from driving other Japanese cars that the distance to empty indicator is generally pretty accurate.

 

My experience with Mazda & their distance to empty is terrible. Very unreliable & shouldn't be depended on.

Example, my old 2012 Mazda 3 would on average read a DTE of 780 - 800km when filled up, unfortunately the fuel light comes on at about 480 - 500kms. Average fuel economy of 7.8ltrs/100kms which matches Mazda's spec.

 

My old Tahoe would say there was 0 miles left and I could drive another 40-50 miles on it. Of course, it would then take 24.5 gallons on a 25 gallon tank. My CX5 is pretty darn close. As the tank gets low, it seems to adjust the mileage remaining every couple of minutes to maintain some degree of accuracy. I haven't had the stones to run it dry though.