2008 Cadillac CTS: Low Range? Like, No Duh.

wow even the smart has that
sad gm...

I imagine it states "Low Range" instead of "xx Miles to Go" because of legal reasons. I could see GM being sued by a moron who drove his car down to ".1 Miles to Go" yet running out of gas.

Mercedes does this too at least for their E Class. I think it is not useful as you don't know when you are out of gas. It might be the next minute or maybe in an hour.

take into consideration that a lot of idiots live in this world...

I like how the brake warning light has its own little gauge tunnel, lol.

Ditto on the useless "low range" idiot message.

Hey, here's a crazy idea, put gas in it. Problem solved.

I swear it is just like they are borrowing Dad's car and if they can avoid gassing it up then all the better.

Just how accurate are the ones that do the count down? Maybe modern cars are better but years ago I parked a car that was getting low on gas only to find when I went to start it that it wouldn't start because the road slanted off so sharply to the right that the gas had moved away from the pickup tube. It took 2 gallons of gas before it would fire up.

Even if nobody sued them they probably get tired of having people complain in the service department that "it said I had 5 miles left and I only had 4, Fix It!"

Press the reset button on the trip computer. It'll go back to telling the actual range till E.

-Cj

I'm with Estreka: Looks like the lawyers made this decision.

Somewhere, I hope the lady who burned herself with coffee in the McDonald's drive-through is happy. This is all HER fault! Because of her, we live in a litigation-happy, liability-fearing society. A pox on her, whoever she is.

It sounds like autoboy has the answer. I'd like to see some followup as to whether this is true.

On a side note, this blog entry reminds me of some recent entertainment by a trip computer. Gas light came on, so I punched up the countdown. 18 miles worth of gas, 20 miles to home. A few minutes later, 17 miles of gas, 18 miles to home. Then 16 miles of gas, 12 miles to home. Then 15 miles of gas, 7 miles to home... well, you get the idea.

Wow Scott. You are so wise. You're smarter than all of GM's engineers put together. I'm sure they were worried about the silly idea that counting down to 0 might not be accurate and some idiot would actually try to depend on that to get every drop of gas out of his tank, because you know gas is expensive and if you don't use it all between fill ups you just waste it or something. Clearly you have invented some miracle equipment that is 100% accurate down to the last yard and you have discovered a society of people who think rationally.

I know of two types of people who don't realize you simply put gas in the car before the gauge hits E: Edmunds editors looking for any complaint they can make against a domestic car, and my friend who also has her tires set to 20 psi and uses her trunk to store wet laundry for a couple months at a time. Great company you're in there.

GM probably doesnt address it because its not a problem. It stops calculating miles remaining in the tank once you get below a certain level of fuel so you dont take the reading as gospel and postpone getting fuel. It's not rocket science. It's funny that you guys honestly think GM should be scrambling to address any issue you complain about. My car does the same thing and it's a non issue. You know you need to get gas anyway so what is the point of knowing you only have 15 or 20 miles of range left?

"You'd think GM would listen to me and address this obviously growing problem."

Wow. You think pretty highly of yourself.

My car (Mazda) gets wildly inaccurate once less than 30 miles of fuel is estimated. In order to mitigate false readings, GM vehicles simply tell display "get gas now you moron."

PS: I wouldn't recommend any car company take what Edmunds editors say to heart.

This is a chick thing. Every girl I've ever dated needs more than just a low range warning. The gas gauge is as useless as the tachometer or oil temperature gauge for some.

In my opinion, the best solution would be a guy who would pop onto the hood and jump up and down until the tank is refilled.

Gatta love em though!

Wait, we need a solution to this: If autoboy is correct, then GM has already employed the solution and Scott's comment is ignorant whining and not RTFM educated :)

But honestly: I don't think this is a lack of a feature, I think this is purposefully designed. What exactly is the point of driving down to 0?

I mean, you are doing bad things to your fuel filter at that point. Your car will start to have problems when it's below a certain amount of gas and you accelerate briskly or cornering (i've had fuel cut when almost empty and taking sharp turns as the fuel in the tank moves away from the pump).

And it's really not that accurate. It's the equivalent of stock speedometers at 150 mph....or tachometers at redline for that matter (I know my 06 Civic SI tachometer, at least on similar SIs, have been reported to be ~150 rpms off at 8200 rpms).

Joe

Personally, I find the use of digital readouts to be largely a useless distraction. Also, the disparity in illumination is hard on the eyes, as are the deep binnacles. Why not a simple, clean display designed for quick information relayed to the driver? Answer: gizmos impress people in the showroom.

There is a lot to like about this car, so I hate to nitpick a car I want to be succesful. But on the topic of guages, I also dislike the clunky lettering, hash marks, and scale GM uses. It's the same style found on a Jimmy. A little ergonomic artistry here is worth many crome bezzels and binnacles.

Let's say I'm leaving work and I didn't realize I'm running out of fuel. Just before I'm about to get on the highway, the fuel light comes on.
I've already passed the gas stations and going back to them will involve either U-turns or searching for someplace else.

On the other hand, I know that I live exactly 9 miles away from work with a gas station right off the highway at my exit. If I have a normal gas range countdown telling me an estimate of how much gas I have, I'll be able to keep going for the station near my house. If it just says "Low Range" I'll be forced to either risk it or go to the hassle of unnecessarily searching out that gas station.

This happens to me and my girlfriend frequently since we don't live that far from work. Having the low range estimate is a handy, convenient tool. It isn't fool-proof, but there's a big difference between the range saying 30 and 2. "Low Range" is useless.

Let's say I'm leaving work and I didn't realize I'm running out of fuel. Just before I'm about to get on the highway, the fuel light comes on.
I've already passed the gas stations and going back to them will involve either U-turns or searching for someplace else.

On the other hand, I know that I live exactly 9 miles away from work with a gas station right off the highway at my exit. If I have a normal gas range countdown telling me an estimate of how much gas I have, I'll be able to keep going for the station near my house. If it just says "Low Range" I'll be forced to either risk it or go to the hassle of unnecessarily searching out that gas station.

This happens to me and my girlfriend frequently since we don't live that far from work. Having the low range estimate is a handy, convenient tool. It isn't fool-proof, but there's a big difference between the range saying 30 and 2. "Low Range" is useless.

Yes, our new blog comment software sucks long and sucks hard. I just love accidentally posting the same thing twice. My apologies.

Why is it still employed?

By the way, I love the new frontpage layout more than any of the other changes in the past 18 months. The front page now is much more usable and....the older version would stay cached in my machine. I'd go in day after day and see the new articles....until I cleared my cache.

Now, it auto re-updates every time. Love it :)

Joe

J-Riz - My car has a low fuel light when it's down to "2 bars".....I know my car well enough to judge how long I have when it hits "2 bars" based upon my driving style. I can take it down to, probably, about 5-10 miles left on the tank. I know it's safe to drive without any bars for ~10 miles (that's when I'm white knuckle and sweating) in a conversative fashion.

I see the reason for it to count down to say 15 miles. That's about a 1/2-3/4 of a gallon left. But after that? You are going to be getting fuel cut outs from the gas moving around in the tank....you are way too low anyway.

Joe

This is not an issue for me. When I get near a quarter of a tank, I get nervous and put gas in it.

When I was young, I played the run it down to zero once. I wound up pushing a 5000lb car 10 miles to town. I'm never doing that again. I probably couldn't do that again.

Maybe they should replace the words "Low Range" with "Get Gas NOW Idiot"

Do you really need a range down to the last mile? You're talking about ounces of gasoline at that point. No gas gauge is going to be that accurate. Anyone driving their car with gas that low isn't playing with a full deck.

Low Range means get ready to start walking if you don't get gas right now.

jriz,

Give me a break. If you own a car you figure out how much fuel (approx) is in your car when the warning comes on. Its pretty simply. I know that my car has at least 2 gallons left by the time the needle hits "e" and my "low fuel" warning message comes on. A distance to empty reading isnt going to help me much at that point and if its not 100% accurate I dont see the point anyway. The trip computer stops providing range once the low fuel warning starts. The the car gets 15mpg you know you have about 30 miles left. Bottom line is you probably should be getting gas soon. If you live 10 miles away and have 11 miles of range left (assuming it's accurate) why the heck would you drive all the way home without refueling? You may not even have enough gas to get from your house to the nearest station at that point. I dont know many folks who are willing to run their cars until they have 5-10 miles of range left even if they had the ability to get an accurate range reading.

When my wife and I are driving in our Subaru Legacy and the trip computer range display goes from "50" to "--" it might as well read, "start fighting now."

Don't know about the CTS, but on a 2000 Buick it basically works as Autoboy said.

Who would trust any "miles to empty" count down? Miles would depend on the way you drive.

As a 2008 Enclave owner with a similar system, I can vouch that the Gallons Used readout is much more useable and highly accurate.

Whenever I get low on gas I always fill the tank completely and reset the guage to zero. Thus when the readout tells me I've used 21.7 gallons of gas, I know I'm pretty close to fumes since I have a 22 gallon capacity.

I've been using this for 14 months, and the actual amount of gas put in the car is always within 2 tenths of what the guage tells me I've used. I'd guess that nearly 50% of the time the readout is spot-on and matches what the pump says.

I think the key is to completely fill the tank each time. I never top off so I'm confident I'm filling the tank to the same level with every fill-up.

No car can accurately predict how many miles are left as the car does not know if you are driving on city streets and are about to get on the highway. It has no way of knowing what driving conditions you are about to encounter that will make you adjust your driving habits and change your mpg.

It can tell you exactly how much gas is left in the tank. That's all you need to know.

Wow Scott and Jriz, and its people like you that make engineers waste time on creating stupid reminder lights like your fuel filler cap isn't on. Way to go America!

I know you guys don't personally own the cars, but I really don't see the reasoning behind not filling up. It's only hurting the vehicle for the long run.

"Wait, we need a solution to this: If autoboy is correct, then GM has already employed the solution and Scott's comment is ignorant whining and not RTFM educated :)"

Has anyone tried that yet??????

"Press the reset button on the trip computer. It'll go back to telling the actual range till E."

I couldn't find that in the owners manual (online) but I did get a kick out of the solution they listed:
"See Filling the Tank on page 5-8" :P
maybe I can send the Edmunds 'owners' the copy of page 5-8.

Wow. Some of you don't seem to like Edmunds' car commentary that much. If you don't like, you don't have to read. On the other hand, I love that they have all those cars to test and have this blog.

I would like to say that a "low range" light is just about as useful as an old school "low fuel" light. Meaning it's a good thing. Years ago, my mother just about shouted for joy when she found out our '85 PLYMOUTH Voyager had a low fuel light. She never ran out of gas, yet it didn't tell her how many miles left. She just knew to go to the gas station.

Then we got an Aerostar. It didn't have a low fuel light; just a gauge. She seemed to run out of gas once every couple of months before she learned to finally watch the actual gauge. My truck and car also have low fuel lights and I know what kind of mileage they average. So when they come on, they basically mean "low range" and I know pessimistically how far I can go. (I also use the trip meter to each time as well) When the low fuel light comes on, it means find a gas station. There is enough gas to get to a station, but not enough to make any serious road trips.

So I don't see the point of having a actual mileage indicator, especially when gas gets that low. If your're dumb enough to try and run the car out to the last mile of the indicator, then you deserve to run out of gas in the middle of the freeway...

If the "low range" light comes on at a consistent level of fuel left and you know how much gas is left when that light comes on, also assuming you know what your average mileage has been for the vehicle, then you should know approximately how far you can go and hopefully it's to the gas station.

Low range... Hmm another cost cutting measurement. I know, the computer readout is somewhat inaccurate at times and it can change drastically when you are standing on a not so level surface. But still, I am laughing cause my 15 year old 5 series have a countdown readout all the way to zero. How hard can it be?

Wow, the CTS must really suck if it doesn't give a countdown on range all the way to zero. Or maybe (like others have said) that a range calculation at that level of gas may be inaccurate? No, a BMW & VW show it so it must be accurate. (right) Hey e34bmwlover, why don't you try it out for us and run your car out of gas just so you can prove the "superiority" of BMW engineering? I'll try not to laugh too hard while you get your fuel pump replaced at, oh, say $1000. But you proved your point....

C'mon, Edmunds; this is pretty lame. When you are between 1/4 & 1/8, fill up the damn tank!

Hey, lets remember the CTS doesnt have many demerits so they have to find something to complain about. Meanwhile the M3 is getting service every other week and they can hardly come up with any complaints about the ownership experience. I guess there is an unofficial rule that if you don't complain about something it would be intepreted as bias. I can see complaining about the CTS' rear visibility but not this. The only way the CTS could really be a disappointment is if it wasnt reliable but so far it has been so as far as I'm concerned its a nearly flawless luxury car.

The funny thing about this ridiculous complaint is that if the computer were to inaccurately display miles to empty below 30, you people would still be crying. I can see it now: "This just shows how far GM and Cadillac have to go before they can be considered a true peer to BMW/Benz" This is a case of a no win situation for GM. The engineers know how dumb American drivers are and this blog post further confirms their rationale. I hope GM flashes the computer to continue to APPROXIMATE miles-to- empty below 30 so one of your editors gets stuck on the freeway with no gas. Well, at least you'll be able to test out OnStar so you can post a complaint blog about its uselessness.

Wow - a lot of angry people out there...

I will say that both my Hondas have the same feature - but they really cut costs and just put an amber LED there... I don't feel the need to know exactly how much gas is left, but I could see the benefits. It could be the difference between stopping in a sketchy part of town or going up a couple exits to a safer station. It could mean being able to save a couple of bucks on gas - hey, every little bit counts, right?

I agree with others that it's probably GM's way of saying - "get gas now instead of trying to eek out every drop, you doofus." It would be cool if you push a button to override the message for a few miles (letting it display how many miles are left).

Not likely. It makes little sense to count down to '0'. I've had vehicles that did this before, and while cruising a short stretch of interstate, watched it go from 20 miles to 5 miles in about 10 seconds as I hit traffic and had to change speeds.

The whole reason to get gas before it stops reading is that it's TOO unreliable a readout below a certain level- traffic conditions and driving style can make the distance a 1/2 tank or less of fuel goes vastly different from one instant to the next.