I just had one bar on my MFD totally blank. Is this a sign of trouble or is it normal . The bars after it showed the normal mileage ect. I will tell you that I was sitting in traffic for about 5 mins and prehaps that's why this happened. Maybe I answered my own question. FishHawk
If I hit traffic (some nasty dead stop traffic), I have seen a blank bar on my MFD. I think the vehicle have to travel certain distance in an interval of 5 mins to get a correct calculation.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(FishHawk @ May 3 2007, 07:23 AM) [snapback]434622[/snapback]</div> You sure did. I wish I could answer my own questions that easily!
To elaborate slightly, the MFD computes liters per kilometer and converts it to MPG for us. So if the car does not move it is smart enough to realize it can't divide by zero and just doesn't display a bar for that 5 min period.
The same thing happens if you cut the speed sensor wire for the BT and install a switch. If it's switched Off for 5 minutes, there'll be a blank bar for that period. Once I wanted to to finish listening to a radio program after I had parked, so I left it in Ready. By the time the program had ended, I had a blank bar too.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tumbleweed @ May 3 2007, 10:43 AM) [snapback]434716[/snapback]</div> I had this blank bar happen at the car wash the other day. The question is does the 0 MPG factor into the overall tank or is it just a 5 minute perios without any data?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darken @ May 3 2007, 08:27 AM) [snapback]434749[/snapback]</div> Since MPG calculations do not include time The blank bar for 5 min should not effect your MPG reading. In other words the bars are MPG per unit of time and the MPG does not use time at all. So it will include the fuel used and the MPG calculation will still be accurate. Of course if you are using fuel without moving, or while moving slowly, it will decrease your MPG readings as you would expect.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darken @ May 3 2007, 08:27 AM) [snapback]434749[/snapback]</div> If the ICE runs and consumes gas, it will factor into your tank's MPG. This past winter on a couple of very cold mornings I "pre-warmed" my car by leaving it running in driveway (yes, I locked the car with the little mechanical key in the fob to be safe). This *really* dragged down the MPG for that tank. Then I switched to a hair dryer on an extension chord, hanging from the rear vision mirror. It's a *much* more energy-efficient way to pre-warm your car interior. (I had previously used the hair dryer pre-warming trick on my EV, which had *no* heat of it's own)
