On 26/01/2020 15:39, Clive Arthur wrote:
I put some petrol in the car today , not much about 10 litres.

It didn't seem to register on the gauge, that's a bargraph with limited
resolution but even so that was strange.Â* Stranger still was that the
'miles to go' figure didn't change either, it stayed on about 90 miles.

I've never seen that before but I usually put more in, albeit
infrequently, it's not used much.Â* The only difference today was that I
parked at the pump on the 'wrong' side because the garage was busy, and
wasn't close enough to get the nozzle in fully and it was upside down.
The petrol did go in the car and not on my feet.

I had assumed that the fuel gauge was a float on an arm jobbie, but
maybe it's more complicated.Â* Any ideas?

It's an 04 Citroen Xsara Picasso.

The next day the 'miles to go' was still 90 miles and I commenced my 100
mile round trip journey.

Up till about 30 miles, mostly motorway, the miles to go crept up to 130
miles, then started to decrease. Of course, this figure does often
increase a little depending on the changing MPG, but this amount was
quite unusual, as if I was being topped up by an invisible tanker as I
drove, which I suppose can't be ruled out.

Anyway, I got home with 80 miles left which is about right for that journey.

I do like that old car. One of the passenger doors stopped locking for
about a year, didn't matter much, then it fixed itself at the same time
as the various dashboard messages decided to change to German.

--
Cheers
Clive