NewHilux.net

Hi all,

Did anyone else end up on the side of the road this morning? It was roughly -7*C overnight at my place, and I left for work at about 5.45am. I tried to fuel up in town at 6am but the diesel bowser was frozen! I only got another 10 minutes down the road before I must have sucked the last of the "liquid" diesel & starved the motor.

I don't live in an alpine area nor am I in Tassie, so I don't have alpine/winter diesel available in my area. It's obvious the 'normal' diesel got so cold that it separated/gelled up, given the extreme conditions at the moment.

RACV bloke took the discharge line off the priming pump & primed until it spat out liquid diesel, then re-fitted. Next, he put about 10L of slightly-warmer diesel in the tank (I'd gotten close to "zero" when it died, meaning I'd gone through 60L). He then fired up the Hilux & let it idle at 1200rpm for a few minutes, which it did fine. Job done, or so I thought: I only got another 500m down the road when it conked out again, so it went to the dealership on a towtruck so I could borrow a courtesy car to get to work.

Basically all it needed was to warm up enough for the diesel to normalise again. On my way home tonight though I noticed that the Distance To Empty meter read zero (or out of range?), despite having 1/4 in the tank (the needle also indicated 1/4). Needless to say I'll call the dealer tomorrow to have it checked out.

I'm just wondering, as well as whether anyone else had their Hilux die this morning, if anyone on here is familiar with how the DTE gauge works & what could have upset it?

Cheers

Dave

Mate, I'm in Sale and had no issues. If anything was going to go wrong today was it though haha.

I ended up on the side of the road between Sale & Kilmany actually!

The DTE fault cleared when I refuelled this morning. Cheers

Two things which might shine some light... Here's a lesson not to let your tank get too low, especially when it's cold... More fuel in the tank is less likely to "freeze" than if it's nearly empty, I make a point of filling if below half.

Also if this DTE is the same as previous models, it doesn't always reset unless you completely fill the tank, if you just add 10ltrs the system doesn't always see what you added. If you fill say 10ltrs to take the tank from 3/4 to full the DTE doesn't reset all the time, but if you fill from empty it does.

Hope this helps

mcflux wrote:I'm just wondering, as well as whether anyone else had their Hilux die this morning, if anyone on here is familiar with how the DTE gauge works & what could have upset it?

Your DTE gauge is working properly. There's a whole thread about how crap it is in this car. Apparently empty light turning on at 1/4 tank left is a "feature". I have a 2017 hilux and have never put more than 60L in the take. I fill up when the empty light turns on.

Older models did the same, if I add 10ltrs when low fuel light on it stays on til I fill the tank even though I know there's an extra 10ltrs in there.

Gipsy - good point with the low diesel being more prone to freezing, I'm sure that if I had more than half a tank I would have escaped this issue. I'll be more cautious through winter!

Gipsy + aedeau - Thanks for the DTE-failing-to-register info, to be honest I had never noticed an issue with it previously as I always fill to full, obviously a wrong conclusion in my case. The inaccurate DTE/needle has bugged me since I bought my Hilux last year, I routinely fill somewhere between 50k's til zero, & 50k's beyond. Filling up for me is usually a 20km detour, hence why I usually get to zero despite "20L" remaining. I understand there's a risk of stirring up crap in the bottom of the 80L tank by letting it drop too low. The most I've ever put in the tank, which had it spilling out the neck, was 67L.

Cheers

Dave

Dave, I would have thought the winter blend diesel would be in Gippsland's service station by now, since you are on the Alpine way! Also avoid bio diesel if you can, although you never know nowadays because the suppliers are not required to tell you provided it's under 5% (I think?) Bio has a tendency to gum up at low temperature.

If you're worried about crud in the tank you need a pre filter, only water I ever got was in the united at bairnsdale! Prefilter is a must if you can't trust your fuel supply. Shouldn't be any crud in your tank this soon unless you filled up at the above! I have one and always check before and after filling and any time i open the bonnet so I know where I got it! It's worth opening the fuel filter drain and purge it once in a while.

I primarily fill up in the Sale/Traralgon area (NOT United!), maybe my last batch was a substandard or non-winter blend? I typically fill at BP servos for the Velocity points haha.

I'll get on to a pre filter or a 2nd filter one day - the wife's been nudging me on sorting this out.

United is not too bad, just my experience with that one! I do suspect a tanker had just stirred it up before I got there. BP great especially if you get velocity points. At least you would know where you got the water/grunge. Get the pre-filter just for peace of mind, and make the wife happy Happy wife.... happy life! doesn't hurt to use Fuel Doctor to add to your tank, cuts all the water/sludge problems.

Fuel level has little to do with the wax separating out of the diesel. Have had it happen in a tractor with 100 LTS in it. Also takes a fair bit of warming to get it to go back into solution. Had to syphon it out of the tank on tractor and 3 days later the fuel still had wax floating in the 20 ltr drums we drained it in to.

I had a similar problem a few days ago, temp got down to -4.5c, had the fuel system light come on, vehicle didnt stop. Later that morning i pulled the plug on the fuel filter to reset the warning and it hasnt come back on.

Add some kerosene to the fuel to stop it freezing