I know what you are going through
Ok…here’s the problem. You are all a little bit off on how the fuel gauge actually works. But that’s okay because I can explain it in detail and you can thank me later.
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The fuel gauge cannot measure the level of fuel in the tank; as soon as it tries to get a reading it changes the fuel level (see
Heisenberg).
The same principle can be applied to the gauge itself, if you don't look at it, it will remain full.
The thing is the gauge is "trying" to be accurate, but being a digital thing in an analog world, it has to rely on other cues than actual fuel level to figure out what to display.
It starts by correctly reporting a full tank and figures it can get away with that for a while.
Then, it notices that you keep looking at it and figures that something's up with that; you, being an analog being must know better than it how much fuel you have left, and that has to be why you keep checking. This causes the gauge to decide that it should turn the top bar off.
By now the poor thing figures it's done its job and can rest a while, but you keep checking, and the more you check, the more the gauge feels that it should indicate a lower fuel level than the last time you checked.
Of course, the poor thing wouldn't suffer such anxiety if it were an analog gauge, it could simply move the needle a tiny immeasurable fraction of an amount and feel confident that it did its job.
As it is, the gauge reads the rider more than it reads the fuel tank. I have figured out how its mind works (I knew I was a psych major for a reason...once…but flunked out when I stop taking my meds), and it's fun to mess with the digital gauge.
I figured I had done really well when I managed to have it flash low fuel at me only one hour after filling it (I looked at the thing every 2 seconds), but I recently outdid myself: I looked at the gauge so much, that I managed to cause it to indicate empty BEFORE I had even filled it up......
In your case….if you don’t look at the gas gauge you’ll never see a malfunction.
