26 April 2009

The Idiosyncrasies Of My Car's Fuel Gauge


A strange thing happened to my car's fuel gauge the other day. I topped up about 11 litres of fuel to full tank. Usually after a full top-up, the fuel gauge would show 8 bars, i.e. fuel tank full, after I restarted my car. However that day, it showed only 7 bars.

Not knowing whether it was my fuel gauge's fault or the petrol station trying to cheat me, I topped up the tank again the next day. This time, I paid $10.00 (about 7 litres of fuel) before the tank was full. To my great surprise, immediately after I started my car, the fuel gauge showed only 6 bars this time!

I began to think that if the number of bars displayed in the fuel gauge kept dropping every time I topped up the tank, soon my fuel gauge would show less than "3/4 tank filled" even when it was actually full. Alamak! Like that how to go Malaysia?

Lucky for me, I am not a regular visitor to Malaysia so I have no reason be worried. In fact, I have not visited Malaysia for many years be it for cheap food, cheap petrol, cheap groceries, cheap cigarettes, cheap haircuts, cheap naughty massages or pirated DVDs. I don't see the need to shop in Malaysia because whatever I wanted, I could get it in Singapore. (Yes, even naughty massages and pirated DVDs although they may not be as cheap as those in Malaysia.)

But perhaps what is even more fortunate is that the fuel gauge is now back to normal. Sigh, I guess that's part and parcel of driving a cheap "non-luxury class" continental car. What I didn't realise until now is that how a seemingly innocuous problem with a fuel gauge could affect something like one's visit to Malaysia.

9 comments:

Icemoon said...

Victor, care to share what was the real problem? Hardware (fuel gauge)? Or fuel tank?

yg said...

victor, these days, they don't stop you to look at your fuel gauge; they hardly check at all. i have heard of people who take advantage of this situation by going into jb with an almost empty tank.

Victor said...

Icemoon, I am not sure but I think it could be due to an electronic fault of the fuel gauge. I don't think my fuel tank is leaking.

Victor said...

YG said: these days, they don't stop you to look at your fuel gauge; they hardly check at all...YG, that may be true but I also heard of a few people who got caught for installing a by-pass switch which when activated, had the fuel gauge showing full when it was really empty.

Don't play play with our authorities.

Stefanie said...

Hi Victor, I'm a young aspiring screenwriter and I was led to your blog by my crafty googling skills while searching for info on Fighting Spiders. I would like to contact Andrew Ngin about it, any chance you could pass me his email address? I can't seem to find his contact info anywhere else. I'd appreciate it so much, thanks! stefanie.wee@gmail.com

Victor said...

Hi Stefanie, I have passed your message to Andrew Ngin.

Victor said...

Oops, I got a "mail delivery failure" notification for the mail I sent to Andrew. Perhaps he has terminated his email account. Suggest that you try writing to Mediacorp, Stefanie.

Sorry, I can't help much.

Unknown said...

Hey you should get a car with a more "retro" style fuel gauge with meters and all lah... haha :)

Victor said...

I guess you are right, Walter.

Still enjoying your stay in Australia, I guess?