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Hi all,

I received an SGii yesterday as a surprise gift from a friend. I'm incredibly excited about it.

I am working on calibrating it, but have a few questions in the meantime:

1) I P&G a lot on my commute. About half the time on the Glides, the SGii shuts off. The other half, it stays on. I set the fuel for "hybrid" as Wayne suggests. Any ideas on why this is happening?

2) My MPG reading goes to 9999 when I'm idling. The TPS reads 0 at that time. But shouldn't there be a TPS value above 0 while idling, since I'm using some gas? (I set my cutoff to "4" since my TPS at idle is 0).

3) I set the SGii up to display TPS, LOD, MPG and VOLT. Is there a better initial setup? Is average MPG more helpful than TPS, for example? Also, what am I looking for with the VOLT reading? I suppose I should be making sure the battery doesn't drain too low on the glides?

If you have any other suggestions for how to get acquainted with my new toy, I'm open to them.

Thanks!

1) Are you turning the key back to ON once the engine quits?
2) Try adjusting cutoff so that doesn't happen. The "tps at idle plus 1" is a starting point, not an absolute.

3)
- Volt is useful if you do a lot of FASing, especially at night with headlights. Otherwise, not very useful. I start worrying when mine gets down to the mid 11's, and start nice-on coasting instead of fasing.
- I'd use average mpg. Mine is the older one that doesn't have trip average on the gauges screen. I usually leave it on the Current screen only, and sometimes click over to gauges.
- instant mpg is critical.
- lod is a good one. I'd say it's more useful than tps. I use gph sometimes, too. Pulsing at 1.5-2.0 gph is a good range for my car, which idles at 0.3 gph.

1) Are you turning the key back to ON once the engine quits?

Yup, I key it off, wait about a half of a second to a full second to let the RPMs drop, then I key it back on for the FAS. Perhaps I'm leaving it "off" too long and the SGii is getting confused?


2) Try adjusting cutoff so that doesn't happen. The "tps at idle plus 1" is a starting point, not an absolute.

I'll play with it, though it seems that this would have the opposite effect. Moving the cutoff higher would only increase the time I am in the 9999 range, right? I guess I am suspicious most of all that my TPS reading is 0 at idle -- maybe that's the root of it.

I also just read in another thread that for some cars, the Tps reading is nothing more than a reading of the % depression of the gas pedal. If this is true for me, then I can see why it is giving me Tps = 0 at idle, even though that is not true. My sense is that it doesn't really matter in the end if this is the right explanation, because (1) the difference between 9999 and another large number, for a short time, is small, and (2) the SGii probably doesn't calculate average MPG as a sum of instantaneous MPG over time, but rather as total miles driven over total gas (i.e., total air) used. That is, even if TPS reads 0, the air flow at that time is NOT zero and therefore my average MPG would still be accurate. Make sense?


3)
- Volt is useful if you do a lot of FASing, especially at night with headlights. Otherwise, not very useful. I start worrying when mine gets down to the mid 11's, and start nice-on coasting instead of fasing.
- I'd use average mpg. Mine is the older one that doesn't have trip average on the gauges screen. I usually leave it on the Current screen only, and sometimes click over to gauges.
- instant mpg is critical.
- lod is a good one. I'd say it's more useful than tps. I use gph sometimes, too. Pulsing at 1.5-2.0 gph is a good range for my car, which idles at 0.3 gph.

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I drove in the dark so maybe I'll save Volt for winter. Thanks for the quick response and the tips.

You might try setting the PIDs to SUPPORTED instead of ALL. That can sometimes cause the SG to turn off in some vehicles even though the fuel is set to HYBRID.

You might try setting the PIDs to SUPPORTED instead of ALL. That can sometimes cause the SG to turn off in some vehicles even though the fuel is set to HYBRID.

Novice question: what does "PID" stand for, and where is the option located? I'll try it this afternoon, since my readings are all messed up otherwise. It seems that the SGii is not actually taking data when I am FASsing, leading to my commute varying in reported length every day because of the different FAS distances. That's obviously a huge problem.

Thanks for the help.

Novice question: what does "PID" stand for, and where is the option located? I'll try it this afternoon, since my readings are all messed up otherwise. It seems that the SGii is not actually taking data when I am FASsing, leading to my commute varying in reported length every day because of the different FAS distances. That's obviously a huge problem.

Thanks for the help.
Parameter ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs

From the SG troubleshooting section, MORE>MORE>MODE>PIDS>SUPPORTED>SAVE

Parameter ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs

From the SG troubleshooting section, MORE>MORE>MODE>PIDS>SUPPORTED>SAVE

Didn't seem to do the trick. Any other ideas on settings I can change? It seems to stay on if I do a really quick ignition off and on, but when i do that, sometimes the engine doesn't actually cut off. Is this just a technique problem for me, an SGii setting problem, or a my-particular-vehicle problem?

Thanks again.

I have a similar problem with my kia spectra, haven't figured out how to fix it. Usually, I haven't been FASing so I have a better idea of my tank FE. Although if I push the button to turn it back on, the current trip MPG drops for about 5 seconds as if my car were idling. Kind of annoying knowing that it is never really accurately giving me proper data. I filled up yesterday and had a 31.5 mpg calculated average, but the SGII tank data read 25.6...