Car makers are deliberately building instrument panels that lie, in order to save cash.

Melodramatic? Not if you’ve been caught out by the dreaded electronic fuel gauge, merrily showing two chunky bars (a quarter full, say), only then to plunge to a single flashing bar.

Confidence to distress, in the disappearance of a pixel block. And it’s all because electronic fuel gauges are compulsive liars.

How do they work? They represent fuel fill as solid blocks, rather than as an analogue indication. When a bar disappears, it’s because the fuel level has fallen to that level.

However, here’s the key bit: the fuel display REMAINS at that level THROUGHOUT the decline in level. It may be showing ‘3 bars’, but at any one moment, you could have ‘2.9 bars’, ‘2.5 bars’ or – most likely – ‘2.1 bars’.

In other words, the fuel gauge will always be saying you have more fuel than you actually do.

Some might say I’m being pernickety here. After all, few fuel gauges are entirely accurate. Besides, common sense would have you filling up WELL before you reach a quarter of a tank.

But how many of us have such common sense? Certainly not motoring journos. Most of us grew tired of filling stations a long time ago. We’re in ‘em all the time: quarter of a tank clearly means there’s 200 miles (or more) in the tank.

Not if it’s an electronic fuel gauge there’s not. Chances are, a colleague’s been out in the car before you, and nudged it right to the limit of the bar’s display. Get in, drive it 200 yards, and your tank will be transformed from amply-filled to running on fumes. FEW things are more annoying.

It can be solved by fitting more granular fuel displays, made up of much more individual bars. A Volvo or Mercedes-type display, rather than the lumphammer 6 bars/95-mile/trip-home-and-back-difference of some Toyotas.

However, it can also be solved by taking a step back. We stick to analogue speedos because they’re more easily read at a glance. Same for rev counters. Such logic applies to fuel gauges too, car makers. Please stop the trend to digi gauges.

After all, it’s not as if you’ll be making them for much longer.

+ How to make a motoring journalist happy

+ Volvo man gets cool

+ VW Golf dials in extra speed