Chrisd346

Ok I seem to have a haunted fuel gauge. At times the needle will be at the half mark, i'll stop somewhere for 5 minutes, restart the car and it will read full! It goes like this on a regular basis but while car is running acts normally, so to speak.

Anyone got any idea of the cause? Is it more likely to be the clocks or sender? I have located the sender under the back seat but I dont think it will come out through the hole, will it?

Only my 3rd day owning a Ford so appreciate any help you guys can offer.

Thanks, Chris

Chrisd346

I carried out the test for the clocks. The rev counter and speedometer both work fine. The fuel gauge then goes up to the level its currently reading. Does it sound right? How is the fuel level in the tank measured, is it a float on the sender unit?

mwade2012

the sender has a little float on the end of an arm that move an electrical contact along a coil of wire and as the arm goes up and down the resistance through the coil changes. the fuel gauge interprets the resistance and moves the needle accordingly. i had my fuel sender/pump go on my focus and unfortunately there was no access under the rear seats of boot and i had to drop the tank out after i fitted i had the same symptoms as ur describing and i thought i'd just bought a dodgy sender unit but it was pumping fuel through so i filled her up and after a few days it settled down and now works fine.

the fuel gauge shouldn't really go as its not exposed to any real wear or tear where as the sender is especially if there's been water in the tank at some point. for the sake of £45 i'd just swap out the sender. hope this helps.

Chrisd346

Thanks mate!

I have filled it a few times now to see if it will sort things out. Its still a little jumpy but better than before. I will probably just get one from a scrappy though as you say, i'd rather have the peace of mind of knowing exactly what I have in the tank.