Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Fuel Gauge Jumping Around...

Just recently my fuel gauge started jumping around wildly.

For example, in the course of driving to work today, I saw swings from on E, to 1/4 tank. I've seen the effects of driving on a hill, and these are much more dramatic. Can someone explain where the sensor is in the tank and what could cause this?

Thx.

Could be the fuel just shifting in the tank, mine does that, but mildly. Yours could be the sensor might be bad.
I got a similar problem, my guage read half tank yesterday, (I filled it up Tuesday, I think, and well last night it read in between quarter tank and half tank (closer to quarter tank (toward full mark) and I thought WTF. I got home parked it in front of the house in the road, (yesterday) it read 1/2 tank, then a few hours later (5 maybe) it read almost 3/4 full. Weird, it was sittin in the same spot too the whole time didn't move. Anyone have any ideas on this too?

Also this happened before too, it read past the empty mark almost thought I was gonna run out of gas (no gas station for miles) got to where I needed to be, got in my car to leave it read 1/4 tank left. Read that all the way back into town and I filled it up right away.

Do you know where the sensor sits in the tank, or how it reads the gas level? I'm just worried I'll be on the way to work and all of a sudden my gas light will pop on....

I don't know any of that, if I did I'd see if mine were bad cuz I think mines messed up. Do you reset your trip odometer? If so and you know roughly how many miles to the tank you get just go by that and don't worry about it, thats what I'd do. Or just take the possitive (?)(I think that's the cable to reset the computer) cable off the battery and reset your computer and take it for a drive around the block and see what it does.

I'm just throwing out ideas here, so of course they COULD be wrong.

a few things:

the fuel level is read by a floater in the pump assembly within the tank.

The PCM reset would fuses 4 and 11 in the BJB (battery junction box). This is the same as pulling the battery cable, but adds the benefit of not losing your radio presets. (4&11 are the KAM [keep alive memory] fuses)

It is not uncommon for the guage to read an 1/8 or so higher after parking the car. 1/4 tank while driving may be as high as 3/8 once parked for a while, and you turn the key back to on.

I agree with using the odometer to make sure you don't go too far.

Ray