Evening all,

bit of a strange one and wonder if anyone else has had this before.

I filled up with fuel a week or so ago as usual and didn't travel that far last week. gauge was reading just above half full - all normal - then I went out in the car and saw the gauge showing just above empty. trip computer suggested about 50 miles to empty.

strange I though as I didn't think I had used that much fuel... went on my way for a day or 2 (only down to the station car park a couple of miles each way) as I would fill up on Saturday. Saturday morning came, stopped for my normal cuppa from Starbucks (not necessarily relevant to the story but hey ho) and on my way out to the petrol station I had to hoof it a bit to pull onto the main road - all of a sudden my fuel gauge went back up to half way and recalculated the distance to empty as 260 odd miles..

Do fuel sensors stick from time to time..? Anyone else had similar issues.? Ash
------------------------------------------------------
2016 SDV8 AB

Mine does this all the time, I got the details of the fix from another member (there is a TSB on this) also my Indy has offered to carry this work out for me, apparently it's pretty common and caused by the car averaging the two fuel sensors and one of them (or the wiring) being defective - or something like that.
I haven't got round to fixing it yet so as a work around I just zero the trip recorder when I fill up and refill at 350miles obviously if it was a diesel that might be 550 miles or more  Geoff

Thanks for that

As it is still an issue I need to get it fixed - Is it something I should be able to do or does it involve dropping tanks etc (and therefore go to my indy)..?

Has anyone seen any how to's out there on it.?

Thx Ash
------------------------------------------------------
2016 SDV8 AB

Having looked at RAVE you should be able to get at the sender without dropping the tank. But I would ask yourself is this something that I can live with.... one of the senders is a reasonable price... well for a ffrr that is, but the other has the in tank fuel pump built into it, and as such is silly money..... And then there is the killer bit, as far as I know there is no way of determining which sender fubar'd...... so what to do? change the £70 one and hope for the best or change the pair and turn it in to a £500 with a bit of change

Also it's not very clear if you can remove the pump assy without dropping the tank, rather hinges on whether you can remove the fuel line on the outside of the tank.  Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer... Today I are one!
Inventor of the 'Guide-o-Matic automatic wheel alignment tool'
Former long term L322 owner, Up/Down graded to a Classic Tractor!

I had this. Getting into the tank is quite easy (under back seat), although it involves fuel so be very careful - no sparks or smoking! I was able to find which sensor was dodgy - I removed the pump and level sensors from the tank and used a multimeter to read resistance across each whilst moving the float to replicate different fuel levels. The dodgy one read intermittently whereas the good one showed an even increase in resistance as the level changed. This was further confirmed by corrosion on the contacts of the dodgy sensor when I opened it up - I cleaned that off and it worked again.

One word of warning though - a few months after I did all this the fuel pump failed. Coinidence or not I don't know, but if I had to do it again I would just buy a new pump and sensor unit and only have to open up the tank once.

I had this issue recently, the MD fixed as there was a TSB on the issue, in the end it seemed there was just a loose connection. From what i understand they did have to remove/drop the fuel tank to do so. Mine is still under warranty though. 2011 5.0SC Santorini Black
2009 5.0SC Santorti Black - Been stolen.
Had
2.5 DHSE P38
Alfa Romeo
BMW

kezbo1981 wrote:

I had this. Getting into the tank is quite easy (under back seat), although it involves fuel so be very careful - no sparks or smoking! I was able to find which sensor was dodgy

Just 2 points the OP is showing a TDV8 in his profile..... so he should be able to extinguish a King Edward in his tank without any repercussions, except it will make his cigar taste funny, so not recommended

And which sender was the dud? the one with the fuel pump or the one without? Just wondering if the pumps demise might be related to the sender fix...... In which case would it not be better to replace the dud rather than try and fix? Yesterday I couldn't spell Engineer... Today I are one!
Inventor of the 'Guide-o-Matic automatic wheel alignment tool'
Former long term L322 owner, Up/Down graded to a Classic Tractor!

I had the same problem. I allways try to fix things before i go and buy expensive parts. I fixed it by letting tank run to a qurter empty and then testing each sender unit resistance by moving the senders arms up and down. Realised it was nowt to do with the senders. Was just a bad connection on the blue wires inside the tank. No problems since and is been about 6 months.