How come when the gas?

Question

gauge on a car is somewhat broken, sometimes it works and other times it doesn't? How does it work?

Answer 1

The sending unit is in the gas tank. It moves up and down and is part of a variable resistor. The resistor will get bad spots on it and as the arm slide up and down it will "find" a bad spot and your guage will stop working. USUALLY...sometimes the anti-slosh module behind the instrument cluster will go bad, but what your describing sounds like the sending unit.

Answer 2

There is a float in your gas tank. It probably gets stuck, and sometimes is shaken loose when driving.

I always use the TRIP odometer as a backup. Every time I buy gas, I fill the tank, and reset the odometer. I know that my car can go 300 miles from fill-up, so I will never run out of gas.

I did have a car, where the gas gauge always read high. Again, I used the odometer to tell me when to get gas. But I always assumed that I could go 320 miles with that car on a tank full. But that turned out to be too close. Twice, while I owned that car, I pulled into the gas station, just as it ran out of gas. In both case, the car rolled right up to the pump.

Answer 3

Before I would go all out and yank the sending unit out, I would check the ground wire first. I have found this to be the problem more times than not. But, that is not to say that there is not a deeper problem, but this is an easy fix if it is the problem.

Answer 4

My gas gauge would go all haywire - 2000 GMC Jimmy - took it in - the sensor was broken - simple fix!

Answer 5

The float for the sending unit may have a crack in it and is full of gas. It has happened to me before.

Answer 6

there is a guage sensor in the gastank , it tells the amount of gas that is in the tank , if it breaks its a easy fix , 30 bucks tops , pop the seal and the line out of the tank and there it is its a easy fix