what is an alternative way of checking my car's fuel level if the gauge is broken?

Answer 1

You can use your Trip odometer. First determine your range on a single tank of gas. You can do this by filling up and writing down your mileage, then filling up again around 100 miles later, and dividing the distance by the gallons purchased. For instance, if you traveled exactly 100 miles and used 5 gallons, 100 / 5 = 20 miles per gallon.

Next, look up that capacity of you tank. If for instance it is 12 gallons, multiply that by your mileage to get your range. staying with the previous example, 20 mpg * 12 gal = a range of 240 miles.

Now, each time you fill up, reset your trip odometer to zero. For my example, driving 60 miles would leave you with 3/4 of a tank, 120 miles with 1/2 a tank, 180 miles with 1/4 tank, and at 240 miles, you'd be sucking fumes.

Rather that trying to translate miles into fractions of a tank though, just take your range, and multiply that by 0.8. When your trip odometer reaches that number, it's time to fill up again, and reset the trip odometer! For the example 240 * 0.8 = 192 miles.

Answer 2

Get a piece of metal tube (one half inch diam.) about a foot long and put it thru a wood block or other clamp so that it cannot fall into the filler neck, but will hold open the inner flap through the filler neck. Remove and clean you cars longest dipstick (engine or transmission) . Put white wax on one side of the dipstick and insert once into the tank to the bottom. Remove and check where the wax has dissolved off in the gasoline. Make notes and do this again after adding some gas, say two gallons. This will give you an idea of scale. Clean the dipstick again before replacing it in its normal use. Except for some industrial machines, few vehicles have rectangular easily calculable shapes.

Answer 3

I don't know of any exact alternative measuring method. However, if you know your car's fuel tank capacity and its MPG, you can estimate how many miles you get from a tank of gas. Let's say you car gets 400 miles on a tankful. Fill up with gas and reset the trip odometer to "zero". At 200 miles, your tank will now be approximately half full. This process will keep you from running low or going empty until you can get the gas guage fixed. Hope this helps.

Answer 4

Go fill the tank, and when finished subtract the amount of gallons just purchased from the total number of gallons the tank holds. That's how much gas you had before the gas station.

Answer 5

Fill up the car. Write down the odometer reading. Subtract the current reading from the fill up reading and see how many miles you have gone, and divide this by the mpg.This tell you how much gas you have consumed.

Answer 6

No other way of checking it without dropping the tank.If your car has an orange light that comes on when it is low.Fill up everytime that comes on.
If you live in america just fill it up everyday.Fuel is so cheap there it makes me feel sick lol.

Answer 7

Drive until the car stops running.

The tank is now on empty.

Pour one gallon of gas into it.

It now has exactly one gallon

Answer 8

Not that I know of. Change the fuel sending unit.

Answer 9

just reset your trip odometer at each fill up go 200 miles fill up again