Ever since I've had Walter, his fuel guage hasn't worked. If you fill the tank it will read about half full for a few minutes, and then after a couple of minutes the needle will disappear down out of view again. It reappears occasionally (never going past half way), especially when you turn a corner. If it reappears when you corner, it only comes up for a few moments.

Bloody thing is playing hide and seek!!!

So obviously I'm getting some signal, sometimes, but it's ridiculously inconsistent. Can someone give me an idea of how to start diagnosing this???

Thanks!

Welcome to the International club of Vws with faulty fuel gauges. population: 6 million.
I had the same problem in my beetle so I pulled the fuel gauge from the back of the dial and replaced it with a nos one(I think). It worked fine until about two weeks later when it too switched to fuel tease mode. Now it's a real guessing game trying to figure out how many miles the tank has left in it. It seems volkswagen built these things to be replaced often(like fuses).
Anyway, might just be my bad luck, so good luck to you.

My twin cab goes from full to empty in about 100klms and I get about 300klm from empty until it stops. I have given up on the petrol gauge and just keep a log book.

Apparently you need to remove the engine to get to the petrol tank in twin cab utes. I figured it's not worth the trouble and keep a couple of litres of petrol handy should I miscalculate how much fuel I have left.

Good to hear I'm not the only one with a dodgy petrol guage.:bounce:bounce:bounce

Pull the lead off the fuel tank sender and
ground it somewhere (make sure its a claen good ground...).

Does the gauge read full? If so you have a grounding problem where the wire is connected to the sender or the tank is not earthed to the body (normally separate wire for this....)

If gauge didn't read full the gauge or the sender (most likely) is faulty.

RobK

As jboy82 said, some are good, many are bad. Aussiebug, lucky you!! My '73 bug with 150k km from new has had the send replaced twice now and is still not accurate (I haven't bothered trying to fix it).
Check the sender, which is the usual problem. It is quite simple in operation. All you need is a good gauge, sender, earth, power & resistor (I assume that's what it is on the back of the gauge) and it SHOULD work fine.
I upgraded to a Kombi with a trip meter, so I don't care how well the gauge works.

Yep, I've been living in log-book land too! Only I keep the numbers in my head instead of somewhere sensible like a notebook. 300km to a tank and I never run out of petrol - if I try to stretch it any more, I have to try remembering how many hills I've gone up that week.

RobK - If I pull the wire from the sender to ground it, do you mean at the fuel tank end (which I can't access without dropping the engine/cutting a hole/ dislocating my shoulder), or do you mean at the dashboard end? (Please say dashboard, please say dashboard...)

If it turns out to be anything but the bit behind the dash, I think I'll leave well enough alone.

The bit that really got me, when I first got the car, I noticed the guage had a reserve area. Thought "yippee!!!" - harder to run out of fuel. Then discovered that VW stopped putting in reserve tanks but couldn't be bothered changing the dial on the fuel guage. Lazy sods! :P

Oops! Just noticed I really can't spell gauge....

when I bought my kombi it was below empty and I thought the fuel guage didn't work, so I drove it around a week without putting any petrol in it. Then I decided I better fill it up, and it cost just over $40 to fill it!. the guage went straight up to full. Now I go down to empty in about a week of driving, and it costs between $18 and $20 to fill once it's topped up after a day of sitting on empty. Sometimes it goes to E and then flies back up to half full when you go around a corner. Kinda fun in a way.

Welcome to the Oval world. We didnt even get a fuel gauge. Just a reserve tank lever that's too far away to turn when you are on the move, and an electrical system thats too weak to crank the engine long enough to suck the reserve fuel through when you run out when stopped.

Grey 57, you need some more practice with your foot work!!! Then just hope you go on reserve once you have a bit of speed up, that way you can get running again before you come to a stop hopefully.


[Edited on 5-3-2003 by Andy]

MY SC has no guage & it's reserve is got via a pull out knob like your manual choke. I seem to remember my being able to kick my oval beetles over as soon as they coughed. The other half had trouble but she was a bit short in the leg department! If it's a real issue, you could rig a generic manual choke cable to do it without having to drill any holes in the dash etc. Or, if you're running an auto choke engine (shame on you if you are!) you could use the existing manual choke hole on the dash, the generic cable rigged to the reserve tap and with the knob changed over for appearance. There isn't much wrong with the reserve fuel concept- motorcycles are still using it. The problems arise when it's hard to switch over. BTW, I concur with RobK re-earthing. In most cases with guage problems, I have fixed them by running a sep earth wire up to the sender & connecting it to one of the sender mounting screws. The mounting of the tanks seems to be a conflict of interest- they seem to be mounted with a bit of flexibility & padding in mind which does not lend itself to a good earth connection.

[Edited on 5-3-2003 by geodon]

Quick(and maybe silly) question,

When trying to fix volks fuel gauges, is it possible for any current to travel back through the sender wire and cause sparks in the tank if it's not grounded or connected properly?