Fuel Gauge Not Lighting All The Way UP

RandyD

meh - as soon as i get to half a tank - i go top it off.. (generally)

roy'sz

normally when i top off +1 gallon it won't lite up but when i leave work at 12a.m. it is lit. I can go approx 80 miles before it extinguishes depending on how full it was when I left work and if i vary my driving mode. At 120ish is normally when it distinguishes the 2nd led light. But, being that I stuffed the hell out of my car, first light came off at 98.7 and 2nd came off at 150. I sit now at 302.4 with one lite above the half mark.

Augustus

Interesting. I don't get 100 miles on the first dot. More like 50. Half a tank for me is about 200 miles on the highway. I just filled up an hour ago with 15.6 gallons; 332 miles on the tank & 3 dots lit. I guess my gauge is calibrated a bit differently. It seems pretty linear, other than this one incident a couple weeks ago.

I've dealt with crazy gauges before... I used to have a Solstice GXP. It's gas gauge would stay pegged on F for the first 200 miles, then drift to three quarters by 250, then half by 275, then at any time thereafter it'd just fall to "E" with nothing in between. Crazy.

roy'sz

no its just that i take about 20min in my garage to fill another 2 gal. I commute 500mi a week and don't feel like gasing up in the middle. Plus im babying the throttle

spoolio

looks like I'm having the same problem now. second time in a few months. 1st time I had just filled the tank, left the station and it only read a half tank...pulled into the next station to top it off but was already full. went back to normal after jostling around a bit at an autocross.

now it's happening again. filled it up yesterday before an event, on the way home it registerd zero LEDs, was flashing the warning light at me telling me I only had 125 miles to go, then thru a CEL?!? Tried restarting a few times, refilled today, read/cleared the CEL (misfire) and still having the same problem.

I'd bring it to the dealer but quite frankly I've been 4 times in the last 2 months and 2 days just last week (for a separate issue) and don't feel like going back any time soon. Hoping it starts working properly before my 19 hour road trip in a few weeks!!

ukmastermind

Do let us know what happens.

Sounds like you have a much more complicated/serious case than just a defective Fuel Sender Unit (e.g. CEL)

*My new sender unit has been working well for 6 months now....knock on wood

Cmike2780

After a few months now, my last light still doesn't light up after filling up, but it's gotten slightly better. The cluster replacement didn't really fix anything obviously. The 2nd start after filling up shows all of the LED's lighting up, so I'm just going to let it be for now. I just don't trust that guage anymore.

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[09][MB][6-Spd MT][Touring][Stillen Gen III][K&N][Borla CBE][Evo-R]

crazyyankfan

After a year and 3 months of my 2011 Z, it finally happened yesterday. I thought this only happens on the 09' model. Anyway, the last light came up after I drove around today. So weird...

Cmike2780

The JX has a somewhat similar issue and was issued a recall. With all these incidents, I think we should report it to at least have Nissan's attention. If you've had a fuel guage issue or the issue with the car stalling with low fuel making a turn, please go to the site below and fill out the info.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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[09][MB][6-Spd MT][Touring][Stillen Gen III][K&N][Borla CBE][Evo-R]

crazyyankfan

But now it's gone. Could be just a glitch. I will see if it re-occurs.

Cmike2780

It's gonna come back on your next fill up. I thought the same thing.

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[09][MB][6-Spd MT][Touring][Stillen Gen III][K&N][Borla CBE][Evo-R]

rudi

The only fix is to change the fuel sender. It happened to mine

crazyyankfan

Crap...you're right. It just happened again on my next fill-up.

Do they need to open up the interior panel to fix this?

Huan'z

Same thing happened to me. And show them a proof and they checked it out. The fuel sending unit was bad. They ordered the parts. Will call me to come back and have it replace. Took 3-5 days for the parts to arrive. They also need almost empty tank before bring it in. What I did is filled it up. (topped off) with the receipt indicate when I filled it up and told them how far the gasoline station from the dealer. I have no choice because I went there last couple of weeks but the result was normal. So there's no evidence or proof that showing it was bad.


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spoolio

update to my situation:
brought the car in and was told the sending units were bad and had to be replaced. So I paid to have that done.

Then ended up fuel starving on the highway (after getting off a right hand exit ramp) because apparently the gauge was reading that I had more gas than I did.

Returned to dealer and they said they screwed up the grounds on the connectors.

Problem occured again...brought back in and this time found that the gas tank baffle was compleletely snapped off and has been floating around in the tank!! How in the hell does that happen?! And why didn't they notice this the first 2 times??

Was given an outrageous quote to get a new tank put in. I argued that the $600 I spent on the sending units, which apparently were fine, should be credited so they knocked that off but it's still over $1k.

But the more I think about it the more I think this should be covered by Nissan. I might be at 50k miles but this is not a wear item. This is not something that should ever break on a car. Planning on talking to the dealership today so we'll see....

edit: Called dealership, was told to call Nissan Consumer Affairs to get a case started. Did that and should have their solution by COB tomorrow. Fingers crossed!