fuel guage isnt going up even when i just put £20 unleaded in...

firestorm4th

firestorm4th

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my fuel gauge is stuck on reserve and slowly going down, i just put £20 worth of fuel in and on the dashboard it still says i got 15miles of fuel left...

i drove it around too see if its stuck but now it says i got 10 miles of fuel left, ive no idea what could be wrong :/

also my reverse lights suddenly stopped working and have a constant "air bag" message on the dash

can anyone shed some light on this matter?


thanks
 
Last edited:
The fuel gauge issue could be the sender, may just need a clean

The reverse light could either 2 blown bulbs or the switch on the gearbox (easy change)

Airbag light - no idea, possible fuse??
 
under the rear seats i think bud. not 100% sure though. it is on most cars, under a circular plate.
 
Just fuel prices im affraid!,joke!,yea its under the rear seats!
 
If I put £15 in my car in but do it in 3 £5 pumps my fuel gauge doesn't recognize it and the gauge and trip reading stay the same as before but if I put £15 in at once it shows on the gauge lol
 
Umm, I just dont think that the ECU is clever enough to detect 3 £5 pumps been used. Why would you go to a garage and use 3 different pumps just to put £5 in your tank from each pump, I must be missing something lol

DC
 
The guage/cluster tries to be clever, and smooths out small changes, in an effort to stop the guage shooting away up or away down like you'd get on older cars if you parked on an incline.

If you brimmed the tank does the gauge correctly move round to full?

I hate petrol stations, and the cheap one is a fair drive from here, so i tend to always brim the tank. End of the day your going to put the same amount in over the course of a month whether you brim it or stick 4 lots of 15quid in each week.
 
DenCar said:
Umm, I just dont think that the ECU is clever enough to detect 3 £5 pumps been used. Why would you go to a garage and use 3 different pumps just to put £5 in your tank from each pump, I must be missing something lol

DC
Click to expand...

Well I found this out when I had something silly like 5 miles left on the trip and the closest station was an ASDA one, so put £5 in just to get me across the city to get to a Tesco to put in the 99 ron. So chucked £5 in started the car and I still had 5 miles. So got back out and put another £5 in and then still had 5 miles left on the trip and the gauge hadn't moved either. So I thought s**t and put in another £5 haha and then boom I had 90 miles of range or something. Just thought it was strange to be honest.
 
ok im in a bit of a pickle now :(

im in the middle of sorting our the fuel problem, i lifted up the back seats and saw the big circular plate and saw another really small one but it was covered in dust, as i went to clean the dust off it suddenly fell through the hole... ive no idea what hole that is but it doesnt look good :(

as for the sender, ive opened the circular plate and saw alot of wiring with some plugs of some kind, which one is the sender exactly? anyone have any pictures because ive googled it with no luck
 
audi upgrades
ok heres the one behind the driver seat under the rear seats:




and the other behind the passenger seat:




ive managed to get the rubber lid out the small hole using chopsticks :D

oh my car is an S3 2000
 
Last edited:
the one behind passenger seat is the sender. its all one unit. give the plugs and pins a good clean up. also the black disc around the egde should screw off enabling you access to the inner part. if im correct. only ever taken one apart on a cooper s. and looks exactly the same. fuel senders arent really common to fail as there always clean...but the level sensor can stick. just give the fuel tank a knock with a rubber malet...usually does the job at work.

hope it helps
 
ok ive managed to get the whole fuel sender out and saw the level stick so i gave it a bit of exercise work with the key in ignition to check if there is any response on fuel gauge, the gauge only went up to half tank if u pull the level stick all the way and the whole sender itself looks really clean so im not pretty sure what is exactly wrong, could be the sender faulty?
 
I did a write up on this somewhere, you can strip the float arm off the sender and get to the circuit type board. You can clean the contacts up and check the small arms that go up and down the contacts. then rebuild and it might be ok.

Its tricky to get out isn`t it lol
 
well after a couple of days filling up, the gauge just miraclulously started working again... and its been working ever since :D
 
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