Does your fuel gauge Lie?

[Matbmx1]

Alreet guys,

Just a quickie im sure my fuel gauge is a lying bastard as it seems to drop in huge amounts sometimes when im sure it hasnt actually used this much gas,

basically what i want to know is this a known problem on E30's?

Matt

Ps 318i before anyone asks which model

[Theo]

I had a 318i which had a hugely dishonest fuel gauge - when I bought the car it sat happily at half way, I drove down the M1 about 150 miles, and all of the sudden, just as I got in a 'no hard shoulder section' the fuel light comes on

Nursed it 20 miles to the next serivices!

[Steve-E30]

I go out in mine and often come back empty , Does that count

[Mahmood]

Mine fluctuates pretty wildly every now and then and then settles down.

I tend to trust the OBC more

Anyway, I only drive about once a week so I have a rough idea of what should be in the tank.

[ad318i]

mines been sayin full tank a lot lately and sometimes itll drop down to what i acutally got but manily stays at full!!

[m3ben05]

Mine's a lying bastard! I only use the OBC now.

[blingsta]

i know that an e30 325 doesnt fill up on £20, mine does!!!!!! im not brave inuf to check if the reserve light works, but when it goes too far down for my liking, i fill it up and it only takes £20. but gauge shows 3/4 way up...

[hammoj28]

Im pretty sure mines a lying little bugger too! Sometimes i wonder if theres a leak but theres not. I park the car and im pretty sure when i get back in theres less in there! Seems quite random sometimes.

[cass1_5503]

mine definatly lies the gauge could be on the red mark for 100 miles before the petrol light comes on

[e30bmlover]

obc everytime. it dosent lie!!!

[Silverfang]

Mine goes wild till the car warms up, then it settles down and reads alright.

[Turbo-Brown]

Yeah, mine generally starts off relatively high and then drops dramatically.

Seems to reset itself when the car's turned off though.

[Cabrio]

Common prob...often an easy fix..but need to remove dash and fix earth and go from there..even E30s suffer from old age

[miniblob]

Mine lies, but apparently it'll be the sender?

Usually shows the tank as full - regardless of how much is in there!! Occasionally it will show the right amount, but the light always seems to come on at the right time still!!!

It's on my list of bits to get done - you busy Stu?

[Ant]

tighten the gronund screw i the inst cluster, normally works a treat.

a new fuel level sender is about 5 minutes work peeps, no excuses for running out.

[stuartgallafant]

says what it wants to say really! sometimes i'll be driving it and look down and see its dropped by loads. then i'll stop the car and get out and whatever, then go back to the car, start it, drive off, and it says something else!!!

[M5pilot]

You think your E30 ones are bad! You want to see how much an E34 one lies!

Once under 1/4 it shows no fuel at all when there is a good £25 in there.

Sal

[hairypete]

hehe, well everything in myine lies! the fuel gague stays up above half for ages then drops off to reserve in like 2 miles, but the obc does the same thing, even cruising with the mpg meter sat at 30 ~ 40 ish mps today i was watching the remaining distance display on the obc and it was just like watchin the seconds dissapear! and that was without bootin it! i tend to rely on the fact that it needs fuel after 180 miles, no matter what anything else says

[Project_E30]

tighten the gronund screw i the inst cluster, normally works a treat.

a new fuel level sender is about 5 minutes work peeps, no excuses for running out.

Where is the ground screw located??



Also when everyone is saying trust the OBC are you trusting the amount it says you have left (in litres) or the milage it says you can do??

[320Touring]

You think your E30 ones are bad! You want to see how much an E34 one lies!

Once under 1/4 it shows no fuel at all when there is a good £25 in there.

Sal

THIS!

e30 ones are a dream- as soon as the light comes on in mine, time for fuel. simple.

e34 ones on the other hand can show 1/4 of a tank and the low fuel light at the same time mind you, my dads 535i ets that much juice that £25 is about 40 miles (he keeps on complaining that it drinks too much, and I keep telling him to keep it below 130 then...)

also bear in mind that the sender is only in one location in the tank, and the level and angle of the fuel can chage, dependant on where you drive/park the car...

[EThreezero]

My whole instrument cluster lies like a junky!! ive come to rely solely on the little orange box of enlightenment to tell me i need fuel. the fuel guage itself just does what it likes but the light comes on at the right time. My speedo seems to get its info from the diff of the shuttle challenger sometimes cause i always seem to be goin 140!! but then when its in a good mood it'll tell me what im doing roughly to the nearest ten mph so its the sat nav that tells me what speed im doing. Rev counter again is law unto itself, it just simply rocks back an forth from its start to its end as does the mpg guage but it goes in the opposite direction which is actually quite entertaining when at the lights. Then theres the temp guage, ah the temp guage. This is the only one thats got balls enuf to say hey! im fooked and thats all there is about it! im not moovin and you cant make me!!

[appletree]

Sure mines wrong too! It stays at nearly full for ages then slowly drops to 3/4 then quickly goes down from there 3/4 mark to empty. my OBC doesnt work on MPG and is just stuck on at 7.1 M/G and the Range has a Minus infront of it sometimes to! needs attention me thinks. Any ideas?

[Morat]

I hate my instruments.

Speedo - now fixed.
Rev counter - old faithful (so far)
Economy meter - came back from holiday the same time as the speedo.
Fuel gauge - used to read fine down to half way and stick. After checking it all over with multimeters and cleaning the cr@p off - it now reads all the way down to zero - when the tank is still half full
Orange light of much wallet pain - yeah that one works all right. 200 miles to the tank because its running so damn rich.
Oil Pressure warning light - now fixed after scaring the shit out of me for about 3 weeks (oil was fine)
Temp Gauge - decided two weeks ago that it was going to have a mid-life crisis and take up break dancing. At first you got a proper reading under acceleration, now it jigs around at random. It's probably that earth nut thing. Probably. I'm really not that excited about taking the dash out to find out....

One glorious day I'll have them all working at once. It'll probably be the same day that the wheels fall off and I'm left driving a BMW sledge :/

[Rosc0PColtrane]

Mine lies too. Told me it could set me up on a date with that fit Gemma bird from Hollyoaks.. Date never happened!!!

Also reckoned he's sha*ged Britney too. Compulsive lying b*stard!!!!

[Falkster]

Mine always takes 50 quid but then lies to me about how long it will last!!! Im sure its selling the fuel to its mates when Im in bed!

[Demlotcrew]

Am i the only one with a working gauge then?

Andrew

[Simon13]

and me

[Simon13]

and me both work on my two

[Project_E30]

Does anyones light not come on?

[stuartgallafant]

the light has to reach the end of the red! i thought mine was broken, but i was just too scared to run it low enough!!

[JAFF]

mine lies like a cheap watch but you get use to it in the end ! depends how heavy that rite foot is and in wot weather if you get wot i mean

[delphini]

My petrol gauge is fairly accurate but i solely rely upon my obc as long as im driving in the daylight when i can see it im ok like the other fellows said the obc is pretty dead on .

[Matbmx1]

Just another quicky is there anyway to test the fuel warning light (without actually running that low on gas?) only ask becasue mine has gone right deep into the red and it has never come on so ive assumed its knackered?

[bmwe30mtech]

Just another quicky is there anyway to test the fuel warning light (without actually running that low on gas?) only ask becasue mine has gone right deep into the red and it has never come on so ive assumed its knackered?

Fuel light?! I didnt know there was one and i have run mine all the way through the red.

[Frenchy]

My temp gauge was having the wobbles on the way home from Gaydon but as posted cannot be arsed taking it out to sort at the moment as the E30 is garaged up and i am on to my Audi S4 fad at the mo.