First glitch in almost 10,000 Km's of wonderful driving. Fuel gauge gone AWOL

[Wile7]

As it says. On the autoroute and noticed it had gone to 'zero'. Hmmm.

Stopped, put some fuel in just to check and all back to normal.....then it went to zero again after about an hour of autoroute driving. Just checked before hitting the road and it is now back to normal.

Air lock? Electrical gremlin? Who knows....anyone else experienced this at all?

Dave

[KenONeill]

I'd think electrical. If it was mechanical, including a failure of the rheostat that drives the gauge, it would tend to stay broken.

 

If you have a trip computer, the next time the fuel gauge zeroes unexpectedly, check the "available range" mode immediately.

[cnc]

Sounds about right seeing as you have a 3.6 petrol, you should be used to the gauge going to zero very quickly when on the autoroute!!!.

 

Seriously though, maybe its just the sender unit gone awol.

[chimaera]

Sorry to dig up an old thread but I experienced something similar to this over the weekend. I knew I was getting close to the end of the tank so I was keeping more of an eye on the gauge/range than normal when I spotted that the needle had dropped to empty and the range was showing ----. A restart got things back working but it's come and gone a little since. I haven't had time to do a VCDS scan yet so that might shed some light on things.

 

My thoughts at this point are electronic malfunction given that it comes back when the car restarts; or loose wire to the sender and the computer is masking it. It might be that the computer doesn't reset the gauge needle even if the sender reconnects (due to a frayed cable for instance) but will restore normal operation on a restart.

 

I'm open to suggestions here.

[KenONeill]

After re-reading the thread, those are the sorts of lines my mind was working along.

[Wile7]

Hi gents - since my original post I've had no problems since......bizarre.......

Dave

[chimaera]

I had forgotten about this issue until I went poking at the instrument cluster with VCDS for other reasons. I scanned it anyway and got the following:

 

                Address 17: Instruments       Labels: 5K0-920-xxx-17.clb
Control Module Part Number: 3T2 920 941 K    HW: 3T2 920 941 K
  Component and/or Version: KOMBI         H05 0607
           Software Coding: 411F01

2 Faults Found:

9460251 - Covering for fuel level indicator sensor 2
          B105A 1B [008] - Resistance Too High
          Intermittent - Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
             Freeze Frame:
                    Fault Status: 00000001
                    Fault Priority: 2
                    Fault Frequency: 27
                    Reset counter: 214

9459739 - Fuel Level Sensor 2
          B1058 1B [008] - Resistance Too High
          Intermittent - Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
             Freeze Frame:
                    Fault Status: 00000001
                    Fault Priority: 2
                    Fault Frequency: 1
                    Reset counter: 214
                    Mileage: 120014 km
                    Date: 2054.14.11
                    Time: 14:34:05

 

The problem hasn't come back since, so I'm going to chalk it down to weirdness somewhere and drive on. Anyone with insight into those faults is welcome to offer suggestions.