Doug18

Ok, so I was freaking out a little bit earlier today on my way to the beach because my fuel gauge was dropping at a rate of about 7.5-8 mpg. I had replaced my drive belts earlier today so I initially thought that I may have forgot to re-connect something but after a lenghty search that turned out to not be the case, everything was as it should be. So I continued to drive and figured I would just bite the bullet and pay the premium this time and dig into it tomorrow after class. However, on the return trip I stopped to refuel because the gauge was reading just below 1/4 of a tank, but surprisingly it was full to the cap at just about 7 gallons and I had actually gotten 18 mpg which is about on par for over 20 miles of beach driving. So now I am baffled as to what could be wrong with my truck. Any ideas?

wyoming9

iTrader: (1)

Just what formula were you using to calculate this fuel consumption by the movement of your gas gauge??

I would have to make a guess your sending unit is on the way out

enapa

Isnt a known common issue that the gauge tends to fail on the third gens? I know mine doesnt work.

Doug18

Just from previous experience with calculating mpgs (I calculate my mpg every time i fill up using odometer reading/.92(correction for tires) / Gallons I feel it is fairly accurate because I always fill the tank up to the same level

so I was able to look at how many miles I had gone look at the tank reading and roughly estimate that my fuel mileage was 3/8 of what it usually is

Doug18

Hmmm did not know that ... mine has been pretty darn accurate before this episode

enapa

I read it somewhere but cant remember where. From what i read the only way to remedy the situation is a whole new cluster. I resigned myself to just using the trip meter. The weird thing is that it reads correctly when tank is full.

Doug18

Yea it is odd I figure the sending unit is just bad I may replace it someday if I feel like wasting some cash ... and when I wrote this thread I was under the assumption that the fuel float was a hollow plastic one like I had seen on other vehicles not a foam one so a crack would not affect it. lll just count the miles like I did on my truck in HS would be sweet if I found someone that made a fuel consumption gauge like the ones they have for diesel that tells you exactly how many gallons you have used