After putting $15 of gas and then attending my granddaughter’s soccer game, I went to leave the and the low fuel light was lit with the gauge was pegged below empty. I stopped and put in another $10 of gas, but that wasn’t the problem. Is this a minor, mid-major, or major ($300) problem?
Pour a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner in the truck with a full tank of gas. It will clean off the fuel sender wiper and let the gauge work again.
If it doesn’t work, just use the trip odometer and fill it up instead of putting $15 in at a time. Re-fill it when it gets to 200 miles.
The gas gauge was not working on my 2000 Blazer the last three years I had it. I suggest you fill up each time you get gas and track the mpg over several tank fulls. With an 18 gallon tank I could drive ~275 miles in the summer and 250 miles in the winter (with a ~3 gallon reserve) between fill ups. The only time I ran out of gas was when I did not fill the tank the last time I got gas.
My memory is a little vague but I believe the sender unit is part of the fuel pump assembly and would have been an expensive repair. This was a known problem with GM sender units of this era.
Ed B.
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Add a couple of bottles of GM Fuel System Treatment Plus.
https://www.acdelco.com/auto-parts/vehicle-maintenance/fuel-system-treatment-plus.html
It’s formulated to remove sulfur deposits from the fuel level sender that causes fuel gauge malfunctions…
Tester
If you’re still on the original fuel pump, that’s going to go out sooner or later also. I’d just replace the sending unit and pump and be done with it. The parts are only $100 or so but it’s a fair amount of labor taking the gas tank down.
That plus a tank of the high dollar gasoline did the trick. Thanks for all the suggestions!
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