gas guage problem - 2001 lw300

Apr 25, 2004 2 Replies

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tom 22 years ago

Hi all,

I have had a strange problem crop up over the past 6 or 8 weeks. When I park my car, a 2001 lw300, in the driveway, if the gas guage reads less than

1/4 full, the car won't start. The slope of the driveway is very gradual. I am not on a hill of any sort. In the past, I was able to park the car and start it, even if the fuel light was on.

If I add about .5 gals of gas, the car starts right up. It doesn't matter if the tank is 1/4 or even about 1/8 full, just that little bit of gas makes the difference. As I write this, I was thinking, is it possible that taking the cap off and putting it back on has anything to do with this?

I took the car to the local Saturn dealer to have it checked out. They checked the signals coming from the sensor and did not find any problems. I bought the car new in Sept of 2000.

Any ideas?

thanks, Tom

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Dana Rohleder 22 years ago

I went through 2 sender units in my 2002 LW300 in the first two years. Are you absolutely positive there is 1/4 tank of gas when the gauge reads 1/4, or is it possible your tank is empty, and the gauge is reading too high? My gauge would only show 3/4 tank right after I filled it. I suspect they get messed up when you try to top off the tank more than a click or two at fill-ups, but if that were the case, I would think there would be a TSB about it. Did the dealer offer any explanations??

Dana

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tom 22 years ago

When the tank is about 1/4 full, I fill it up. I put in about 10 or 11 gals. That seems about right to me. When I fill the tank, the level gauge goes all the way to full. The dealer did not offer any additional explanations. He said they could pull the gas tank, to do more investigations, but there is a $250 charge for that. For that price, I reckon I can fill it up at 1/4 for a while.

I don't usually top off the tank. When the pump shuts off, I generally stop filling at that point.

Thanks for the feedback Dana.

Tom

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