Today as I was driving my Max when I noticed that my gas gauge needle is behind the stopper thingy!! I mean when I start the car the needle hits the stopper from the other side. This just happened today because I filled up yesterday and it read a full tank. How do I correct this? The rest of the gauges are working fine, can I disassemble the bezel and move the pointer to the other side? If so does someone have instructions.

Thanks

Mike

 

Yaar, dealership warranty?

 

You know, I am never the guy who says "this thread is worthless without pics," but this is pretty funny and I am dying to see a pic.

 

the Tach in my grandmas Ford Taurs did this, but i have no idea how....i'm interested to know how it happens

 

I will take a picture today and post it. I don't know how it happened, but Ido remember going over a large speed bump earlier that day, maybe it giggled!!

Mike

 

My car has over 80K on it, the warranty is dead and buried. It will come from my pocket.

Mike

 

I know how you feel, I have almost 90 thousand miles on the car. How far to you live from I295?

 

About 1 hr 45 minutes.

Mike

 

Check this out, I stopped by the stealership today on my way home from work to get an estimate on the repair of the fule gauge. They quoted my $250 for new bezel and $260 to install it.
The kicker is that the technician said he could probably fix it by disassembling the unit for $400 but he couldn't guarantee the work. I was laughing so hard I almost cried, I told him I would live with the busted gauge before I paid that kind of money for a repair. Also I would have to leave my car at the dealership until the sent the new gauges off to be reprogrammed with my odometer readings, he said 3-4 days. Stealerships wonder why people attemp repairs themselves?

Funny!!!

Mike

 

Hi Mike. I'm not sure if my post will be helpful. Anyway, here's my story.

Like 4 months ago i bought a used cluster from CAN. It arrived in great visual condition , except one thing. The gas needle was at the same position like yours at the moment. Probably that happened during shipping... Never mind.
So, i simply removed the bezel and pushed back that needle gently and everything worked fine... Yeah, almost everything, but that's another story...

BTW, you can find how to remove the cluster in the FSM.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the information, I have the FSM on my computer and it seems pretty straight forward. The stealership made it seem like they would have to disassemble the car to repair it. The FSM says remove the bezel covers and 3screws then unplus the gauge cluster. I will attempt this repair tomorrow, I will let you know how it turns out.

Mike

 

Yeah it's not that hard to to remove the cluster. Here's a TSB for a similar cluster(needle) issue, so you can see a step by step instruction in there.
http://www.linkmypdf.com/pdf/13964/3b150ce4/

Just be careful, when removing the cluster bezel. It has approx. 6 plastic clips(clamps), which may get broken very easily, if i remember correctly.

 

Still in for pics...

 

The outrageous costs of repairs is probably mostly due to the outrageous overhead running a state of the art shop and the high wages paid to the guys who have to do all these complicated repairs.

 

brio max.. Thanks for the link, I removed the cluster bezel today and fixed the fuel needle. It was easy to remove, only took like 20 minutes to do. I hope it does swing back over again, if so I will fix it again before I pay the dealership almost $500 to do the same job I did in my driveway.

Mike