I can watch the gas level drop after making turns, for example, a jug handle getting onto a highway. any ideas?

 

It's because the gas gets pushed away from the sensor in the tank. You should notice it more when the tank is low on gas.

 

stop going so fast on the turns

 

happens on big turns, like big on ram turns on highways. It doesnt matter if you are going slow or fast. I take mine going about 20-25 and it happens to me when I got around 1/4 left. About a 180 deg turn and it goes to about 1/8 or lower and goes back to normal on a straightaway

 

it called FLUID MECHANICS.....really tough course in college.....you see the Inertia and centrifugal force when going around a turn at any speed cause the fluid to move since it has very low mechanical grip on the inside of the tank....the movement away from the fuel level sensor will cause a momentary drop in fuel level...often this is more apparent when the fuel levels are low...and not so much when the tank is full

 

my guage doesn't fluctuate at all and takes a minute or more to go to full from empty when i fill up.....

 

Well that was a very complicated way of restating EXACTLY what I said...

 

YEA...i felt like being an a$$

 

When I had my Maxima, it never happend but with my Civic it does it every time.

 

its actually called Fluid Dynamics, fluids dont have anything mechanical to them, they are dynamic

i guess different manufacturers use different fuel measuring techniques, my first car 91 buick regal would do this the worst, every little turn, hard stop or quick acceleration would reflect on the fuel gauge fluctuating.

my 97 dodge neon never did this, and after filling an empty tank, the gauge immediatly rose, unlike the maxima where it seems to be slowly charging

used to have a 94 mazda 626 that did the same, but never fluctuated during turns, 06 camry doesnt do it either, 03 pontiac grand am doesnt do it at all

it seems like japanese manufacturers are similar and americans are similar in their own way

 

i meant dynamics

 

Problem with these arguments is... fluid dynamics, centrifugal forces, physics, and lack of mechanical grip of liquid/fluid are all laws of nature and apply to all things and beings. If this were responsible for the problem, it wouldn't be a problem. Everyone would experience it (at least all cars of similar fuel holding design). This doesn't seem to be the case:

I know my gas guage never did this in my 94, 99, or my 02 maxima. Furthermore, if the OP's car was doing it since he first bought it, he probably wouldn't all of a sudden one day think it's a problem. This means it's probably not simply laws of inertia, physics, and fluid dynamics at play, there's something else causing this to happen as well.

So either 1.)
or 2.) The measures Nissan took to counteract this effect are defective in your car.