gas needle would drop a little everytime i take a sharp corner then it would go back to normal, what could be the problem?

 

does it only do it with the tank at like 1/4 full? the sensor that checks the fuel level inside the tank is likely the culprit here...

 

well it does it all the time, it doesn't matter how many gas i have it, where would such a sensor be located

 

it's located inside the tank. Is the fuel level accurate, otherwise?

 

yeah once I'm driving without cornering it will take it's time an return to it's normal position, I've ran out of gas before because the low gas light doesn't come on, it came on once, and that's when i was having my fuel injectors clean while the car was running

 

run a bottle of Techron in the tank, or do the TC-W3 additive for several tanks, get the internals cleaned up a bit and see what that does. Read the TC-W3 sticky in the fluids/lubricants section of the forum.

And don't let your tank get so low that the idiot light comes on. That's bad for the fuel pump.

 

cool I'll try that Thanks

 

I think it's safe to say that this is a first.

 

This one time, when I was at band camp...

 

The problem is you don't have enough gas in the tank. Fill it up and I bet you the needle won't do that when you turn.

 

mine does this too. 1/4 tank or not, it does it every time. My gas light has never worked since i have had the car.

 

It could be that on the sending unit, the arm with the float has some side play and the cornering force during a turn makes the contact for the potentiometer lose contact.

The low fuel light could be the sensor on the sending unit is bad, or maybe its plugged up and can be cleaned.

 

OK I got to look into this

 

Pretty sure it's just the gas sloshing around in the tank. The forces acting upon the car are moving the gas all over the tank and around the float so the float rises or drops depending on the fuel level adjacent to it and sends that signal to the gauge. Reason why the gauge (in my case) reads high when the car is parked on an incline or low when parked and one side is lower but then levels out when the car is driving on a flat road.

 

Yup. As the fuel move from side to side, the level changes and the float level changes accordingly.

Normally the needle is slow to respond (ECU or BCM controlled) for this very reason.

 

Exactly, seems to be somewhat a normal thing, the fact that it returns doesn't seem to indicate a problem, you can replace the sending unit on a guess but may be a cluster bcm issue as stated. Few hours of diag at a reputable shop with a scope. I'm sure you'll fine the problem...let us know

 

Fast down, slow up.

This has been a symptom of my 96, 99 and 03. Same goes with my friends 96, 95 and 95.

If you're in it to win it you can loose up to a 1/2 a tank (Roadcoursing)

My 03 can lose up to a 1/4 of a tank from a dig.

 

Seems like it's just the gas moving around in there but if I were you I would fix gas light problem ... Seems common the inconsisten needle seems to be correlated with the gas light not working .... But that's just from reading this thread.. I'm by far not a mechanic... Just seems odd