Date:         Mon, 23 Jun 1997 23:26:59 EDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         uvx196@juno.com (Jim Thompson)
Subject:      Re: Fuel Gauge inaccuracy

Ari -

Vanagon gas gauges have a notorious habit of becoming "optimisticly"
inaccurate when the fuel level gets low and close to the red zone
(so-called reserve area) of the gauge.  Generally speaking from the
owner's manual, when the needle hits the red you're supposed to have 2.5
gallons left to get yerself to a gas station.  I've seen it dip as low as
half-way thru the red zone on the gauge.  However when the tank finally
empties out, the sender (or the gauge - or both I really don't know) has
the habit of causing the needle to slightly drift back up showing just
over a quarter of a tank of fuel left to drive on.

This has happened in my 80 Vanagon (now sold off) and I have a few other
friends with Vanagons that this has happened to as well.  When your tank
empties out (as you and maybe others have found out already), the van
starts to slow down due to the lack of fuel slowly becoming unavailable
in the FI system.  Because the fuel is used to "cool" the fuel pump,
running it dry can (but not always) overheat and destroy the pump.  An
area to be very careful as pumps are NOT cheap.

Don't always trust the gauge.  I use the odometer and the gauge as a team
to keep track of the fuel and of course the mileage I'm getting as well. 
I always fill up between the 1/4 to 1/2 mark.

I might add that the fuel gauges in my 84 Westy, 62 Bug and the following
formerly owned VW's have always been "optimistic" and never that
accurate: 67 Bus, 63 Kombi, 69 Camper, 71 9 Passenger Bus, 64 Notchback,
73 Panel Bus, 61 Panel Bus (Retrofitted with factory gauge/sender [new] -
recently seen in Hot VW's now owned by Scott Pearson/WCM), 81 Rabbit PU
Diesel, 63 Bug, 73 Karmann Ghia (bought that new) and a 59 Euro Single
Cab PU.

My 73 Toyota PU and 78 "Cheby" Monte Carlo are VERY accurate.

I'm going to acquire a 90 VW Fox Wagon this week (VERY low miles, fully
loaded).  It will be interesting to see how accurate the gauge is on it's
trip from LA to Redding.

My experience has been that the term -  fuel gauge accuracy -  in
Volkswagens is an oxymoron.

My .02 worth

Jim
84 Westy 2.1 * 62 Beetle (Father was orig. owner)
Sherwood Automotive * The Old Volks Home (oldvolkshome1@juno.com)
(916) 221-5342

On Mon, 23 Jun 1997 16:35:04 -0500 Ari Ollikainen <ari@interserve.com>
writes:
>
>	My recently acquired '91Westy seems to have an inaccurate fuel 
>gauge, 
>	a fact my son and I learned this weekend by running out of gas 
>just
>	past the last Gilroy exit southbound on 101 (which, of course, 
>
>	fortunately has a Chevron station clearly visible from the 
>emergency
>	call box...). 
>
>	I guess feeblemindedness is creeping in, otherwise I would 
>have 
>	filled the tank immediately after the vehicle officially 
>became 
>	mine (after dropping off the PO at his home) AND zeroing the 
>trip
>	odometer. Somehow, this required act when taking delivery of a 
>
>	new vehicle slipped through the crack and we ended up driving 
>on 
>	the PO's tankful.
>
>	So...the fuel gauge shows slightly less than 1/4 full when 
>completely
>	empty :-( but the needle will park past the red zone when key 
>is 
>	off. Any suggestions on debugging this problem? If it's the 
>sender, 
>	I'll forget it until the tank needs servicing; if it's the 
>gauge or
>	a resistance/conductivity problem on the instrument panel 
>printed
>	circuit motherboard, I can probably fix it...
>
>	
>