Fuel gauge not working

[Jimbob1970 0]

My fuel gauge has stopped working.

I have been told by the mechanic who looked at it that it is not the bit in the tank that is knackered, but the other end.

 

The fuel gauge unit is a two part unit with another gauge in there as well - I think he said the temp gauge. Not sure.

 

Is this right?

 

Anybody had to replace on of these before?

 

I have a 1.8 16v H plate.

 

Cheers

Jim

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Dunno about 16Vs but VR clocks are modular so you can just open the front, pull out the busted unit (tacho, guages or speedo) and stick a new one in. I think valvers are the same.

 

I think the modules are around the £40 mark..... I got a price of £37 for a new rev counter for mine when I thought I needed one, so it's not *tooooo* expensive to repair.

 

Get a price from VW first for a new guage module before proceeding tho as it may be cheaper to get a whole cluster from a breakers..... if you can find a Corrado in one :?

 

HTH

 

K

[Henny 0]

it's worth opening up the clocks and having a look at them... the temp and fuel gauges work on a sliding bi-metallic spring/lever arangement which sometimes pops off it's guide rails and so stops reading correctly... dead simple to sort out once it's in bits... 8)

[coolrado 0]

its quite easy to replace just undo the four screws in the clock surround (two at the top and two under the plastic covers at the bottom carefull not to break the clips off) then remove the surround it helps to have the steering column at its lowest setting

 

you shouldnt have to remove the clock unit

 

remove the two screws at the sides of the clocks that hold the plastic front cover in place, the front cover should then hinge forward and unclip

 

you should then just have to pull the fuel/temp gauge out and push the new one back in

it would probably be worth checking the old one to make sure its not a loose connection or part of the mechanism has come loose

[Linus Van Pelt 0]

the temp and fuel gauges work on a sliding bi-metallic spring/lever arangement which sometimes pops off it's guide rails and so stops reading correctly...

 

Hmmmn, my temprature gauge reads constantly under by about 10-20 degrees, and my fuel gauge works on a bell curve (goes down really quickly to begin with, slows down to a crawl and hangs around in the middle for ages and then speeds up on it's way towards the reserve tank).

 

I know the temp gauge is a fault as it didn't used to do this, but I'd be interested to know if this could be an instrument fault rather than a sensor one (i.e cheaper ;) ).

 

Curioisity only on the fuel gauge though, I seem to remember my mk3 had a similar habit, albeit not quite as obviously as the C...

 

LvP.

[Reggit 0]

Linus - Possible voltage regulator on the clocks? Don't know about the corrado (has it got one?), but I've had probs with other cars when both fuel and temp gauge get minds of their own when this fails.

[Jimbob1970 0]

Thanks all.

 

I will add this to my list of things to tinker with at the weekend!

 

:D

[Roger Blassberg 0]

Is it by any chance stuck on or near Maximum? Mine did that a few weeks ago and then recovered itself completely after I refilled the tank from about 1/4 full. If it is the voltage regulator - yes, there is one -, the water temperature gauge will misbehave as well.

 

Best wishes

 

RB

[Kevin Bacon 5]

If the Voltage reg goes, most of the instruments will act strangely.

 

It's soldered to the back of the main PCB, behind the rev counter. It's available as a seperate (from the whole cluster) part from VW can you believe !!

 

Check the alternator too as when that starts chucking out a less than perfect 0hz DC current, the Voltage reg usually suffers.