So I've read a lot of posts on here about how the fuel gauge tends to stop working after a while. Mine always displays full and then will drop to empty, light up the low fuel light and then go back to full. From what most people on here are saying it has to do with the sensor in the tank separating from whatever its supposed to be communicating with.

Since my odometer doesn't light up I can't keep track of my mileage. So I took a shot in the dark and used the "gallons used" function in the overhead console. I filled up, drove around a few days,and went back for gas to see if the I was putting in the same number of gallons the computer was saying I used. Imagine my shock when the two numbers matched! So how is it possible that the fuel gauge can't measure how much gas I have but the computer in the overhead console can?

 

The overhead console goes off of information from the pcm/bcm, not from the fuel gauge. The pcm comes up with that info based on the cumulative readings from various sensors and outputs (injector pulse width and engine rpm mainly).