intermittent gas guage

[bumperbozo]

my gas guage is intermittent. most of the time it reads right, but like 30% of the time it shows empty regardless of how full the tank is. any idea what would cause this?

[RobMilkshakes]

Could be a bad connection at the tank (corrosion in the plug?), wiring issue, the sender could be going out, or the instrument panel gauge could be going out, honestly its a little hard to tell without testing during that 30% of the time

Does it just stay at absolutely zero, or does it move at all?

my old corolla had an issue where anything less than 3/4 of a tank it would take over twenty minutes for the gauge to finally move all the way up to my actual level, and the lower the tank got, the slower the needle would come up, by the time I was at 1/4, it would practically stay on zero and not budge. Replacing the cluster (actually replaced it for a completely different reason) fixed it for me.

[bumperbozo]

seems like it will either work for the whole trip, or not work for the whole trip. more detail on that would be hard for me to collect without crashing into a bridge pole.

[Ace2424]

Sounds like it's a short.

[bumperbozo]

any way to narrow that down?

[Ace2424]

You'd first have to figure out which wire sends the signal and then put a tester to it to see if there is any power going through. If it's off and on, you'd have to follow the wire down. It could be an actual gauge problem in the cluster too. But you can determine that by testing the power wire.

[bumperbozo]

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, Ace. I don't want to take anything away from that by saying i'm hoping that someone might be able offer a little more specific information on the location of said wire, and what kind of readings to look for, etc.