Fuel Gauge Issues

[phillybwa]

I have a 2003 4Runner Limited with 73,000.

A few weeks ago i filled my tank up to the top and my fuel gauge showed full and the computer showed 400+ miles till empty. The next day after starting it up the needle showed 1/8 of a tank of gas left and the computer showed roughly 65ish miles left.

I thought someone robbed me for my gas but after refilling it I only burned a couple gallons of gas. Since then, the needle has corrected itself but has still shown 3/4 of a tank when it was indeed full once afterwards.

Today it is good but the computer has been showed inaccurate readings. Now it has been stuck at "0" for the last week.

Any advice on what's happening and how to fix it, short of going to the dealer?

 

[a77boy]

Sounds like your fuel sending unit might of gotten out of caliber.

 

[ebear20004runner]

Your ground may be bad for the fuel sending unit to the gauge on dash. The fuel level is monitored by a sending unit that looks like the old toilet float valves.

Try putting a new ground on the wire from your fuel sending unit. Lift up second row seat on driver side and pull up carpet. You will see wires running to a cover going to your fuel pump and sending unit in your gas tank. The wires on the far right side includes a brown wire with white stripe or white dot. This is the ground wire. Tap into that wire with a t-connector and add a new ground wire. Before installing to see if this will work ground the wire to a seat bolt or something mounted into frame body without paint on it. See if the fuel gauge moves. If this works, you can scrape a little paint near the cover and put wire with ring connector under a self tapping screw.

There are a couple of youtube videos showing how to do this.