Out of gas with 1/4 tank left ?
09-05-2011, 10:14 PM
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Out of gas with 1/4 tank left ?
Ok car sat for over a year with almost no gas in it. Put in acouple gallons new battery fired her up and drove to gas station no problem. Today on my way to the store she dies like Im out of gas gauge shows 1/4 tank which should be about right for amount of gas I put in and distance I drove . Put in a few gallons out of gas can and she fired right up. What gives ?
09-05-2011, 10:19 PM
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Ok car sat for over a year with almost no gas in it. Put in acouple gallons new battery fired her up and drove to gas station no problem. Today on my way to the store she dies like Im out of gas gauge shows 1/4 tank which should be about right for amount of gas I put in and distance I drove . Put in a few gallons out of gas can and she fired right up. What gives ?
09-05-2011, 10:28 PM
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09-05-2011, 10:46 PM
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Have you filled it all the way back up since? What did your gas gauge do if you did? Any dtc codes?
Fill it up and keep track of the miles with one of your trip odometers to manually check the operation of the gauge. It'd be a good idea to run a bottle of techron through your tank at your next fillup as well...
EDIT: Just saw your new post. Seafoam should work fine as well... that's good stuff.
Fill it up and keep track of the miles with one of your trip odometers to manually check the operation of the gauge. It'd be a good idea to run a bottle of techron through your tank at your next fillup as well...
EDIT: Just saw your new post. Seafoam should work fine as well... that's good stuff.
09-06-2011, 01:34 AM
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The sending units on the C5 are problematic in that deposits often form on them if high sulfur (cheaper) fuels are used (particularly if the tanks are left with low fuel as that leaves the senders exposed).
You can drain them if you like but it may not effect the problem you're seeing with the gauge. The Sea Foam you added is exactly what may help (Techron also good).
Best bet is to add one can of either to each fill up for a few tanks (may take a while to clean off the contacts on the senders), use top tier fuel (93) and keep it at 3/4 or above for a while.
Top Tier Fuel retailers
http://www.toptiergas.com/retailers.html
You can drain them if you like but it may not effect the problem you're seeing with the gauge. The Sea Foam you added is exactly what may help (Techron also good).
Best bet is to add one can of either to each fill up for a few tanks (may take a while to clean off the contacts on the senders), use top tier fuel (93) and keep it at 3/4 or above for a while.
Top Tier Fuel retailers
http://www.toptiergas.com/retailers.html
09-06-2011, 01:44 AM
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Techron Won't Help
Well maybe a bit strong. I should say Techron might not fix it.
This has come up before
In this instance it looks like you actually do have 1/4 tank of gas. This is completely different to the normal problem where the gauge drops to zero but the car runs normally. If yours is stopping through lack of gas, its a different issue.
When this has been discussed before it's turned out to be a blocked jet syphon pump. This is harder to clean up than the regular gauge sender but the member in the first link seemed to get there in the end by using a lot of Techron. Others have had to pull the pump to clean it.
Take a look at this thread. The symptoms are very similar to yours:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...4-showing.html
This is another good thread with a technical discussion.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...el-system.html
This has come up before
In this instance it looks like you actually do have 1/4 tank of gas. This is completely different to the normal problem where the gauge drops to zero but the car runs normally. If yours is stopping through lack of gas, its a different issue.
When this has been discussed before it's turned out to be a blocked jet syphon pump. This is harder to clean up than the regular gauge sender but the member in the first link seemed to get there in the end by using a lot of Techron. Others have had to pull the pump to clean it.
Take a look at this thread. The symptoms are very similar to yours:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...4-showing.html
This is another good thread with a technical discussion.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-t...el-system.html
Last edited by DeeGee; 09-06-2011 at 02:01 AM.
