Fuel Gauge

Discuss your 2000-2005 Bonneville SE, SLE, SSEi, Buick Le Sabre 00-05 and Buick Park Avenue 97-05. Please use General Chat for non-mechanical issues, and Performance and Brainstorming for improvements.
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wwade2
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Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2012 5:56 am
Year and Trim: 2005 SLE

Fuel Gauge

Post by wwade2 »

The gas gauge on my 2005 SLE is acting up. Its unreliable and pretty soon will not work at all. Any suggestions?
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BBamm
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by BBamm »

If it's anything like my GXP gauges, you can have the stepper motor replaced.

My speedo and fuel gauges hadn't been working and I found a local shop that repair GM gauges, they were advertising on Craigslist. They replaced all of the lights in the cluster and all stepper motors in less than 30 min and it's better than new!
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2004 Bonneville GXP Crimson Tintcoat- Casual fuel gauge | Brake Performance drilled/slotted rotors front and rear| Retrofit Morimoto mini H1 | clear corners | disabled DRL | 3000K HID fogs | 5% tint | K&N | Yakima rack with fairing, bike rails and kayak rack | Intermittent radio display
1995 Bonneville SSE Deep Amethyst Pearl- SSEI tails | 5% tint | 3 12jlw3v2 in custom enclosure -Gone
1991 Bonneville LE Blue- Alloy spokes -Deceased(deer)
wwade2
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Year and Trim: 2005 SLE

Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by wwade2 »

Nice. I'll check on that. The dashboard lights are dimming also. Hopefully I can find a local shop that does that work.
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nos4blood70
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by nos4blood70 »

Does the gauge do the sweep on start up? Does your fuel range dance around with the needle? If yes, it's a sender issue, not a stepper motor.
-Car Guy Carl
"Penelope" - 2003 SLE - 250k Miles
"Sydney" - 2000 Honda S2000 - 101k miles
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BBamm
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by BBamm »

nos4blood70 wrote:Does the gauge do the sweep on start up? Does your fuel range dance around with the needle? If yes, it's a sender issue, not a stepper motor.
Carl,
I was worried that my car was going to need a sending unit along with the gauge fix as well. The speedo worked occasionally and other times would peg out at 160+ or other odd things. The fuel gauge did the same. Sometimes it seemed accurate, other times it wouldn't move off of E and/or Full, but other times it would bounce between 3/4 and full. I had the stepper motor repair done and I've ran 3 tanks full and it's worked fine through all of them.

Is this out of the ordinary for that issue? I feel like I may somehow have had an exception to the rule with my gauge issue...
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2004 Bonneville GXP Crimson Tintcoat- Casual fuel gauge | Brake Performance drilled/slotted rotors front and rear| Retrofit Morimoto mini H1 | clear corners | disabled DRL | 3000K HID fogs | 5% tint | K&N | Yakima rack with fairing, bike rails and kayak rack | Intermittent radio display
1995 Bonneville SSE Deep Amethyst Pearl- SSEI tails | 5% tint | 3 12jlw3v2 in custom enclosure -Gone
1991 Bonneville LE Blue- Alloy spokes -Deceased(deer)
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nos4blood70
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by nos4blood70 »

GXP clusters are known to have stepper motor issues, not sure if 2004 and 2005 SE/SLE clusters face the same issues.

The easiest way to tell which is the problem is to observe the fuel range in the DIC.
-Car Guy Carl
"Penelope" - 2003 SLE - 250k Miles
"Sydney" - 2000 Honda S2000 - 101k miles
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BBamm
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Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2015 1:16 pm
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by BBamm »

Thanks! My DIC was always spot-on. That's why it was only the stepper and not the sending unit.

Sorry for hijacking the thread...
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2004 Bonneville GXP Crimson Tintcoat- Casual fuel gauge | Brake Performance drilled/slotted rotors front and rear| Retrofit Morimoto mini H1 | clear corners | disabled DRL | 3000K HID fogs | 5% tint | K&N | Yakima rack with fairing, bike rails and kayak rack | Intermittent radio display
1995 Bonneville SSE Deep Amethyst Pearl- SSEI tails | 5% tint | 3 12jlw3v2 in custom enclosure -Gone
1991 Bonneville LE Blue- Alloy spokes -Deceased(deer)
ddalder
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Re: Fuel Gauge

Post by ddalder »

I'm sure there was a bulletin about these clusters. At some point in/around 2005 they were changed because of known problems with the stepper motors. As I recall, it wasn't limited to the GXP clusters (or even just the Bonneville for that matter) and I don't recall the exact cutoff point. When I have a chance I'll try and hunt it down again.
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