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Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:14 am
by wwade2
The gas gauge on my 2005 SLE is acting up. Its unreliable and pretty soon will not work at all. Any suggestions?
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:22 am
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!
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:27 am
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.
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:29 am
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.
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 10:38 am
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...
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:28 am
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.
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:39 am
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...
Re: Fuel Gauge
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:59 am
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.