SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage

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Thu 5 May 2022 15:23
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - omega3

I have a 2003 Seat Ibiza

just recently the fuel gauge has a intermittent fault, display

I put 20 litres in tank today and was registering empty?

later in day registered 1/4 full

is all over the place

is this an expensive fix?

thanks in advance

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Thu 5 May 2022 16:49
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - Andrew-T

Could be the sender in the fuel tank, or the connections to it (under the back seat probably),or the gauge itself. Is there a low-fuel warning light as well ? Does that work ?

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Thu 5 May 2022 17:14
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - elekie&a/c doctor
Certainly does sound like a faulty sender . Don’t think it can be bought separately. It’s part of the fuel pump module . May be worth pulling the unit out to make sure the float arm isn’t fouling on the pump body or pipe work in the tank .
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Thu 5 May 2022 18:02
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - omega3

thanks for replies,

yes the warning LED comes on, I out 20 litres in this morning, and the gauge was all over the place, now is settled down a bit, but only now registering 1/4 tank, which is not correct

20/45 tank capacity = 44%

sounds like it could be pricey?

hey ho, will have to get it done, I can do some jobs, but dont have means to do this type of job

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Thu 5 May 2022 19:55
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - bathtub tom

This seems typical of modern fuel guages to me. Don't expect it to register the (near) correct amount immediately, give it a couple of hours to 'think about it'.

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Thu 5 May 2022 23:15
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - Andrew-T

yes the warning LED comes on, I out 20 litres in this morning, and the gauge was all over the place, now is settled down a bit, but only now registering 1/4 tank, which is not correct

If you are saying that the warning LED is giving correct indications, then the sender may not be faulty ? Does the LED simply echo the gauge ?

Some gauges do 'go all over the place' when nearly empty, especially after climbing or negotiating sharp bends.

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Fri 6 May 2022 09:17
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - omega3

thanks for more detail, you guys are so helpful

i put in £32 20L yesterday, and it had its MOT yesterday too

so plenty in tank, I only do 12 miles a day.

keeping spreadsheet now so I have other means of knowing approximately what is in tank

after todays 12 mile, spreadsheet calcs tank at 34% full

I will put some more in Monday

there is probably more than what I think in tank, because I believe there to have been a 1/4 of tank when I put in the 20L yesterday

this problem occurred 24hr before mot

I do think it is more than likely the sender, the LED is just another visual aid to the driver that the tank is almost empty (not sure what the manual says when LED is on)

and yesterday when I drove back from garage it was showing 1/4 full, this morning, empty, yellow LED on, is all over the place, erratic

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Fri 6 May 2022 09:32
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - Andrew-T

As Tom has said, some gauges respond slowly after you add fuel. I have come across two kinds of sender : the kind with a float arm (which may stick) and a variety with a float inside a cylinder (as in the Pug 205). SWMBO was happily driving about 150 miles thinking the fuel was lasting very well, when suddenly it wasn't. Some grit had got inside that cylinder.

You may be able to lift the rear seat and extract the whole sender unit, but you may need some sort of big spanner, I'm not familiar with VAG systems. But worth a look.

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Fri 6 May 2022 11:22
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - omega3

Andrew-T

thanks, I will take a look at the Haynes manual

cheers

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Wed 11 May 2022 11:57
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - omega3

just an update

since I have put Redex into the tank, the gauge has stopped playing up, being erratic

weird, maybe some containments were fouling the sender some how

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Sat 14 May 2022 07:30
SEAT Ibiza - defective fuel guage - ifekas

they ho, will have to get it done, I can do some jobs, but dont have means to do this type of job

For a car that is quite old, would it not just be cheaper to fill the tank up with fuel and reset the trip computer every time you fill up? Even in the worst conditions you would probably get at least 300 miles out of a tankful. You would be carrying around the weight of the fuel but I wouldn't have thought the cost of that would be huge.

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