Hello,

I was hoping there might be someone out here who can help me with this....

About a month ago I dropped my MINI off for service at the dealership (last one before I ran out of warranty). When I went to pick it up I noticed my gas gauge said I was on empty! I knew I had just filled up the night before, and was no where near empty, so I called the dealership and made an appointment to take it back. I took the car back 2 weeks later (that was the earliest they could get me in!!!) and they called me later that day and said everything was fine. When I got it back it said I had three quarters a tank in gas, which would have been about right at that time (not exactly sure since I was gauging my fill up by my odometer). I went a week and noticed I hadn't filled up yet, and I had done a whole lot of driving. My tank said I had half a tank...I stopped at a gas station to fill up and my car took over 12 gallons!! I called the dealership again, and they got me another appt (a week and a half later again!) Currently it is there right now, I just received a call from them that they have NO IDEA what is wrong, and that they have never had this happen on a MINI before, so they need to contact MINI and then probably tear apart my engine!! They told me they replaced both sensors and still no luck.

Has anyone ever heard of this? I'm not too happy about the whole situation, and I was hoping someone may be able to give me some ideas. (I have also been without a vehicle for the last 2 days because the dealership will not give me one of their MINI loaners since I am 23 and not 25! and will probably be without for the weekend and into next week!)

 

I think it's a bad/stuck fuel sensor.

Same thing happens to me on and off, usually right after I fill the tank up, turn the car off and then turn it back on.

My guess is either when the gas gets low and you fill it up the sensor gets pinned at the bottom of the tank, or when you fill up and your tank was rather low, you end up kickin' up stuff that had settled in the tank leaving dirt in the line.

I think it's happened about 4 times since I've gotten my car in 05.

The first time I filled up, put my car in the parking garage for the night. Got in it and left, when I noticed the needle was at empty. I turned back around and yelled at the guys in the garage thinking they were messing with my car. They said they weren't, man did i feel stupid when I started my car back up and the needle was at full.. Right in front of them......

 

or the connector between the senders and the wiring harness. The Mini techs should SCAN the car, not just check to see if the gauge is reading right, because if there's an intermittant open or short then the code would be stored, just waiting for a non-lazy tech to read it. If it's the sender itself, some have had luck by using Techron or SeaFoam in the tank to clean it up so it doesn't get stuck.

Matt

 

Thank you very much for the feed back I really appreciate it. That's what I thought at first as well, however my gauge never corrected itself (it's been a month) It has moved...but it only moves from 3/4 to empty or half....it's weird, and it only does it ever so often.....not when I am filling it up though, but randomly when I am driving...could something have happened when it was in for maintence? That's when this whole problem started...all i took it for was the scheduled maintenance and tires (yea, the tires were a bad idea, but they told me my other ones were so bald they weren't gonna let me drive it off the lot)

 

Stuff like that really gets me pissssed! If there's a record that this started before the warranty ran out, push them to fix it for you. If they won't do it for free, do some homework to look for a good non-dealer service place that can do the work. If they have the factory diagnostics (and a lot of higher end BMW shops do, the Mini stuff just comes along for the ride if they have the good BMW diagnostics) then they can read what the car thinks is going on.

There are two senders for our cars, cause it's a split tank arangement.

I've had a problematic sender for a while. Make sure to reset your trip odometer when you fill as a sanity check. I don't have a problem with this, but my wife can't seem to remember to either check it or reset it, and when it's reading zero, she heads straight to a gas station and puts 3/4 of a gallon in and then remebers that the gauge freaks out. Then she forgets to reset the trip odometer!

Matt

 

I've had the same problem every once in awhile. I start the car and the gauge reads empty. I shut it down and it will usually go back working properly on restart. There are times when it takes several restarts to work. I had the car in for service and of course it wasn't doing it than so they couldn't figure what was wrong. My "gremlin" is back!!

 

Thank you to everyone for the feedback I'm just nervous...my car is my baby, and if they messed something up during routine maintance I am kinda scared about them ripping apart my engine ::shudders:: ..... I did make sure that they are not charging me for the work that they do

 

Sending unit is attached to fuel filter, which sits atop and inside your fuel tank under back seat.....why the heck they would be tearing down your engine mystifies me beyond belief.......( As a rule, best not to ever let your tank get below 1/4 if possible, and that applies to any vehicle, esp in New England when temps fall below 20 degrees - water will get in fuel lines and freez )

Personally, I'd find another dealer for any future issues.....

 

I always run my tank down to fumes.

Perhaps that's why my fuel gage is so inaccurate.

This is the rough milage I get from each part of the gas tank.

 

nabeshin and Paint. A match made in heaven. I see the number of colors you are using is increasing...

 

Well, I had to use orange for the needle

 

Not criticism; compliment.

 

The shape of the fuel tank is the reason for the "inaccurate" gas gauge. Everyone I have talked to with a MINI has the same issue.

 

My buddy is a mini tech he reccomends putting in chevron techron TOTAL fuel system cleaner not the injector cleaner but the total, my car has been running perfect.

 

I know, you're my biggest fan.

Is that so? Glad it's normal. Anyone know more about this split chamber system?

I use a Valvoline synpower total fuel system cleaner every 3,000 miles. It seems to help with bad idling and smoothing out throttle responce. Maybe it's psychological.

 

The non-linear gauge response is pretty typical of most cars. Unless the cross-sectional area of the fuel tank is constant from the top of the tank to the bottom, a standard "float-type" level sensor that drives a variable resistor will always move faster through some parts of its range than others as the tank empties. It would be possible to apply a "correction factor" using the car's computer, but that's probably more trouble than it's worth - as long as the needle is fairly accurate with the tank full and with the tank empty, those are the important parts of the range.

The only car I've ever had where the quarter-tank hash marks were accurate was a 1972 Mercedes, and that's only because the marks weren't evenly-spaced. There wasn't even a needle's width of space between "full" and "3/4", then the space between "3/4" and "1/4" took up about 80% of the gauge travel, and then there was about one or two needles' width of space between "1/4" and "empty".

 

That makes perfect sense now that I think about it.

I never really paid attention to the fuel gauge in other cars.