Fuel guage temporary / intermittent fault

[coolum]

Last night my fuel guage warning went off and the low fuel light came on.

I had over a half tank .. a little down the road it cam back on .. then again warned of low fuel then off again for a while ..

Today after a number of drives, I did not see it appear again ... but I doubt it's gone for good.

this intermittent electrical fault was in the past suggested to be a fuel tank sensor (or two 'of' ) as the cause .. has anything changed .. could it be anything else like a loose wire along the way from the tank to display?

Thanks

Steve

[BobD]

My 2010 model went to an independent LR repairer to get the electric handbrake motor replaced last week. After removing the long range fuel tank and replacing the motor with the latest version, the computer would not accept the new motor and they found that the early D4's need a different part number than the later ones to work with the computer. It appeared that everything worked OK except the handbrake so my wife picked up the car on Friday ready to drive 1500 km to Esperance and back over the long weekend.

The car was shuddering and then she noticed that the fuel gauge was on empty with a low fuel message on the dash. She filled up (64l) but nothing changed and the engine stopped at the traffic lights. She started it and limped to a nearby shopping centre where she rang me in tears!

Anyway, the mechanic came and could not find any problems using his test computer, apart from the handbrake error and the low fuel warning, which appeared to be shutting down the engine for safety. When it was running all rail pressures etc were normal but the car wanted to shut down and as soon as it idled, it did shut down.

The car was trucked back to the workshop and we are waiting for the correct handbrake motor to fix the first fault and see if that clears the fuel sensor problem. Since nothing was touched on the main fuel tank I think that the handbrake error has somehow cascaded and caused the low fuel error, which is what Rovertech is hoping. Otherwise, it is out with the main tank to replace the level sensor, which probably still won't fix the problem.

I'll post when and if I have an answer and maybe these two different fuel level faults on different cars are related??? By the way, there had never been any problem with fuel level at all prior to changing the handbrake motor. The fuel gauge has always been faultless.

Bob

[SBD4]

Twice last week mine would not register any fuel in the tank until about 30 secs into my trip. The car was serviced the week before. went back to the dealer today who has tried a s/w update to the instrument cluster as a 1st step. next step will be replacing the hardware in the tank if the update does not work.

[Disco4_tech]

I would say possibly the fuel sender unit is on the way out. If it doesn't do it again, it probably was a glitch and may need a instrument cluster update.

[coolum]

This has continued at random over the last 2 days.

Sometimes is fine for a whole leg of a trip

Then next time I start, it goes to Low fuel then comes back on after a couple of Kms.. then maybe after another 10ks goes to low fuel again then fixes itself again .

I'm not too worried about it at this point .. I'll just keep filling up and then I'll know I can ignore it for the time being.

I have a couple of other electrical issues I will get looked at later in the month.

I have another post on HDC switch not working .. any assistance appreciated?

[BobD]

I don't know how long you will be able to ignore it for. If the fault gets a bit more permanent the engine might decide to shut down like mine. It's not much fun then!

Bob

[mervwho]

The same thing happened to my D4, ended up with the front of the fuel tank collapsing. Started off relatively minor and developed further. Keep an eye on it. Land Rover tried to explain it as a "software" problem.

Cheers

Merv

[SBD4]

The same thing happened to my D4, ended up with the front of the fuel tank collapsing. Started off relatively minor and developed further. Keep an eye on it. Land Rover tried to explain it as a "software" problem.

Cheers

Merv

Merv, how did you work out that the tank had collapsed? Had you noticed that less fuel was required to fill it or was it the dealer that found it? Also did they work out the cause?

[mervwho]

Last fill all I could put in it was around 48 ltrs when I knew the tank was empty. It went back to where I was having it sorted for the third time and they discovered the front of the tank had collapsed. All breathers were still open so they and Land Rover apparently don't know what caused the problem..

[mike7]

I had the same fuel gauge issue with my D4, they replaced the hardware in the fuel tank under warranty and all has been ok now for a year or so.

Cheers
Mike

[Eurohaus Prestige]

Fuel tank sender unit 2 most common issue is replaced quite often
on the D4 also check if the fuel tank guard/metal frame has been damage
offroad is putting pressure on the tank internals.

Cheers
Wael

[BobD]

I finally got my D4 back from having the handbrake repaired (see earlier in this thread). Putting in the correct model handbake motor enabled all of the faults to be cleared and everything is now working correctly, including the fuel gauge, as expected by Rovertech. No other work was required.

Bob

[kenl]

My fuel gauge has read empty twice this week, when I knew full well it was at least 3/4 full. I thought it may have been a cold weather thing as it cleared after it went to sleep. The shutting down however sounds scary!!

[SBD4]

My dealer applied a s/w update - it didn't work (no surprises there). Last week the gauge registered empty along with smart key not found 3 times in one day. Not sure if the smart key not found was a genuine issue with they key or related due to the s/w update they did. They have now ordered the hardware for the tank.

[BobD]

The shutting down however sounds scary!!

Year, it is a bit of a problem. To be fair, the car did keep driving in a shuddering sort of way. It only stopped completely when idling and could be restarted OK. The problem was my wife was scared in heavy traffic and got hysterical about it. She decided she didn't want to drive the car ever again!

Now that we have it back and all fixed, all is forgiven. One drive after three weeks of driving other cars and you think, wow, this car is so brilliant to drive. I will put up with anything that goes wrong to get in it as often as possible and drive it as far as possible!! My wife is all smiles again. We are off to Margaret River and Augusta in the caravan this weekend so I will get my wish.

The problem with ours seemed to be that the hand brake motor generated a fault every time the car was started. It worked fine in testing at the workshop but reached a critical mass of faults when my wife drove it, which started causing problems. I think the fuel level was low but the fault wouldn't clear when it was filled up. Because of the hand brake motor mis match, nothing would clear any faults. It just rejected any attempts to clear any faults until the correct part was installed, when it decided it felt much better and could clear all the faults!

Bob