eagles000506

New to the forums so sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

So, I just picked up a 2005 gt in late December (only 12k miles!). It runs great and I couldn't love the car more! Recently I ran the car through a car wash (it's been snowing a lot here, and it's way too cold to hand wash it) and when I entered the car wash the tire guide plastic cover had been pulled up a bit, from a previous car lower than mine bottoming out, and since my car is lowered a tad I hit that with the steel cover on the front end. It shook the car up. This happened three times in a row (of course I had a conversation with the manager). There was no visible damage at all and I chalked it up as a fluke and drove away. Well, when I got on the road my check engine came on and my fuel gauge was showing empty. I immediately filled out a damage report with the car wash and brought it to auto zone. They told me it was the error code P0463.

I brought it to a dealer the next day (with no other fuel gauge working just fine, seemed to be a one time incident) and they told me it was the fuel pump and that it had no relation to the car wash incident and that it was completely coincidental, which was hard for me to believe. I declined the repair since they wanted $700 and I hadn't had any issues with the fuel gauge (excluding the one time) and the car runs very well.

Since then the issue has gotten much worse. The gauge will usually read empty on cold starts and will progressively work its way up to about a half tank when driving on the highway. When I get off of the highway I'll get a mile or two and it will go back down to empty. I read up on the code and saw that it could simply be bad gas. I usually go to BP, since there aren't too many Chevron stations in my area. I put techron in it hoping to clean off the sensors and it still hasn't cleared up the issue . The car still runs very well, it's just the fuel gauge and the check engine light.

Is it possible that it's actually the fuel pump? If it is, is $700 a tad high? And would it be difficult to replace myself? Any other ideas of what the problem might be? Thanks in advance!

2005Redfire6

No, it is your stepper motor for the gauge. Very common in 2005 Mustangs, 3 of 4 of my guages ended up dying and once I replaced the cluster all is fine.

Nuke

The stepper motor issue was/is chronic in the 05's and early 06's

eagles000506

That makes a lot of sense. On some mornings both the tachometer and the speedometer both are off. Sometimes they don't work at all until I start the car up again. I figured it was just extreme cold temperatures. I'll try replacing that instead.

Thanks for the quick replies!

2005Redfire6

Replacing the stepper motors will fix the issue for sure. Mine started with it intermittenly working when it is cold and then they just stopped working all together eventually.

danzcool

Guys, I don't think the stepper motor will throw a code or trigger a message for low fuel. It's likely either a loose connection in the fuel sensor wiring or the fuel level sending unit it self (there are 2 of them).
Now that doesn't mean that your stepper motor might be going out also, just that due to the fact you got a notification that you do have a fuel level problem also.

eagles000506

That was my original guess too, especially after the car wash incident. Since it's not an emergency (and it's way too cold for me to work on a car) probably won't be an update until the weather breaks. The gauge works 100% normal at about half a tank and less if that's any indication. Just trying to come up with possible causes.

Art161

Given all the circumstances, this is my suggestion as a first step. Pour a bottle of Techron into the gas tank. This should remove any sulfur deposits from the fuel level sensors.

eagles000506

That was the first thing I did, unfortunately it didn't fix the problem. Was hoping for a cheap fix.

RazorGT

it's only 12k miles, why would the fuel pump go bad? maybe the previous owner rode on E from day 1? I don't think a bad stepper motor would throw a code.

I feel for you bro, I got my 06 gt with 30k miles but luckily it was from a very reputable dealer that offered 7 month warranty with it, I got really lucky with price and everything which is why I feel this car is a blessing, to the point I don't even want a s550 anymore.

but just from the heebee jeebees, this is another reason on my list to never go to an automatic wash again (not even touchless), not to mention you don't even get near as a good wash as even DIY, and it costs 3 times as much and usually has longer lines :/ - seems like a lose lose lose situation to me.