So I went to fill up my car the other night. It being 3am I was tired ans had forgot to shut off the car. (Stupid I know. I can be very retarded sometimes.) Anyways. After I filled up the gas gauge stayed at where it was at until I shut the car off and turned it back on. Then it shot up to full. After that it hasn't moved from full. It should have dropped some considering I have driven it about 100 miles since filling. Any way to fix this problem?

 

So you left the car on overnight and it ran out of gas. Correct? You filled it back up with the gas pump in your driveway or you pushed it to the gas station or you put a couple gallons in from a gas can you had laying around?

Either way, the gauge works off of the sending built into the fuel pump. So either the sending unit is bad, or there is a short between the sending unit and the gauge (since the gauge reads amps, not volts, if memory serves). Good luck...

 

Sounds like he's saying he filled it up while the car was still running at the pump, the gauge did not move until after he shut it off for the night and started it again later, at which point it shot to full and has not moved since.

 

I'd guess it's still just pretty full and will go down soon.

 

@ petrock it's what BabyGT said. It seems to have all moved up a notch. (A quarter tank is now the empty mark, half tank is now the quarter tank mark and so on..) is there a way to get it back to normal? Or would I need to be doing some replacing?

 

Would unhooking the battery for 30 min not reset it?

 

It is uncommon, but there may be a problem with the float.

 

I gave that a try and filled it up again. Now to wait and see if it works. It seems to be working now. Hopefully I won't be left out in the middle of no where