We have a 2008 Certified Pre-Owned Outlander ES, and the warranty
runs through end end of Sept (about 6 more weeks). My wife almost
exclusively drives the car. However, in the past few weeks she was
out of town and I was driving it. This is normal summer weather
(around 80 degrees F). I had to buy gas twice, when the
gauge showed about 1/4 to 3/8 of a tank. (As always), I turned off the
car and had the keys in my pocket. I filled the car up. When I got
back in the car, the fuel gauge hadn't moved. I kept watching it
as I drove around, and it kept creeping up, but it took approximately
10 miles of driving on normal suburban roads before the gauge reached
full. I asked my wife about it, and she pretty much said she never
pays any attention to it...

I called our local dealer service dept (where we bought the car a
couple of years ago), and the advisor was nice, and said it does take
some amount of time and/or driving before the gauge resets to full.
They could take a look at it to make sure it is up to spec, and if it's
not, they could fix it under warranty (no charge). If it's working
as designed, I'd be responsible for some testing charge (which at
$100+ an hour, would be an expensive education).

Is this normal behavior for the fuel gauge? Should I risk having them
look at it?

>>>> UPDATE 8/26/03

I ended up taking the Outlander in to the dealer with about a 1/4 tank
of gas. The dealer ran a scan/code check and didn't find anything.
No charge. When picking up the car, I drove to the nearest gas station
and filled it up as normal. Got back in the car and the gauge showed
full. Go figure.

Right now I'm trying to figure out some way to siphon gas out of the
tank so I can go through several cycles refilling to see if I can get the
problem to reoccur before the warranty runs out. So far I haven't
had any luck with the siphoning: I'm trying to stick about a 3/8" OD
vinyl tube down the gas tank filler pipe, but even with a full tank,
the tube isn't reaching the gas. I'm being very careful and rotating
the hose slowly, but it 's getting hung up on something on the
way down the tube. When I pull the tube up, it's coming out
completely dry, no part of it ever touched the full tank of gas.
I don't want to jam the hose down the tube and bust something...

xr200

 

Fuel gauge in all on Outlanders 2007-UP is digital. I have a 2009 Outlander ES and every time I fill up the gas, once I start up the engine at gas station, the fuel gauge is always full and it doesn't take any time to reach the full level (basically its instant).

 

+1 what he said.

 

When I brim mine the fuel gauge shows just off full. I tried filling rigt up so I could see the diesel in the pipe and still it gauge didn't show full, only slightly below.

 

My 08 LS always showed full right after filling up.