Brought truck in for service and am having trouble with fuel gauge reading after fill up ( Slow to go to full reading). Seems to happen when key is in ignition on auxillary while filling up. Was told this is normal by service man when key is in and on. Anyone with experience with this?

 

Yep- Happens to me when I keep the radio ON. There has been discussion of this issue in the past and I believe it is mostly an 03 issue...

 

I believe it is even discussed in the Manual...In fact, my '97, 2000, & 2002 F-150 gassers did the same thing with the ignition in any "on" position.

 

When i leave my engine running at the pump. It takes a sec to go up. The digital reading in the overhead goes up as you pump it. It jumps like from 20miles to empty to like 60 then 110 its kinda cool. Only thing is that it doesnt read the full amount i noticed for like a whole day. It will stop at like 390(29 gallon tank). Then half a day later or like 24 hours later it will read 440. The manual real gauge takes a good few min to go all the way up. I dont really worry about it since i reset my trip od everytime so i know when its getting time.

ryan

 

I have an 03, and I've had this problem in the past. Sometimes the gauge would take hours to go all the way to full. (This got me in the habit of resetting the trip odometer every fill up, which is gives good piece of mind anyway) The gauge has always made it back to full... eventually.

 

I guess it is just another bearable irritant so to speak, just as long as I do not have to push this beast back home from a malfunctioning gauge thing. So I guess the service writer was right when I ask him what can they do about it? Reply: leave the key off. Thanks for the replies.

 

Along the lines of fuel guage... I got a 29gal tank in my '05, so every 1/4 tank is about 7.5gal as a *rough* guess. I have noticed that with the guage at 3/4 a tank it takes 12gal to fill up and once I get below 3/4 tank the guage seems to drop at a faster rate then I would expect. From full to 3/4 tank takes about (trying to rmember exacts) 165-175 miles. So the guage seems to be a little skewed to me. Granted I have only filled up twice so far and this may be normal.

 

Most of the Fords - car or truck - that I've had stay on full a long time and then drop quickly once they've left the full mark.

My truck has the 29 gal tank but when on fumes takes ~31 to 32 gallons to fill to the filler neck. The fuel gauge won't move until I've driven quite a ways.

If it were empty and on fumes as above and I just filled it enough to get the gauge to the full mark it would probably only take ~22 to 25 gallons. So there's an extra 5 to 7 gallons or so that are off scale above the full mark.

Why Ford does this I don't know . . .

Maybe an EPA related thing to try to keep people from topping off as much and subsequently spilling fuel or something.

 

'03 PSD and I have had this problem with key left in ignition. I just pull the key now--unless it is really, really cold!

 

I had a bowtie truck before my Ford and when the needle left Full on the fuel gauge it fell very fast, and when at 1/4 I had better be finding a station fast. My '04 Ford actually seems better to me.

 

Ran my lie-o-meter down to 10 miles to empty once. It took 32 gals.to fill up my 29 gal. tank,and I didn't squeeze any in. The gauge was barely touching the "E". Guess that was pretty accurate. I don't do that anymore,but it's nice to know what you can do,just in case. I also had the fuel gauge problem when the truck was new. Couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go to full after filling up. I probably did have the radio playing or something, and I did leave the key on once to watch the lie-o-meter as I filled up. Great info on this site, saved myself numerous trips to the dealer. Sometimes, I think I know more than they do about this truck. The last time I took it in to get flashed for tow-haul issues, the service writer wrote on the sheet"customer states there is update for this". And I won't let them change my oil, because they insist on putting 15 qts. in. They tend to do whatever the manual says, regardless of what works and what doesn't. Same at the Quick lube. I went through all the trouble to make sure he had CI4 oil, and the right filter. Then, a dude went under my truck and drained the oil, and put the plug back in. Then the guy pulled my oil filter housing. I told him he had to go back and drain the pan again, they weren't too happy about that. And I couldn't get them to understand the 15qt. thing either.Nobody wants to put 13 or 14 qts.in it...... So, I don't let anyone touch my truck now unless it's a dealer must do thing. And I learned everthing here.

 

I have an 85 F250 6.9L XLT with dual tanks. The same thing happens on this truck .. it takes a while to move off full ... and then it drops pretty quickly ... when it gets to E ... there is still around 5-7 gals of fuel in the tank. Frank

 

If I fill mine up to the top of the filler neck, it goes 135 to 150 miles, depending on city or highway, before it comes off the F mark. Then it drops like a rock until the 1/2 mark then it seems reasonable.