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RE:OT: Pickup fuel guage

T

Tim in OR

Member
Thanks for the reply's and help. Good to know that It would have been a wasted effort to pull the box to get to the tank. I will investigate the stepper motors.
Thanks again,
Tim in OR
 
I have to claim ignorance. What has a "stepper motor" got to do with a fuel gauge or sending unit?
 
Sounds like electronic overcomplication if you ask me.
Consider: Why would manufacturers replace a $3.00 throttle cable with $1000 worth of electronic complication? Makes no sense to me.
 
A COUPLE of reasons for the electronic throttle are traction control and "displacement management".
 
The whole thing with the electronics has gotten way out of the bounds of common sense. We don't need to introduce even more sources of potential trouble to our already overcomplicated vehicles. We need this like Custer needed some more Indians.
JMHO.

P.S. I an NOT a technophobe. I strongly like some of the better things that electronics have brought to the motoring public - like fuel injection and anti-lock brakes. But now, the carmakers are getting a bit too carried away for my liking.
 
I read the article and still have no idea how or why a stepper motor is use in conjuction with gauges. Stepper motors change in increments and do not have infinite variable ratios. Gauges on other hand usually DO need infinite variable ratios. So I still claim ignorance. Autos and trucks used to have small voltage regulators just for the gauges and ran then on a lower voltage then the 12-14 volt system voltage. Maybe a stepper motor has somehow taken the place of the in-dash regulator?
 
Yep... and one of my LEAST favorite "advances" is the delayed dome light shut off... I get out of my vehicle @ twenty below and walk to the house and look back and the *#$^&* dome lights are on. Then you wonder if you turned them on to look for something before getting out of the car or bumped the switch on the way out or if it just within the delay period. So you walk back to the vehicle, and the lights go out just as you get there, or you DON"T wait or check, and the battery is dead in the morning!
 
Yes, the GM gauges are now a hand/pointer hung on a stepper motor, "stepped" by the 'puter to what the gauge is supposed to read.

And, GM apparently used some REALLY bad stepper motors!
 
That was one of the BEST features on our Dodge Grand Caravan. Wife and kids could leave all those turned on and in time it would shut them off saving from a dead battery.
 
Bob, thanks for the info. One question however, would a bad stepper motor cause the low fuel light to come on too?
Thanks, Tim in OR
 
I don't like the light delays myself. I consider them to be battery killers. My lady's car has the headlight delay for almost a minute after the car is shut off. Add that to a battery in the trunk, and there is a formula for a dead battery for sure.....one day. A couple of minutes with every light on the car blazing away in -10 weather can weaken a battery to the point that it might not start the car the next time.
 
IMHO, no. To me that sounds more like a fuel sender or gauge cluster "puter problem.
 
I ALWAYS shut everything off and let the battery have everything the alternator's putting out for a minute or two before shutting down. I can't say it helps any, but the battery in my 96 Plymouth let go after 7 years, and only because it sat for 2 weeks at a time while I was on the road. Jump start it once and it was good as long as it ran every couple days.
 
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