Empty when full ...

My fuel gauge seems accurate enough and works correctly except when the tank is full. It keeps flicking between full and empty. When this happens and falsely reads empty if I take a corner or flick the car it corrects itself.

Anyone seen this one before? I'm hoping there's a nice simple fix someone can direct me to ...

(2002 TD5 ES)

I may be wrong but i believe the level sender in the tank has alot of contact patches that the sender float arm slides against and it shows the level on the gauge by the different resistance of each contact point. the top one in yours might be broken/dirty/faulty so not reading anything and the gauge goes to empty. when you corner the sloshing in the tank could be dropping the float arm to the next contact below and thus reading a nearly full tank.

again this is just a idea and guess but i hope you understand what i mean

Mine did this 30,000 miles ago. Did it for a few thousand miles and then been fine since!!

Hope yours is the same!

Dave

PS think the sender is part of the in-tank pump? So not easy to get at. I used to just trip the mileage each fill-up so I knew where I was regards fuel. I always got 500 miles before filling up!

Yes the sender is part of the pump. and its not that hard really to get out if you wanted to inspect it. theres info on here about it (im pretty sure it was here) i searched and found what i needed when my pump gave up and i swapped it