The gas gauge is one of the most important instruments your car has because it tells you how much fuel you have. In truth, you can still drive without a gas gauge but it becomes nearly impossible for you to know when you need to refuel.
So, if your fuel gauge isn’t working properly, you might be wondering if it could be due to a blown fuse. In that regard, how do you find the fuse in your gas gauge?
How to find a fuel gauge fuse?
The fuse for your fuel gauge is more likely to be the same as the fuse for the entire instrument panel. This means that it should be located under the driver’s dash side or somewhere in the engine compartment. It is best to consult your car’s manual to find out where the fuse is.
When it comes to a fuel gauge that isn’t working, there is a good chance that this can be attributed to a blown fuse.
Of course, because the fuse that the fuel gauge uses is similar to most of the other instruments, it will be easy to know that you have a blown fuse as all of the other instruments might also end up with the same problem as well.
Related:
- How To Calibrate A Fuel Gauge? (Easy Guide)
- How To Check Ohms On A Fuel Gauge? (7 Steps)
- Can You Drive With A Broken Gas Gauge? (Any Damage Done?)
- Why Is My Fuel Gauge Going Crazy? (3 Obvious Symptoms)
Does a fuse control the gas gauge?
One of the most important parts of your entire car is the instrument cluster, which contains a lot of different instruments that have their own unique importance in the entire vehicle.
Of course, the subject matter of this discussion is the gas gauge, which is responsible for telling you how much gas you have left in the fuel tank so that you will know whether or not it is now time for you to go to the gas station and have your tank refueled.
As such, if you want to be able to keep track of your fuel level, the fuel gauge needs to be working properly. You may still be able to drive well enough without a working fuel gauge but not having this instrument can result in a bad situation wherein you are stuck in the middle of nowhere because you didn’t know that you no longer had enough fuel left.
With that said, if you notice that your gas gauge isn’t working the way it should, there are different possible reasons why this can be happening. In some cases, it might be due to the fuel sending unit in the fuel tank but in a lot of different cases, it might be due to a blown fuse.
So, in that regard, while a fuse is indeed important when it comes to how the gas gauge works, it isn’t the component that controls the gas gauge. Instead, the mechanism between the gas gauge and the fuel sending unit is actually what controls the fuel gauge.
However, the fuse is also as important because it protects the different components in your car whenever there is an uncontrollable surge of power coming through it. Of course, such components include the fuel gauge.
How do I find the fuel gauge fuse?
If you have noticed that your fuel gauge is not working properly, then one of the culprits could be a blown fuse. Now, what you need to understand is that it is very easy to tell whether or not a blown fuse is the reason why your fuel gauge isn’t working properly.
What you need to do first is to do an instrument cluster test. The way this is done depends on the car you have, and that’s why you need to consult your manual to know how to do an instrument cluster test.
Doing an instrument cluster test is a way for you to find out whether or not all of the instruments are working. So, if your fuel gauge does a full sweep during the test, then that could mean that the fuel gauge is actually working fine and that the reason that it isn’t working the way it should is a blown fuse.
You would know if a blown fuse is the problem if there are also issues with more than one instrument on the dashboard. That’s because, in most cases, the entire instrument cluster shares one single fuse in your car’s fuse box.
As such, when the fuel gauge and some of the other instruments are going haywire, then that could mean that the fuse that all of those instruments share was blown.
So, with that said, where do you find the fuel gauge fuse?
As mentioned, the fuel gauge fuse is most likely the same as the fuse that all of your other instruments use. This means that this fuse could be located in the fuse box that’s under the driver’s side of the dashboard.
In some cases, the fuse could be located in the engine compartment just somewhere under the instrument cluster. It depends from car to car but you have to consult your manual to be sure.
Is it hard to replace a bad fuel gauge fuse?
If you have noticed that a blown fuse was the reason why your fuel gauge and some of the other instruments were not working well, then you could replace the fuse yourself.
And the good news is that it isn’t really difficult for you to replace your instrument panel fuse. You don’t even have to take your car to a mechanic so long as you know a few basics of how to work your way around your car.
Once you have located the fuse box or the electrical center of your car (which depends from one car to another), what you need to do is to read the fuse layout decals to know where the instrument panel fuse is. It would most likely be labeled as “instrument panel” or “illumination” depending on your car.
After that, using a puller or pliers, pull the fuse straight out of its slot and inspect it to see if there are blackened spots that may indicate that it was indeed burnt. From there, all you need to do is to replace the fuse with a new one with the same amperage by gently pushing it in the same slot using your pliers.
Try to turn your car’s ignition on to see if the fuel gauge and all of the other instruments are working properly. This will indeed confirm that a blown fuse was indeed the reason why your gas gauge wasn’t working the way it should.
So, as you can see, it is quite easy to replace an instrument panel fuse even without the help of a mechanic. The only tricky part here is locating where the fuse box is because this can depend on the make and model of your car.
But once you’ve already located the fuse box and the fuse that controls the instrument cluster, everything else will be quite easy to do.
Sources
It Still Runs: Fix Stuck Fuel Gauge
