atlas wrote:

It happened to me yesterday . After filling the tank, fuel indicator now shows that I only have half of the tank left.

I will replace the whole unit, sender and pump. According to Microcat, for my VIN number (SALFA28C17H012650), the matching part number is LR005622. Now Famousfour, http://www.famousfour.co.uk/lrparts/lr_page.php?partID=445107, tells me that LR005622 is superseded by LR038602. In between these two there are other two releases, LR010434 and LR029280.

I'm confused, what is the correct part number ? I'm tempted to buy the newest one, but I'm afraid that it will not fit properly.

Took MY10 GS into Main Dealer, they did diagnostic & wiring checks found nothing. Told me that LR had issued a new Bulletin on the problem yesterday but they needed to check that my extended warranty covered the work required. So it looks like it will have to go back in next week. Will keep updating.

Finally I ordered the latest part number, LR038602, from LRdirect. They recomended to use the latest model and they also checked the compatibility based on the VIN number.

Main dealer tells me this new bulletin says to hard wire a connector to the fuel pump as they suspect this could be causing problems. As the problem has only appeared 3 times and clears after restarting the engine I'm leaving it till we get back from holiday in 2 weeks. Will keep you posted.

my new to me MY10XS went in last week for several issues to be looked at incl the fuel gauge issue which had occurred several times. The Dealer decided to replace the sender units as experience showed a software download didn't sort the problem and once it had started to occur it would just get worse.

I am well chuffed with the decision by the dealer as had been prepared for the long slog after reading about this problem on this forum and the time it can take to get agreement to replace the sender units under warranty.

Nice one Sakoquad Think I will show this to my Dealer as they seem determined to carry out the work in this bulletin they have had from LR.

Just a heads up for anyone who has this problem and car is still under manufacturers warranty then I would advise getting it looked at ASAP. I bought my 10 plate in May this year, just as the land rover warranty ran out and had a years 3rd party warranty come with it. A couple of weeks ago it developed the erratic fuel gauge problem and it is with the dealer today. They say they know what the fault is and need to wire in the connector to the fuel pump but warranty does not cover the repair. Spoke to the warranty company and they will not pay for the work as it is classed as an electrical fault not fuel system related fault.

Thanks,
James

Golf nut wrote:

Main dealer tells me this new bulletin says to hard wire a connector to the fuel pump as they suspect this could be causing problems. As the problem has only appeared 3 times and clears after restarting the engine I'm leaving it till we get back from holiday in 2 weeks. Will keep you posted.

Main dealer is talking If the fuel pump or it's connection is faulty, then the fuel will not be transfered from the passive side of the tank to the active side. The fuel gauge(s) would still read the correct amount. Now if you run out of fuel and the fuel gauge says you have fuel left, then yes the fuel pump has failed to transfer.

Taking the units out and examining them will produce no faults, I have both my old units, and they read perfect, the wiring is as good as the day it was built, what do you expect?, for days /weeks they worked fine, then for an hour or two they would play up, then work again perfectly for days/weeks. Maybe put them on a test bench, operate the arms independantly using a motor, log the position and the readout, and find the fault. Bearing in mind this could take a several weeks per sender, I would expect LR to actually do these tests in QC.

It is possible that the wiring to the senders is faulty, but that was definately not the case for me. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

jhoulston wrote:

...... Spoke to the warranty company and they will not pay for the work as it is classed as an electrical fault not fuel system related fault.

Thanks,
James

I have received the pump and the sender unit. But this is only for the RH. Also I have ordered the sender for the LH, in my case is the part number LR038722.

On the pump's main connector there are 7 contacts in line if I'm not wrong, first two and the last two are for the sender units. Basically a sender is a simple variable resistor with a range starting at ~50 ohm up to ~1000ohm.

My guess is that the problem can be caused by the oxidation of the resistor's variable contact or some debris that get its way in between the moving contact and the fixed resistor. Maybe when they are new the resistor is shielded somehow but in time the material is slowly dissolved and hence the results. Is possible that, after the floating arm is moving, the contact to be cleaned and so on ...

I find it very strange that after all this time and the relative frequency that this problem crops up (not for individual dealers maybe but for LR certainly) over a period of years, that LR are NOW saying hardwire a connector to the fuel pump to solve the problem.

Either way it seems as if your extended warranty company will be able to say that "it's an electrical fault" shame on them.

The issue now, when paying garage repair rates yourself, is that LR have now introduced another stage into the expensive trial and error process, fine when they pay not so fine when you are left picking up the tab especially if the sender units eventually need replacing anyway.

atlas - you are correct about the connections, and that they are simple variable resistors.
Maybe the act of removing the units does dislodge some debris - it certainly is not a gentle manouver. Filling up does quickly move the arm from bottom to top, but driving as hard as I do they still fall relatively slowly to the bottom when the tank is drained

The sad bit is that fuel tank senders is hardly rocket science, and that they have been in operation in a similar design for decades.

The really annoying bit is that you have to drain the tank, remove the exhaust, drive shaft, tank guard, fuel lines, and tank, rather than pulling out a bung under the rear seat and replacing them with the tank in situe. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

And to be honest I'm sure that they can very easily detect the problem, for each sender unit, and fire a DTC. They only need to detect the fast drop in the fuel level in a very short period of time. But for sure they don't want to do that. Anyway they have invested a lot of research in the DPF algorithm, so much that is very hard to get rid of it. Money, money ...

But I can say that I'm lucky, because the garage estimated the work for only 150 Euro ...

Don't forget they can (and do) fail the opposite way, showing fuel left and you run out.

And no the senders were not hung up. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Quote:

Name and shame that company, considering the amount of electrical kit in modern cars I would expect the majority of failures after 3 years to have some electrical component.