hello really need some help. I just purchased a used 2004 chrysler pacifica one owner and they took very good care of it. Today when my wife and I were getting home we were at half tank and all of a sudden the fuel gauge just completely zeroed out and our gas indicator light just turned on. I know that I just fueled up and put in thirty five dollars worth of gas so I cant be on empty. Can anyone please help? I am desperate!!!!

 

This just happened to me on my home about an hour ago. I have a 2007 Pacifica. I called and made an appointment at the dealership for the day after tomorrow. In the meantime I have scoured the internet and while there are many possible causes, in my case I think it is a voltage issue between the battery and the fuel pump. It is about time to replace my battery anyway so I am going to try that first.

What did you end up doing?

 

I had the same problem, went to my garage and he told that it is a kind of electronic card that is located with the fuel pump. The problem is that those cards are only sold in combination with a fuel pump.

In my car the card was burnt, looked like had some kind of shortcut or something. He placed another card into it (from another kind of car as well ) and now almost always the gauge indicates full, and only drops down to like half full when the tank is almost empty.

In the mean time I am trying to get hold of a 2nd hand card or a cheaper fuel pump with card.

 

ralphjimenez12:

While I couldn't find any bulletins that match your concern exactly, I did locate one TSB that does apply to the 2004 Pacifica Fuel Gauge that might have some relation. See Below:

TSB NUMBER: 08-038-03

MODELS:
2004 (CS) Pacifica

SYMPTOM/CONDITION:
Vehicle operator may describe the fuel gauge drops to empty and then returns to the correct reading.

OVERVIEW:
This bulletin involves updating the fuel gauge parameters in the Body Control Module (BCM).

Hope this information is helpful to you or another forum member.

 

The more I dig the more I find this is a very common problem with no clear cut solution. You'd think Chrysler would step up on this and educate their service departments about an appropriate fix instead of letting this issue flounder around and cause their owners so much grief.

Every dealership I have called has the same response. "Yup, those Pacificas with the saddle gas tanks, you can never really be sure what the problem is." Then they finish with "We'll have to replace the fuel sensors first (some alternately suggest replacing the fuel pump first) and if that doesn't work then we'll have to try replacing the fuel pump (or the the sensors if they were the ones who suggested replacing the pump first)." Pretty expensive fishing expedition IMO.

This is ridiculous that it is such a fairly common problem and no one at Chrysler has bothered figuring out the best way to fix it. Talk about not giving a rat's patoot about your customers. Thanks a lot Chrysler.

In the meantime I found this article that takes into consideration another symptom I had: that of the gas tank being difficult to fill shortly before the fuel gauge goes erratic. I blamed it on the gas station because it was one I had not gone to before but it sounds like the nozzle cutting off repeatedly could be an indicator of the beginning of this problem according to another Pacifica owner. Here is a link to the simple fix this guy's mechanic found. Well, maybe not simple but less expensive for sure.

 

I have the filling up problem as well

Asked my garage to take a look at the tubes coming from the tank, but they told me that was fine. So there seems to be some kind of filter on top of the tank as well which I should clean ??

Anyone tried that ? And if so, did it work ? And should that also solve the problem with regard to the half tank to empty gauge indicator ? Because my mechanic changed some kind of chip/card and told me that should be the problem...

Want to solve this without buying 2 pumps, a new tank and who knows what else

cheers,

Patrick

 

One of the level units is not working and/or the pump is not transferring fuel over, or tranferring it all over. Pretty much the only 100% way to know is to remove both sides and observe the level and compare with the feedback from the scan tool data. If you have to go in the tank... do them both. Don't get stuck somehwere down the road soon having to go back in, pay the labor again just because you only did one side. THINK....two almost identical parts....the same wear and tear...same age....!!!! If you buy really cheap parts, you'll get really cheap reliability.

Just because your dealer or your local mechanic is ignorant, that's no reason to assume Chrysler has a problem. There are plenty of technical resources available for a technician to be able to service the system properly. If you want a way to half-*** it, go find a shade tree. Shops that are in business have to consider liabity and won't be doing that for you. And BTW, the dealers and technicians are not employed by Chrysler.

 

What I meant by "Thanks a lot Chrysler" is that it appears Chrysler has ignored the fact that one of their vehicles has an ongoing problem (many different model years are experiencing this issue) but has not trained/educated their dealers on how to fix it. I have spoken with 3 different Dealership service departments and every single one of them are aware of this issue as a common problem but they are still just guessing at how to fix it.

 

That's fine, just a lot of people think that dealers are THE corporation which they are not. So the level of expectation when dealing with a Service Manager is not on the high level you think it might be.

There should be no guessing involved. They have the technical info available to them to diagnose it. They should know how to approach the issue.

I was optimistic that after the reorganization back in 2008 that the remaining dealers would see the importance of shedding their dead weight and good ole boy (who can't fix crap) networks in their service departments OR that the new corp would take measures to see they do so. It doesn't seem to be the case just yet in many areas, but they are on track with forcing the dealers to do their training and making it impossible for untrained/unqualified people to be working on warranty repairs. This will translate into better quality service after the warranty period. Sorry that you have to be subjected to this nonsense at this point in time. That would surely not happen where i'm at.

Just from them being able to read this they should be able to figure it out. Straight from technical info they have access to.

The labor involved in dropping the tank warrants (in my opinion) going ahead and doing both no matter which one is pegged as faulty, because as I stated earlier they are the same age and have the same amount of wear on the level sender resistors. Same logic goes as in ...get 4 tires not 2, do the water pump when you do the timing belt, ect. You see where i'm going. Beats the heck out of double labor somewhere down the road. On the older Pacificas you could get to the senders/pumps just by taking the rear seat bottom out. On your 2007 the exhaust has to be dropped and if it is an all wheel drive the driveshaft has to be taken out too.

Here's some info for you to read so you get an idea of how it works.

 

2 things possible here. Your fuel guage is wrong. Saying half or whatevr when full and it's actually cutting the flow off at the pump because it IS full OR the vent line on the filler neck (or the valve in the top of the tank) has some sort of restriction. If your fuel guage is lying, they should be able to read sender info on the scan tool and see if that is the case.