E46 330i fuel gauge issues

Kurt Adv · Feb 10, 2016

So, last Friday I run out of petrol when my dash says I still have 51km to go, fuel light was on. But I have noticed of late that I do around 400km on 'half a tank' according to the gauge, and the needle takes forever to start dropping, which is not normal.....I remove the pump/sender unit, all looks ok on the swipe PC board, but when I drop the float to empty, the gauge still says just below 1/4....anyone else had this issue? How did you fix it? I don't have a spare kidney to donate at BMW buying a new pump/sender unit....

Lizzard · Feb 10, 2016

Had the same problem on my E46 330i, your fuel pump gauge is on it's way out. You will fill her up and it will show you can only do like 400km or something and then when you reach half mark you will need to fill up as the car will loose kilometers once it goes below half on the gauge.

Call Bemow, bought mine from them for just over a R1000. They in Pretoria west though. You will need to replace the pump to resolve this problem.

And imagine I had an auto that did that, wasn't even funny when it spit at 1/4 tank full gauge level......oh and it get worse over time. So drive it from full to half and fill her up until you can buy the pump, but buying it you don't have a choice.

Kurt Adv · Feb 10, 2016

Mine is not doing that yet, the fuel gauge drops to just below 1/4, and the distance to go is a bit higher than normal, tells me I have about 750km range, something I never used to see....

My odometer stays consistent, and I know I need to refuel when I get around the 550km mark, so I need to watch that for now.....is there a chance that the fuel pump could totally fail because of this? In which case I need to get one soonest....

Blue Shirt · Feb 10, 2016

The E46 fuel tank has two fuel level sensors. They are prone to corrosion and bad electrical contact which messes with the fuel level being reported to the OBC if one starts malfunctioning.

I will post a link tomorrow with instructions for removing and cleaning of the level sensors which will fix your problem. I have done this before successfully on my E46 Touring.

OK I re-read the initial post. You shoudl also remove and clean the sender on the passenger side lobe of the fuel tank. As I mentioned, the E46 fuel tank has two senders.

Serg_ZA · Feb 10, 2016

I have also run out of fuel with 50km of range to go...

Kurt Adv · Feb 11, 2016

Blue Shirt said:
The E46 fuel tank has two fuel level sensors. They are prone to corrosion and bad electrical contact which messes with the fuel level being reported to the OBC if one starts malfunctioning.

I will post a link tomorrow with instructions for removing and cleaning of the level sensors which will fix your problem. I have done this before successfully on my E46 Touring.

OK I re-read the initial post. You shoudl also remove and clean the sender on the passenger side lobe of the fuel tank. As I mentioned, the E46 fuel tank has two senders.

I have removed the right side unit, no visible fault found there, what does the left unit do?

Dewald Basson · Feb 11, 2016

Same issue I have not gotten around to fixing it.

Fuel level sensor from BMW (price I got) is 1600, so try the clean first

asf · Feb 11, 2016

Blue Shirt said:
The E46 fuel tank has two fuel level sensors. They are prone to corrosion and bad electrical contact which messes with the fuel level being reported to the OBC if one starts malfunctioning.

I will post a link tomorrow with instructions for removing and cleaning of the level sensors which will fix your problem. I have done this before successfully on my E46 Touring.

OK I re-read the initial post. You shoudl also remove and clean the sender on the passenger side lobe of the fuel tank. As I mentioned, the E46 fuel tank has two senders.

Please post the link anyway

Blue Shirt · Feb 11, 2016

The fuel tank is divided into two lobes (left & right) which are interconnected via the fuel return line. Each lobe has its own level sender unit and either or both can give false readings.

Here is the write-up on how to fix: Fuel indication problem diagnosis

nirvash · Feb 11, 2016

hi,

i had this recently on my 330i,
would be like 1/4 -1/2 tank left but i would have driven 500kms, alwyas fill up at 500, usually have around 50 more kms to spare, dont like running the tank empty,

also before this started of my gauge over reading my car ran out of fuel close to home with 75kms left showing on the computer,

when i had my last service at an indy i told them about the over reading and they said it may just need to be re calibrated, dont know what they did or this means, but it has at least for the moment fixed the issues,
can anyone explain?

Yuben · Feb 11, 2016

I never let my range go below 100km before filling. Not worth the dirt circulating in the 13 year old tank...

Kurt Adv · Mar 2, 2016

Seems to be sorted, I removed the right side sender unit/pump, cleaned it all up, refitted it, ran the car almost to empty, with a 5L fuel can in the boot, gauge showed just below empty, 17km to go, I was still going....refilled to first click, took 63L. So, hopefully I can trust my gauge/distance to go again...

Spiro · Mar 2, 2016

i'm currently in this boat with my e46 320i.... so gonna clean both the Sender and Primary with contact cleaner...

will post findings...

Miltonian · Mar 3, 2016

Thanx guys

im suffering from the same ill.
will surely do this this weekend.

individj · Mar 3, 2016

my 330 too lol

Nobz330i · May 9, 2019

This happened to me, lol... it showed 75km and boom lmfao it stopped luckily I just passed the garage and got to try push it there.. I’m definitely going to also clean the sender units this weekend. If all fails I’ll have to get a new pump.. oh and when it hits half Tank I’m going to try my best to fuel it up.

Nobz330i said:
This happened to me, lol... it showed 75km and boom lmfao it stopped luckily I just passed the garage and got to try push it there.. I’m definitely going to also clean the sender units this weekend. If all fails I’ll have to get a new pump.. oh and when it hits half Tank I’m going to try my best to fuel it up.

Hopefully I’ll manage and not mess things up.

evnmopwr · May 9, 2019

YUBEN said:
I never let my range go below 100km before filling. Not worth the dirt circulating in the 13 year old tank...

agreed, another thing that tends to Mess these units up is over filling you fuel tank.

ALWAYS fill up to First Airlock click ONLY!!..

Since these are common issues, if your car has not seen a new Pump in years, as PM, i think with the age of these E46s its best to just replace...

But Finding the secondary Level sender ( Left side ) new will be very difficult

Tjoppies · May 9, 2019

same happened to me...left stranded 2 times the last 6 months when range is 70km+

Nobz330i · May 9, 2019

During lunch I went to the car and So the km Range was showing 245km and I did the reset obc and it reset the whole car showing lights etc and everything went to normal... clicked the BC and the km Range now is on 175km

So I’m thinking in the mean time I keep resting when I park just to make sure it’s accurate because it’s a bit stressful not knowing where it’s sitting.

Sankekur · May 9, 2019

evnmopwr said:
YUBEN said:

I never let my range go below 100km before filling. Not worth the dirt circulating in the 13 year old tank...

Click to expand...

agreed,

This makes no sense to me, dirt would be in the bottom of the tank, the pickup for the pump is in the bottom of the tank, so it would be picked up by the pump irrespective of the amount of fuel in the tank. This said there is a strainer/filter thing on the pickup of the pump, there is fuel filter in the fuel line and there is a small strainer/filter in each injector.