Tadi

I thought I would just share this little incident, even though I'm not proud of it and am still swimming in the resultant panic attack symptoms. Lets set the scene:

I finally found a 951 to buy. Had it checked out, had a sports-car-nut friend test drive it with me and dog it on some back roads, and felt pretty good about its reliability. Today was the day to pick it up. I drove over, cut the check, and was off and running in 20 minutes. I went out to the DMV to get the title switched and the registration taken care of. While I was out there I had the car added to my insurance, and my wife's 95 Tercel removed (yeah, quite an upgrade! and our insurance actually went DOWN $100/6mos!). So things are going great. Friday afternoon. Fairly sunny, not too hot so the car is loving it. I stop buy at my sports car nut friends house to say hi, then set out for home so I don't miss dinner.

Then it happens...

I'm on the highway headed home and all of a sudden I lose all power. No throttle response, no boost, and the engine is coughing. Obviously out of gas right? But the gas gauge says its half full! At this point I am livid, so I march off to a gas station about a mile away, grab some gas, hitch a ride back, slam the gas in, and low and behold it fires right up. At this point I've calmed down, but I decided to go fill the tank anyway. 20 gallons!

So, stuck gas gauge. Hopefully an easy fix, we'll see. Definitely much better than any of the miriad of alternatives that flashed through my mind sitting there on the side of the road. I'm afraid that if I had just eaten I would of needed to change the boxers when I got home. Not a funny thing to do to a new 16yr-old-german-sports-car owner!

On a related note, has anyone heard of this problem? When I filled the car up the gas gauge went to full, so I'm assuming something is stuck. How difficult/costly would this be to fix?

Robby

Damn dude! I've heard of it the other way- When full, mine only shows ~3/4 tank, but it works okay from there. I've been meaning to take the floater out and clean it all up- remove from under the hatch carpet- there's a procedure somewhere on here- not sure it would help you though, but maybe someone will know something...

Good luck...

Brian McCoy

I feel for ya too - I just bought mine on 9/19 and I'm hesitant to take it out anywhere to far from home without getting things like a tow-hook, a replacement cell phone (they don't take drop-kicks to well ya know), and just some confidence in the car.

As for the gas - it's just a plastic float that goes up and down. Probably hung up somehow (rust?) - shouldn't be to big of a deal to fix though I don't know how easy it is to get into the gast tank either.

Deepice

you need to clean the contacts in the tank...or at the tank

special tool

UUUUUh - its not the gas guage. Just my opinion.

Tadi

[quote]Originally posted by special tool:
<strong>UUUUUh - its not the gas guage. Just my opinion.</strong><hr></blockquote>

What do you think it is then?

C5Driver951

I'm thinking DME relay unless you absolutely sure you had no gas in the system.

If it was out of gas, try running some injector cleaner and pulling the instrument panel to clean all of the contacts.

Tadi

[quote]Originally posted by C5Driver951:
<strong>I'm thinking DME relay unless you absolutely sure you had no gas in the system.

If it was out of gas, try running some injector cleaner and pulling the instrument panel to clean all of the contacts.</strong><hr></blockquote>

It was absolutely out of gas. Like I said, I went to the gas station and put 20+ gallons in the thing. I'll take a look at the contacts and the float in the tank. Thanks a bunch for all of your help guys!

Asahi

Good to hear that you're up and running. You got off easy. I experienced the same symptoms but my car was not out of gas.

I replaced the DME relay - didn't help.
I replaced the computer - didn't help.
I threw up my hands in the air - didn't help.

I brought the car to a Porsche mechanic. I explained the symptoms to the mechanic and he told me to leave the car with him. (It wasn't going anywhere, anyway) After three days and a sizable $ bill, it turned out to be the flywheel sensor. <img src="graemlins/crying.gif" border="0" alt="[crying]" />

Oh well, what can you do?

<img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

nickhance

This is slighty off-topic, but I also went from a tercel to the 951.
I think thats at least 3 people on this board who went from some year toyota tercel to a Porsche <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

special tool

Was that gas guage really reading half full? Let me ask you something; lets say you are out on a friday night and you meet a beautiful girl. You somehow manage to get this girl to come home with you and she starts to get undressed. At this point you say something really stupid like, I can't believe the time, I have to get up early tomorrow and wash my Porsche." Would you now classify this girl as half dressed, or half undressed?

EDIT: - substitute wife for girl.

Tadi

[quote]Originally posted by nickhance:
<strong>This is slighty off-topic, but I also went from a tercel to the 951.
I think thats at least 3 people on this board who went from some year toyota tercel to a Porsche <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>

Well I guess I cheated. It was my wife's Tercel (I'm 6'6"...to picture me in a Tercel, close your eyes and imagine a bear riding a tricycle at the circus...then make the tricycle smaller and the bear bigger). She's driving my new Explorer now that I (I mean we!) have the 951. The good news is I drove it all day today without any problems whatsoever, so I'm pretty sure its the gauge or float. I'll get around to fixing that at some point