I was out driving today (mostly in town, some short expressway) and the car is fully warmed up. I had about 1/4 tank (4 bars, I think) of gas. I parked, ran in to do something for about 5 minutes, came back and started the car and the low fuel warning light came on -- bright and steady. Meanwhile, the fuel gauge shows no bars at all. Since I knew I had more fuel in there, I was not worried. I kept driving and then after a few miles, one bar came back on in the fuel gauge. One by one, I got back to 3 bars. But all this time, the low fuel warning light was bright and steady.

I decided to stop and fill it up. After that, the fuel gauge showed full and the warning light is off. Did anyone ever experience this before? The car (MY2000) has 24K miles on it and this is the first time it's happened. The temperature outside was warm and sunny, so that should not be an issue. Any guess as to what might have happened?

 

The only time I've seen that, I was parked on an incline.

 

your case seems a little worse then what i have seen, but this is common in every car, including my S2000

 

I've gone from 2 bars and fuel warning light to having more than half a tank!

But... I was parked on a very slight incline.

It does also seem that when the car is cold, the level is lower than when the car is warm. Most typically I notice this when I park it when I have 1/4 of a tank left (4 bars) and start it the next morning, almost consistently with 2 bars and a fuel warning light.

The other one that I notice a lot, is when I fuel up, drive about 30km or so, which *should* kick it down 1 or 2 bars, but doesn't. When I stop the fuel guage is still on full. If I leave it overnight, it will genuinely show 2 bars down.

 

My situation is different , everytime I fill up my tank all the way until it clicks , never get a full bar showing . It always shows 2-3 bars less .

 

Honda fuel gauges are notorius for giving widely varying readings, so this is very common. Usually there's a lot more gas than the reading indicates, but you just can't trust it.

 

That's why I use the trip to supplement my fuel gauge. Most others will probably agree with this. You know how far your car will go based on the type of driving you've been doing. I've yet to run out, but have gone to no bars once. As far as the incline, when I first got my S I was at a stop sign with a very steep incline, (nose up) and I went dead from lack of clutch control. No problen I thought, and tried to start it up again. It would not start on the incline. I had to allow the car to roll back until I was on level ground then it started. Well to make a long story short, (too late) the fuel system in the S seems to be hypersensetive to inclines.

 

Hmmm... I knew the outside temperature could be a factor, so I mentioned that it was a warm sunny day. I neglected to mention that the car was parked on a level street. No incline. The driving afterwards is also on level streets when the bars slowly come back. And I am aware that the Honda fuel gauge is not accurate (I do augment the fuel gauge info with the trip odometer reading, like most other S2000 owners ). But this is the first time it's gone so crazy for me -- from 4 bars down to none and then slowly creep back and the low fuel warning light stayed on even after 3 bars came back on the fuel gauge.

 

Mine does the same thing. It almost never reads full. The first time it happened I took it to my dealer and they changed the sending unit. It worked fine for about 6 months and then did it again. That time they said "don't worry about it" and refused to fix it.