resetting fuel gauge inclination sensor

Hmm. Does your post mean this:

1. Chiefly, you're having an issue where the filling nozzle shuts off after only 4 or 5 gallons when the fuel gauge suggests the tank is empty, and

2. in passing, you happen to have tried the inclinometer reset procedure and something went wonky and left a bunch of lights on the dash?

If the original issue was (1), I would be looking into something around the filler neck / fuel cutoff valve area.

I guess now you might also have to solve (2), which I know less about.

The illustration below is from one of the Toyota technician training courses; those are available for download on techinfo.toyota.com, the same place one goes for the repair manuals. The repair manual should give the complete, correct procedure for inclinometer resetting, in case you were following a procedure from the interwebs and something was a little off (that never happens, of course!).

-Chap

 

I'm afraid there's no direct way to know that. Either possibility could be true, and either possibility would mean something wasn't working right.

You could be adding the FIRST four gallons, which would mean you must have a problem around the fuel cutoff valve or associated tubing, making the nozzle shut off when the tank ls less than half full.

You could be adding the LAST four gallons, which would mean you must have a problem with the fuel gauge or sender unit, telling you the tank is empty when it's more than half full.

If everything in your car were working right, NEITHER of those things would be happening, and you wouldn't have your question.

That much is clear, but none of us across the internet without access to your car could tell you which of those two problems you have. Do you see why it's hard to tell?

One definitive way would be to open the fuel line and jumper the fuel pump to run until it's all pumped out. Then you know it's empty, and check what the fuel gauge says, and see what happens with the filler nozzle when you fill it up.

Another way (riskier!) is to do the old keep-squeezing-the-nozzle-till-fuel-overflows bit (still some people's crazy normal habit!) one time while filling up, and that'll tell you if you were in fact putting in the LAST gallons because it will quickly rise up the neck. But don't do that. I say riskier because you've got expensive evaporation control components down there that can get fuel-flooded if you do that, and have to be replaced. A safer approach might be to disconnect the lines for those, then try topping off, so any overflow won't go into the wrong things. Some study of the diagrams would be needed to know what to disconnect where.

Any collision work toward the rear of the car that you know of?

-Chap

 

I don't know how the rubber bladder changes the equation but the next time it's down near empty is it possible to try siphoning what's left in the tank into a 5 gallon gas can? That will tell you how much gas is really left in the tank.

 

Siphoning would be sort of another way of going about the same test I suggested in #5, which was to open the line to the engine into a container and run the car's fuel pump until the tank is empty. The name of the game either way is to answer your so-far unanswered question, how much fuel is really in there?

I would rate the approach using the fuel pump to be less uncertain: there are a lot of variables in trying to siphon from a tank you've never siphoned from before. When the flow stops, is that because the fuel's out, or you didn't get the hose end where it needed to be? You start with one unanswered question and end up with two. The fuel pump will pump down to the same level every time.

If you aren't personally comfortable with siphoning, you won't be personally comfortable with opening lines and activating pumps either, but you can find people who do that sort of thing for a living; it shouldn't cost much, and would answer the question.

I don't see that as anything but a false choice between two things you know you don't want. The middle road would be to just find out what's wrong, and get that fixed. It could turn out (I don't know, but it could) to be the part I pictured in #3. Lists for $114, less at discount, a sixth the cost of the fuel tank and a lot less labor (not to mention infinitely more productive to change, if it's the problem and the tank isn't! )

But the best way to decide what to change isn't by comparing prices but by finding out what isn't working. It's looking like to get it fixed, you would have to pay somebody for some work. But it wouldn't necessarily be a giant expense.

-Chap

 

This is what worked for me. Disconnect both terminals of the aux battery and touch the end of the cable together for 5 seconds. Re-connect the cables. This will recalibrate everything in your car.