This is the first time I have ever had to post regarding my 2002 Gen 1 Prius besides praising it. I beleive the malfunction is due to my own stupidity, but that can be decided after hearing my story. I went to a camp on Memorial Day. The camp had a lot of mud on the road leading up to it which caused an excess amount to accumulate around my wheel wells. When I was coming back, I filled up my tank about 6 miles from my house. About 3 days later my gas gauge dropped 1 bar from full. I got home and decided to hose out my wheel wells and get rid of the excess mud. I sprayed them out with a hose set on "jet" and got it all out. After spraying out the wheel wells, I noticed a slight click noise coming from my front driver tire whenever I took a sharp right turn. I assumed it was a rock, but could not find one in the tire. After driving around and putting 112 miles on the car from the last fill up, my gas gauge has not gone down. I beleive that spraying out the wheel wells may have caused a speed sensor to disconnect, or something else. Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated since I will try and fix myself if possible.
I think if a speed sensor came loose, you would have a lot more problems showing up, such as an ABS warning light, or the speedometer not reading correctly. I suspect the problem is either with the gas tank itself, or the gas gauge needs to be recalibrated.
Thanks for your reply. Would you know if that would have any bearing on spraying water into the wheel wells? It didn't happen until then and if some rust came off and attched the the sensor, it could mess it up. But then again, I'm not even sure that it's a speed sensor in the Prius that controls the gas gauge. I read about the gas gauge being recalibrated in the Gen II models, is it the same procedure in a Gen I?
Besides the fuel sensor (which is inside the fuel tank bladder) , I hope you will inspect the rubber boots on the right half-axle. THose boots need to be intact and not leaking grease.
There is nothing stupid about hosing out the wheel wells. I doubt that any wiring harness connection was impacted by that. Perhaps you have a very small rock stuck in the LF disc brake caliper. I would not be worried about the fuel gauge yet. If you've driven 200 miles and see no change in the fuel gauge reading then I would start to be concerned.
Everyone, thanks for your posts. I was unable to look at it this weekend, but can get it into a local shop and have them throw it up on a lift for me and take off the tire free of charge so I can inspect it. I do have good news (I guess). My fuel gauge went down by another bar, so it may not be impacted by this noise I am hearing. I will check out the speed sensor while I'm looking if it is in that location. Tochatihu, the fuel sensor is the only thing that gauges fuel levels? If so, then my water escapades would not have affected that. I know the sound boots make when they are worn, and it is not this type of sound. So thankfully I will not be looking at that. Also, I just had it inspected 2 months ago and no boot issues were reported. Patrick, it very well could be the rock in the caliper. I'll have to check.
Gen 1 Fuel Gauge Issue need help My 2002 is way off in the fuel gauge. I downloaded the TSB and followed it step-by-step including timing on the button presses and releases. Absolutely nothing happens. When I hold in the ODO button and turn the key to on, nothing happens. I press-release-press-release-press and hold the ODO button within 5 seconds but this only cycles through the ODO/trip displays. Has anyone else had this issue and figured out what to do?
