I've noticed some interesting things about my fuel gauge since I bought my 06 back in March, I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this and if TJTJ has an explination for it. If I let my fuel tank go to the E or below before filling it, the gauge does not go past the half-way mark for about 5 to 10 minutes of driving, during this time the indicator is raising very slowly. If I fill the tank with the indicator above the E mark, meaning that I didn't run it overly low, then it shows a the amount that I've put in right away. I've always that this was a little strange. Because I have a 20 year old morning routine, I only put ten gallons of gas in my truck every morning, get my coke and my mpls paper. I generally burn that exact amount of fuel. It doesn't strike me as being broken, maybe the fuel level detection mech. works differently than what I'm use to. I'd take it out and check it, but Nissan hasn't caught onto putting a fuel tank access hatch under the back seat like Ford does.

Its fairly common.

There's baffles in the tank to help prevent sloshing of the gas, there's vapors in the tank air trapped by the baffles, there's a reserve capacity of a few gallons below empty...and a float type arrangement that sends a signal to the dash gauge...the float has a damper that keeps it from making the dash gauge read Full/Empty Full/Empty, or up/down hills, or otherwise read too erratically as you drive, so, when all the way down, it rises slowly, and can take some time to reach its final destination.

So - when somewhat full...the gauge will receive the signal quickly as the baffles are already full, the float damping has less of an effect, etc.

If fairly dry...some of the gas is working its way through the baffles, into the reserve...and it takes a while to affect the float enough to give a full signal.

The way it typically goes is you fill'r up, and the pump kicks off, but the gauge reads 3/4 tank or so...you drive a little bit, and voila! A full tank appears.

:D

I have yet to reach the dreaded 'E'

I ran out a coupla times.