Low Fuel Warning Light

[Rod1955]

Hello everyone., recently while away with our 200 series GXL and caravan we had the pleasure of the warning light for fuel contamination come on, easy fix new filter and reset the light, about 59 klms later the low fuel warning light comes on with still a quarter of a tank left, so we pull into servo and it only took 95 litres, I was expecting to take more, well the next day after travelling all day it did it again only taking another 95 litres, should we be using more fuel? seems the sub tank is not getting used??????? Toyota don't seem able to give me any help other than to say we have to pull your tanks out to investigate, surly there is a simple answer??? please help Rod

 

[Gasmanjc]

Possible the transfer pump between the tanks has stopped operating. Not sure how much of a job it is on the 200 but the 150 required the rear tank to be removed.

 

[Rod1955]

Thanks for the information about the transfer pump. One would think a light would come on to tell you and or when you reset the light it would start working again, seems a big job to pull the tank out to fix?

 

[Gasmanjc]

They usually last quite a while, I think the service manual states they are to be changed somewhere around the 150k mark. Its a pretty common occurrence as I see the issue posted on FB groups every few days.

 

[Colin J. Cooper]

This is becoming a fairly common problem and is probably caused by a high resistance in the plug and socket pins of the main tank which supply the transfer pump. It can be checked from the fuse box under the bonnet by pulling the Sub Pump relay and checking the resistance to earth of the wire which goes to the pump. It should be in the order of 1 to 3 ohms. If its not - say in the order of 400 ohms or so, then the only fix is to drop the tank and either replace the top part of the complete unit or rewire the pump direct to the loom. Either way its a long job as the seats have to come out to get the carpet up so that the sender/pump plug and fuel pipes can be disconnected before dropping the tank.
Filling the tanks can also seem to be part of the problem as the sub tanks are normally full when the gauge shows 1/4 full. Mine kept throwing the fuel back out once it reached about 70 litres or so.
Hope this helps.