Expert: Sean Halliday - 10/31/2007

Question
QUESTION: WHEN I START DRIVING, THE WATER TEMPERATURE GAUGE GOES ALL THE WAY TO HOT & THE FUEL LEVEL GAUGE GOES ALL THE WAY TO FULL.  ALL OTHER GAUGES & INDICATOR LIGHTS ARE WORKING PROPERLY.  ENGINE IS NOT OVERHEATING & FUEL TANK IS LESS THAN HALF FULL.

ANSWER: I am pretty sure you have a fault in your dash unit.Its either a bad earth or the gauges are faulty.A second hand unit from the junk yard will fix it.There are 2 sensors for both these units,the gas and temp but it isnt these.One is in the fuel tank and the other is on the engine block.Its very unlikely that both will go out at exactly the same time.I have seen this on some asian cars and its always the dash unit.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: WILL AN AFTER MARKET TEMPERATURE GAUGE & FUEL GAUGE WORK WITHOUT REPLACING THE EXISTING SENSOR UNITS???

Answer
What you are having trouble with is the printed circuit board on the back of the dash.That is the speedo head itself.The sensors are ok,,,i,e,,,the fuel sender unit in the tank and the temp sensor on the engine so replacing these wont fix the problem.I am assuming the both gauges went out at the same time or have they gone bad over time?...In this case then you can try a aftermarket temp sensor and it will work ok to see if the temp goes back to normal.If the sender unit is also faulty then it must be the proper unit for your car.If you can find a aftermarket sender unit it will work ok.If it was my car,i would change the dash speedo unit first as the tank unit and temp sensor may be ok.Unfortunately, there is no way to  test these units only replacement.