The fuel needle is broke, I bought the 97 Lesabre two days ago on a full tank of gas...how many miles can I get out of a full tank

Could be the sending unit in the gas tank or the gauge on the dash.
Until you get it fixed, you can use your odometer to remember to fuel up. Just stay under 200 miles per full tank of gas.

I would guess the fuel level sending unit is malfunctioning, deposits sometimes build up on the resistor pack, or there is and open circuit in the resister pack, does the fuel gauge needle do a full sweep from empty to full and back when the ignition key is turn to the run position? This is a cluster self check mode, if it fully sweeps than the cluster is ok, I would suspect it needs a fuel level sending unit which is located in the fuel tank as part of the fuel pump modual but usually can be serviced separately

If it sat up for a while before u bought it its possible that the float in the gas tank is stuck

There's a float inside the tank that the fuel gauge works off of. If you step on the brakes or accelerate hard it causes the gas inside the tank to slosh around and you can see the fuel gauge move when you do this. If you know the vehicle has gas in it, the best way to check if the gauge is bad is to drive around enough to where you should have burnt a noticeable amount of gas. If the gauge doesn't move, then there's something wrong with it.


Since the gauge moved when you braked hard, I would assume it's working properly because it picked up on the level change inside the tank where the float's at.

gas tank has the pump in it and the float leaver is stuck .turn car on and hit on the bottom of gas tank that might help release it

u need to have the codes ran on it but if u havent changed the fuel filter its prolly stopped up, and that usually wipes out the fuel pump.

it most likly the fuel sender witch is in the fuel tank

the float on the sender unit in your fuel tank will be stuck in the full position and needs freeing off, so it moves up and down again there will be a clip and rubber seal in the top of your fuel tank where you can remove the sender unit to fix it.

If you remove the sending unit in the gas tank, move it manually by hand as u saw done earlier, the gauge on the dash should also move. As long as the sending unit in the tank isn't 'stuck' at the half full level, the gauge should register empty to full as it moves. To be honest, I'm not sure if I would bother taking the sending unit out. 1st, u must be very careful not to blow yourself up when working on the gas tank (no sparks, etc), all u really need to do is fill up your car, see how many miles a tank of gas will go (carry a can of gas with u to see how many miles before u run out). If it's 350 miles, just set the trip gauge to zero every time u fill up, and get gas every 300 miles so u don't run out. If the sending unit moves freely, everything (wiring ) is connected properly, then it probably is the fuel gauge. good luck!

this could be as simple as a broken wire in the sending unit harness or it could inolve having to remove the tank to get to the pump to replace the float. best way is to check to make sure that there is power going to the sending unit in the tank. if there is and i suspect that there is because the fuel pump works so either your float is stuck or the guage itself is bad these are your options to check out... please rate this........thanks