new jimny owner, fuel gauge issues and a few other questions

Thanks.
seems im worrying over nothing with the fuel gauge.

In 22 years of driving ive never seen a vehicle where the fuel gauge doesnt zero when you turn off the ignition!

whitfield wrote: Thanks.
seems im worrying over nothing with the fuel gauge.

In 22 years of driving ive never seen a vehicle where the fuel gauge doesnt zero when you turn off the ignition!

I've seen lots but it matters not

whitfield wrote: In 22 years of driving ive never seen a vehicle where the fuel gauge doesnt zero when you turn off the ignition!

LOL Not had Suzukis then???
Nor Japanese!!
Me, I don't like digital gauges. I am the other way, I don't remember last having one that drops to zero.:unsure Can't even recall if my first car, Ford 103E Pop, dropped to zero:

Most British cars from the 60s onwards used "hot wire" gauges that dropped back to zero.

Really old cars had a sort of pressure gauge (looked like a thermometer) that worked by the fuel sloshing about in a tube affair inside the tank.
The old Suzuki 'bikes had a balanced armature type gauge with two coils, I'm not 100% how they work, but if you disconnect them, they go back to zero and stay there, they only obtain a reading when the ignition is on.
I'm guessing the jimny has one, your 103e might have had one of those too, they didn't need an instrument voltage regulator.

"Modern" cars use some sort of motor and sweep to 100% every time the ignition is turned on.

Nope, never had suzuki (apart from gsxr), not even driven anything japanese untill this.
Ive owned and driven quite a range of vehicles ranging from the 1940's to the modern day but all uk, german, french or American.
Never owned anything with a digital fuel gauge but have driven them obviously.


Just remembered one vehicle where the fuel gauge read level with ignition off but that had a mechanical gauge pulled by a cable.

Had vehicles with no fuel gauge at all.

Common thing with japanese cars then?

the majority of my cars have been VW from the 70's to 90's or 40's-60's fords a couple of citroens and my current Bedford cf.

Every fuel gauge ive known has an ignition switched live and a variable resisted drain to earth (the sender) so turn off ignition and fuel gauge drops to zero.

Just as a side note, you CAN'T differentiate the country/plant of manufacture for Jimnys based on the construction of the body top (tin top, soft top etc.) nor by engine type.

As my thorough research both into Suzuki's documentation and into real-life Jimnys on second hand market shows, there are no hard rules. There are many diesel Jimnys built in Japan, many tin top petrols built in Spain, etc.

The only proper way of determining the country of manufacture is by the first three letters of vehicle's VIN code. If it is "JSA", it was made in Japan. If it is "VSE", it was made in Spain.


The importance of the country of manufacture for Jimnys is that the Spanish (Santana) plant had a certain level of technical "autonomy" for production, so many small parts and bits are different than in genuine Japanese Jimnys.