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Dear Jim,

I drive a 1997 Ford Taurus (3.0L, V6) and my problem is with the gas gauge. I'll put a little gas in the car, maybe $15, and the needle goes up to about the halfway mark. After I leave the station, it dips down to one-quarter, then rises and drops throughout the day.

When I restart the car later, the gauge is usually back to where I think it should be. What's making this happen, and how expensive will it be to fix?

-- Michael Christie

I hear you, bro. Fifteen bucks in the tank doesn't go far these days, and now you've got a fuel gauge that's mocking you on top of it all.

The gauge gets its signals from a sensor assembly that's located inside the gas tank, and looks a lot like the float in the back of a toilet. As the gas level rises or falls, so does the float, which operates the sensor, which relays fuel-level information to the gauge.

Almost always, it's this unit that goes bad over time and not the gauge itself, no matter what kind of crazy things it's telling you inside the car.

The good news is that a brand-new sensor for your Taurus shouldn't cost more than about $50. These sensors go bad pretty often, as yours almost certainly has, but things could be much worse; sensor "sending units" on some vehicles can cost as much as $300.

The not-so-good news is that a couple of hours of labor are required to do the job, because the entire gas tank needs to be dropped out of the vehicle. You're looking at a total expense of about $200. It's not a trivial amount, bro, but at least you'll finally be getting the straight story from that little needle on the dash.

Tip of the Week:

While we're talking about pumps, here's some advice about the other one on your vehicle -- the water pump.

When the weather really heats up like this, I get plenty of customers coming in with leaky water pumps, and many of them have already tried to solve the problem with special stop-leak additives. Don't use these. They don't work.

If you really have a leaky ceramic seal on the pump (and not just a hose somewhere -- make sure of this), then replacing the unit is the only solution, and it just has to be done when it's summer and the desert is your home.

Buffalo Jim, owner of Allstate Auto & Marine Repair in Las Vegas, writes a weekly column. Send your automotive questions to him at buffalojim@lasvegasniftynickel.com. If Jim picks your question to answer in Nuts & Bolts, you'll also be the proud recipient of a deck of official Buffalo Jim playing cards, presented in a classy, tin box bearing his hairy image.