jdmartinez1221

Evening everyone, new member here with an '03. In all honesty, I'm looking for some guidance: My coolant and fuel gauges aren't reading correctly. With the vehicle cold starting, the fuel and coolant gauges will essentially start in the middle. I recently got the car running, so this is one of the many things I'm finding out as I work out some kinks. I've currently not replaced any components because I want to get some opinions. For starters, if the car is key off engine off, the gauges are at the bottom like normal. Once I'm key on engine off, immediately the fuel and coolant gauges start at the middle. Coolant will stay at middle, and fuel will then increase way past the "F" on the fuel gauge. Basically recognizing the center of the gauge to be "0". Now, I know the ECU is at the very least reading the fuel level correctly, because at one point the fuel level gauge got close to the middle and the low fuel indicator illuminated. I removed both pins that go to the coolant temp sensor (The one for the gauge, not to ecu), and one for the fuel level sender. With this, there was no change to the condition. I'm starting to lean towards a possible faulty cluster since the gauges are simple analog and not data read by the ECU. But, There not a full breakdown in the wiring diagram for the cluster showing how the wiring diagram is ran internal to the cluster.
Coolant temp sensor does appear to read correctly, as once full operating temp is reached, the gauge starts at the top line of the "H" indicator on the coolant temp gauge. It doesn't go past that.

Has anyone ever seen this before? Should I be looking for a possible short that shares a circuit for this in the cluster, that doesn't show in a diagram?

The coolant and fuel gauges are the only gauges that appear to be affected.

Huge thanks for your help!

Jesse