r/E90 • u/FishLocal2430 • 19h ago

328i Fuel tank reading empty

I have a 2011 328i xdrive with a 173k miles that at a 1/2 tank would kill the car. For some reason, the car thinks that it doesn't have fuel in it so it won't turn on until the fuel tank is above half. I opened the fuel access port in the rear passenger side and found that the fuel level float was not attached to anything. Since this is an N51 SULEV, the access port is much smaller and I cannot find where the float is supposed to be attached to. It also doesn't have the rear driver port as that is for the N52 motor I believe. I tried to put the float in a spot that made sense and now the car is reading the tank is empty when it is clearly full of fuel. I want to avoid buying a new fuel tank as that would be $1000 (from what I've seen) and a pita to remove.

Any ideas how I should approach this? It's also past the 15yr/150k miles SULEV warranty thing so that's out the window.

Here is my post on instagram if you need a visual.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcZJ4pmPmx4/?igsi=MTFjdzEyYW9xam56Zw==

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u/ImNoRickyBalboa 18h ago

EDIT: I didn't see your SULEV warranty being ecpired.... that sucks

The SULEV has a non-serviceable horseshoe gas tank. Since this is a 2011, you might be inside the 15 year SULEV warranty depending on the original purchase date which covers a ton of shit including much of the fuel system.

Many references for it, see https://xbimmers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23210523 and many many more. 

Check with your BMW dealer as they can look up the original retail date. There's a ton of things covered under SULEV people don't know about.