Fuel gauge or level sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette
Only 2 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When fuel gauge or level sensor failure gets reported
There are 2 reports of fuel gauge or level sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette, 2 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 19,900 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $300–$1,200 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 7 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2001, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1999 at 50,000 miles.
By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 14; the 2004 has 0. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
On june 25, 2009 I posted the following thread on the corvette forum website: I began pumping fuel slowly and when the fuel started to spill under the car I stopped and I could not detect the leak point. The fuel gauge read of a tank. After a short time period the fuel quits leaking. I am guessing that I have a crack in the fill tube. Could something else be going on that I am not aware of besides a fill tube crack? Wow, of all the things that could go wrong with a car, this is a first for me. The second tank connector joint on my car is split also. I went to the dealership to check it out for myself. They pressured up the tank with nitrogen/smoke and smoke was pouring out of the connection joint. Bad news...........$2400 to repair with new parts and 9 hrs. Of labor..........the great news.. Thank god for my gmpp, it's covered. My only complaint is why gmpp would not cover to have the parts overnighted for $100?? They will pay the extra three days of car rental instead, for a total of 5 days. Just doesn't seem to make good business sense, oh that's right it's gm!! Further more the car only has 34k miles on it, never had this issue…
Tl*the contact owns a 2004 chevrolet corvette. After gasoline was placed in the vehicle and it had been parked for a while, the contact noticed that all of the fuel was leaking underneath the driver's side of the vehicle. The dealer stated that the fuel level sensor was the cause of the failure. The contact stated that the original owner of the vehicle had this component previously repaired and it should not be failing again. The vehicle has not yet been repaired because she feels that the manufacturer should have repaired it correctly while it was under recall. The current and failure mileages were 5,800.
Also reported on the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Fuel leak or fuel odor
Other fuel system problem
Other steering problem
Steering column or shaft failure
Other driver assistance problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 2 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 2 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does fuel gauge or level sensor failure happen on the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 20,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is fuel gauge or level sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Corvette?
2 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed