Pontiac 2003 Sunfire Gas Guage doesn't work

No fuses.... Most times the fault is a bad solder connection or resistors on the guage circuit board. Can also be a faulty sending unit in the gas tank. Lastly corroded body connectors....

Give it a kick (Start) LOL: COud be the guage, Loose ground wire, Or the sending unit is shot,

There's a float inside the tank that the fuel gauge works off of. If you step on the brakes or accelerate hard it causes the gas inside the tank to slosh around and you can see the fuel gauge move when you do this. If you know the vehicle has gas in it, the best way to check if the gauge is bad is to drive around enough to where you should have burnt a noticeable amount of gas. If the gauge doesn't move, then there's something wrong with it.


Since the gauge moved when you braked hard, I would assume it's working properly because it picked up on the level change inside the tank where the float's at.

if taping the guage raises the level you have a problem with the guage.

could be but more like the engine computer plug is lose or corroded

This is an INSTRAMENT CLUSTER Problem, I Have Seen it Before,
Be Sure of IT's CONNECTION and if thats Not it Swap the Cluster.

I am sorry but it sound's like your sending unit in the tank has gone bad. Expensive to replace. If your lucky, it's just the wire harness from the gas tank to the frame. "ground Wire"

The gas guage has a sending unit in the tank attached to the pump, there is a small circuit board on it that has smal"fingers" that send the signal to the guage.These get worn off and thus sends a false reading to the gas guage in the dash. The gas tank must be removed and a new unit put in to solve the problem. I had to do this repair to mine. As for the gas issue, just try pulling the nozzle back out of the filler neck when putting gas in, sometimes the overflow tube gets plugged up and won't allow the air to escape as the gas goes in the tank, making the gas pump think the car is full, pulling the nozzle will allow the air to escape. Hope this helps.

From 2003 to 2006 GM - chevy , pontiac , buick , cadillac , had bad step motors inside the instrument clusters , causing gauges to no work or sporadically . Happened to my 2005 chevy cavalier , went to automotive salvage yard ,got a used one for $20.00 buck's . That was two year's ago , now problems !
How to repair GM Instrument Cluster Speedometer Gauge Stepper
Or you can buy the up graded stepper motors on eBay an fix it .

Possible bad guage, bad wiring, or bad sending unit. Check each one independently of each other, start with wiring first, then sending unit.