Chrysler Repair: 00Cirrus LXi: fuel gauge inaccuracy causes stalls, fuel level sender, cirrus lxi

Question
I have a 2000 Cirrus LXi, and when the gas guage gets to 1/4 of a tank, the engine will start to sputter.  This has happened 3 times within the past month.  It will eventually die, after limping along for about 1 mile.  The low fuel light never comes on, but it seems to be out of gas.  When gas is put into the tank, the vehicle will start again, but not until you rapidly pump the accelerator.  I was told that it might be the sending unit in the gas tank, but was wanting another opinion.  If it is the sending unit, about how much $$$ are we talking about fix the problem?  I would like to keep the vehicle for at least another 2 years, considering it is paid off.  But if it is going to cost too much, then I would like to try and either sell it or trade it in, but note the problem to whoever gets the vehicle.

Answer
Hi James,
I suspect the fuel level sender unit that is operated by a float on an arm that is attached to a variable resistor is inaccurate, but the fact that it is off by about 1/4 tank band still reading smoothly from full to 1/4 means that it is reliable except in the absolute sense. The tank holds 16 gallons so I would wonder how much gas it takes to fill your tank completely after this stalling has happened? If you find that it takes 15 or more gallons then that means you have had this problem because of too low a gas level in the tank, rather than a failure of the fuel pump's abilities when the level is low. You could go so far as to change the sender unit but that means dropping the fuel tank from the car and would not really be economically justified. I don't know how much time and cost is involved but not only that but disturbing all the other parts just opens a can or worms unnecessarily from my point of view. I would consider doing that job only if the fuel pump were shown to be weak or failed.
The other two choices are to just adjust your view of the fuel gauge to reflect the inaccuracy by filling it at 3/8 reading.  Or you could put a simple electrical resistor in the wire from the sender that goes to the body computer which would adjust for the error and shift the reading down scale. Either of those would be how I deal with it. This is not a reason for giving up on the car, it is too minor. Let me know if you want to adjust the reading by inserting a resistor into the line to improve the accuracy. It would be a matter of accessing the wire and splicing in a resistor.
Roland