My family and I are pround to announce the arrival of our new (to us anyway) 1997 Bonneville SSE. She is black, 97k and is LOADED and we named her Bonny or course, she repalces our 92 SSEi which I sold to my wife'* 14 year old nephew, not bad for a kid in 9th grade.

Anyway, she runs, dirves, and looks like it did when it rolled off of the show room floor.

But the gas gauge doesn't work, when I first start the car, the needle goes to empty, then back to full, just like my other bonneville did, but then it stays there, it said full when I bought it but I decided to top it off, and it took 17 gallons. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks a bunch

I think sender.

Try this..(used to work on my 97 pickup)
Going down the road or at a light once it'* been running for a minute shift into neutral for a moment.

The gauges are designed to move super slow unless in park or neutral. Mine used to (sometimes) go to the correct reading. But it was a losing battle.

I had the exact same issue in my 1999. I changed the fuel level sensor (in the tank) and it fixed the issue. The level sensor does cost over $400. Granted that is for an AC Delco. Doing the job requires dropping the tank.

More than likely the fuel level sensor has failed as already stated. The wiper usually fails on these sensors, it'* a class problem. The sensor is basically a variable resistor.