Actia Fuel Gauge Mistery

[rick_od]

I have owned this new to me '03 Sightseer on a P32 for a little over a year now. A couple of times while driving, the Actia panel will start buzzing. When I look at the alarm, it says low fuel. When I look at the fuel gauge, it reads empty. Then while I am watching it(fuel gauge), it suddenly returns to the correct fuel quantity. It has only happened a couple of times, so it is not a problem, yet. I have registered my rig on the Workhorse site and it says it has all the appropriate upgrades. Any ideas??

[rick_od]

I have owned this new to me '03 Sightseer on a P32 for a little over a year now. A couple of times while driving, the Actia panel will start buzzing. When I look at the alarm, it says low fuel. When I look at the fuel gauge, it reads empty. Then while I am watching it(fuel gauge), it suddenly returns to the correct fuel quantity. It has only happened a couple of times, so it is not a problem, yet. I have registered my rig on the Workhorse site and it says it has all the appropriate upgrades. Any ideas??

[r2dillon]

The panels have had a notorious bad ground. Is the entire panel resetting, or just saying low fuel?

["007"]

I wouldn't worry about it I use to have it happen couple times a trip has not happened for past two years and I have the original IP, chassis built in 02.

[John-D]

The Fuel gage system in line drawing format looks a bit like this..

Power-switch-panel------------sensor-Ground (To tank)--Chassis ground

You have a poor connection.. Suspects include but are not limited to 1: The tank to chassis ground wire, The tank ground, the panel ground and every wire in the sensor line.

[Joe Gilbert]

It may well be that there is a bad ground however, the ACTIA system is a much more complex system than John-D suggests. The fuel sensor reports a signal to a common data bus. A micro-processor samples information from the bus and directs it to the proper location which in this case is the fuel gauge. Things which could effect a correct reading are electrical noise on the data line (generated internal to the coach or even external to the coach, such as a two way radio transmitting nearby). Now a bad ground can indeed add noise but as you can see this is a very complex system.

Should the problem happen rarely you would do best to live with it. If it is persistent it could be hard to find the cause and if your not in warranty expensive.

Our fire department has a one year old, $350,000 dollar fire truck which has a proprietary "CAN Bus" system. Sometimes when you start it up a gauge will not come on line; often the oil pressure. Shut it down and restart it and all is well. Point: These systems can have glitches.

Note: The Fleatwood Eagles now have an ACTIA display. You can get one of these for about $500,000.

[rick_od]

So far it is only the fuel gauge that is affected. It has only happened twice since I have owned it(1.5 years). For now I will live with it since it happens infrequently. I was just hoping that someone else had a similar problem and a solution.

[DriVer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by rick_od:
I was just hoping that someone else had a similar problem and a solution. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>rick_od, Quite a few of us have experienced this phenomena and there doesn't appear to be a clear solution since the problem presents in many different operational modes. Once isolated and duplicated via scientific method a solution can not be far behind. WCC and Actia are working on formulating a solution.

[Joe Gilbert]

Not sure of a solution but most of us have had some issues with the ACTIA system. Most see an occasional "reset". The dash basically shuts down than comes back to life. I have seen this a couple of times in 24,000 miles. Also, my ACTIA display was replaced when new because there were never any warning sounds. Otherwise it has been a good system.

[Joe Gilbert]

I must have had too much coca cola tonight. I do have one theory as to why the fuel gauge is often the problem gauge. The wire run to the fuel gauge is much longer than that to any of the other (many) sensors on the data bus. This provides a much greater risk of the signal being disturbed. You could also think of the wire to the fuel tank as being a long antenna, picking up more electrical noise than the other sensor wires.

Just a thought but not a bad one.

[DriVer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Joe Gilbert:
Just a thought but not a bad one. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>That's as good of a theory as I've heard all month!

[campernut2]

Our 2005 motorhome did the 3 dings and then all instruments went to nothing and then came right back up. Go to the dealer and see if you don't have a silent recall. WE did and they replaced out panel for us. It is weird when it happens. Workhorse is aware of it but if it keeps working they say not to worry. They did replace ours thou??

[DriVer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by campernut2:
Go to the dealer and see if you don't have a silent recall. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>There isn't any such thing as a silent recall. Believe me if there were "any" kind of recall about the panel everyone would know about it.

Favoring the owner, and as far as I know, Workhorse has not yet denied a claim for a defective IP and they are more than willing to handle these issues on a case-by-case basis.

[campernut2]

Dont know Driver what it is called but I couldn;t find it on the internet. We were having our oil changed and they said that we had a recall on the IP so they did what they needed to do. Silent= technical service bulletin not a formal recall. We did let them know that it was acting up when we brought the coach in for service. It hasn't repeated its Vegas style "spin the wheel" performance so far.