On Sat, 22 Aug 2015 19:47:36 +0100, Jimbo /p wrote:

well it buggered up my '98 merc fual senders over the last ten
years.......

Did you have a test sample of identical cars, some run on
supermarket,
some run on branded, large enough to rule out an individual component
failure?

No, thought not.

Ok how come it started working again with expensive 99 shell/bp ? ...

chuckle I'd love to hear the logic of how this could possibly be...

You do know how a fuel sender works, yes? It's a simple float attached
to a variable resistor.

gosh never knew that...you mean the track can get gunged up then?

I've never ever known one do that.

Even the fuel gauge in my ol' Landy - 35yo, with 15 of the last 18yrs off
the road - works just fine without any "gunging up" of the track. Which,
fwiw, isn't exposed to fuel.

But, then, I've never worked on a Merc, so it's entirely possible they
have some half-arsed shonky cheap junk of a sender.