Your vehicle’s fuel pump is essential to the accurate firing of your pistons and the efficiency of your engine. There are various types across different makes and models of vehicles and only vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel have this part. You can upgrade your pump to fit your custom car or truck needs, if you know some basics about the functions, maintenance and repairs of the unit.

Functions

A fuel pump is used to get the fuel from the tanks into the engine and there are two main types, a mechanical pump and an electric pump. More modern vehicles rely on high-pressure electric pumps while older ones use a mechanical pump. Electric units have a fuel pump control module connected to the vehicle’s computer to help regulate the amount of fuel moving through the system.

Maintenance

Your fuel pump is designed to not need much in the way of maintenance because working around fuel lines can be dangerous to both your health and that of your vehicle. In older mechanical pumps, you can open the compartment and manually clean the filter, but in modern vehicles there is a screen instead of a filter. You can put approved pump and injector cleaning fluids in your tank every few months.

Repairs

Most of the time when your fuel pump is acting up, it is the control module. Your mechanic can make this diagnosis for you with equipment designed to read the output from your vehicle’s computer, but some common signs include a stalled engine, one which does not start or a silent fuel pump. When the relays are starting to fail, they will randomly turn off the fuel pump and stall the engine out. If you can restart the engine after a couple of minutes, then the relay is not completely dead. When working properly, your fuel pump makes a low volume whine or hum from near the tank which you can listen carefully and find a faulty relay will turn off the pump and the hum will disappear.

Your fuel pump is the device which moves gasoline or diesel fuel from the tank to the engine and is usually an enclosed electric device in modern vehicles. It is connected to your car’s computer with a control module which is usually the first part of the system to give out. You can tell if this module is failing because it will shut off the pump causing the engine to stall. A failed module will not start the pump at all, leading to your engine failing to start and the lack of the low hum your pump makes when working.