Gas Gauge

My Gas Gauge said i was almost empty so i go fill up and i only filled 5 gallons of my 25. K my gauge is broke right. Assuming it's the float I go see how much a shop will charge to fix it. They say $250 so i was gana fix it when i got my next pay check. Then i'm drivin home from work and it started readin again. I wanted to see if it was workin so i put $5.00 in and it freaked out. It went from 1/8 a tank to 3/8 then to 1/4 and i was like it's just fucked. But then when i got home and turned off my car it didn't drop like gauges do when your car goes off. Is it the gauge or float because the shop said they would just replace Both. If you have any clue please help me before i pay the money to replace the float if i only have to replace the gauge because i can do that.

Its not worth it, just use your trip odometer instead. I have an 18 gallon tank, so average case I can get 360 miles to a complete tank. Worst case I figure Ill get 16-17 mpg, so I fill up religiously every 300 miles. Never failed me. Gas guage still varies in accuracy with every other fill up, but the odometer wont lie.

You didn't give your year but if it is a 91-94 the floats are usually the problem. You could have a bad gauge but the float except for the pain
of removing the gas tank, pump etc. makes me say just watch the odometer, as i have done , you can go 250 usually (I have a 5 spd) and have made it to 275 with a/c off. I have not seen many bad gauges but if you can do it yourself and Ford has not dropped it, the float was about 8 bucks. I have had one that would only work when it wanted to
also , could not get it to do it all the time and wiggling wires did not affect it.
Good luck!