Gas gauges on A-bodies

I had the fuel gauge delivered this afternoon and installed it. I did some testing on the autometer gauge I had in the car, found out it is not worth the powder to blow it to hell. I will test the new gauge later, as I was running on empty and need to recharge and the car needs some gas as it too is empty.
That is the 2nd AutoMeter gauge I got with my instrument cluster, that has gone bad. They cost way over $150 to buy but I am finding the $20-30 gauges from Equus work properly.
These Autometer gauges have very little time on them. I have not put 100 miles on the car since I got them and they took a dump on me.
I installed them a couple years ago, so they are not under waranty, but you would think that they would work better than gauges I can buy for 10 times less than AutoMeter gauges.