Last Fill Up Ended on the Ground and All Over My Cars New Paint

I had slightly different situation that you may want to be aware of since this does affect Prius owners and is a rare problem that was discovered in my 2007 Prius. Over a 2 week period of filling up my car, I noticed that the fill-up bars would go up all but one bar after filling the tank, and I heard the gas nozzle click to shut off (I never over fill). On the second week, I lost another fill-up bar. On the third week, gas spilled out of the tank and it wouldn't shut off. I took the car into the dealership and they found that there is a connector between the tank bladder and a sensor that was barely connected. They said it could have been anything from driving over bumps or a pot hole that caused this to disconnect. The dealership reconnected it, stretched my fuel bladder out, reset everything, disconnected my battery and reconnected it. The problem is now resolved. So if you keep track of your mileage and you notice it dropping or becoming erratic for no apparent reason, and this also corresponds with not being able to have all your fill-up bars full when you fill up your gas tank...take it into the dealer and have them check for this rare problem. This could be a reason for your problem as it was for me.

 

I know I'm coming in late on this thread, but .... the gas was spewing out of the tank for more than 45 seconds? :juggle: I don't think so. 45 seconds is an awful long time. This alone makes me rethink the validity of other statements made.

 

Lets see now, the Toyota engineers were smart enough to design a very complicated and efficient car. Remember, one goal for them was to design a low pollution car, and that includes the fuel storage system. But from what I read on this forum, they were totally stupid when, after running hundreds of hours of tests of the fueling system, they decided to "arbitrarily" place a seal at the top of the filler neck for the Prius. Come on now, folks, there is a lot of wrongheaded thinking going around. Sure, you want the refuling to be easy, but there are other things to consider that the Toyota engineers probably figured in. For example, the extra air pollution and evaporation effects on the fuel. As a fellow engineer, I'd think you'd resent the second-quessing by such an untrained person in this matter. If the seal is so totally wrong, the rest of the car must also be quite poorly designed and therefore you should not have bought it.

 

Hey now, that's plagiarism or something...isn't it? ;-)

Jack

 

I know i'm coming in on this thread late but I didn't understand why you don't continue to fill after the first click? I have always done the fast fill and tried to get the max fuel in the tank without spillage. After reading this thread, it's apparent that this is bad for the car.

 

See here:
http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/Hybrid13.pdf

 

Thanks for the document!!

 

Ok I read that document.. Wow.. I found some bad doings on my part. First, i am use to leaving the car run while refueling, which i read is bad. Two, I am a culprit of tapping off the tank to get the most in the tank.

So now that I know what I was doing wrong.. Do i need to do anything to reset my tank or anything related to the computer so no gas buildup is in the bladder so I can start fresh on my next fillup?

I also noticed in the very beginning i did not tap off the tank and the car will only allow me to drive in the high three hundred mile range, then when I started tapping off the tank i was able to dip into the mid 400's. Why was that? Granted this was prior to the 5,000 mile break in. My other question is, when i start the process of shutting the car down, no tapping tank, slow fuel filling..... would i be able to get higher miles on a tank? I usually fill my tank up once I have one pip or when it just starts to blink (this all depends on where I am and if I am close to an exxon station)

~Edward
2007 Silver Prius

 

No, as long as you haven't gotten any warnings from the car yet, you should be fine. Topping off and fueling while the car is "on" don't mean that you will have problems, they just increase the risk that you might have problems. The vehicle tests the EVAP system on a regular basis and would have warned you if you had created a problem.

Many variables affect range. Ambient outdoor temperature, engine break-in, tire pressure, traffic conditions, trip length, driving speed, number of stops, fuel bladder expansion, wheel alignment, etc. It is difficult to explain exactly why you saw this increase even if we knew all the details of every trip. It is practically impossible to accurately guess the reason without the details.

As I just explained, it is difficult to know for certain. If you live in an area that has significant temperature changes between winter and summer, you may see an increase in range just because of the warmer temperatures. Warmer temperatures will allow the fuel bladder to expand and accept more fuel, and may reduce the amount of fuel you use as well.

 

Danny,

Thanks for the info.. I'm going to try these tips on my next fill up. I'm also going to use that tip about using the 3/4" x 1 1/2" piece of wood to put under the lever so it does a smooth slow fillup.

~Edward

 

while the OP has a rather large Ego, he has pointed out some worthy flaws. And I agree with some on here that the bladder is kinda unpedictable with burps, overspills, weather effects, expansion etc..they need to retool the bladder system, or plain replace it with something better in upcoming model years.