Am I doomed to buy a new gas tank?

There's a recalibration process you can do... You can also just disconnect the 12v for a few minutes to reset the whole car as well.

 

The gen 2 Prius does not notice less then 3 gallons of gas added.

 

try a different station/pump, turn it sideways, upside down, pump as slowly as possible

 

Leave the fuel cap off for 30 minutes before you fill it up. It might get 5 or 6 gallons, however the bladder tank will not return to original capacity and eventually will need to be replaced.

 

Long drives at freeway speed on the hottest day of the year with tank as full as possible does wonders to restore bladder capacity.

 

Same thing with my 2009 Prius
I follow this rule and never have a problem

3 bars - you need to fuel up
2 bars - you really need to fuel up on the next available gas station
1 bar - you are at your own mercy

 

Yep. Good idea.
I ran into a Costco station recently that was a PiTA to use. Wouldn’t pump. Had to hold the nozzle tightly in filler tube.then filled it with eight gallons as expected. Never had had that problem anymore nor anywhere else.

 

We have also had more than one thread where somebody had an actual problem with some component in the ORVR system, solved by replacing the component with the problem. This thread, for example. The tank itself is not the only component to look at.

Sometimes we'll spend so much time talking about holding the nozzle funny, facing east, clicking heels three times, etc., we forget that a lot of the time when something acts like it isn't working right, it really isn't working right, and ought to be fixed. (Also, sometimes people's 'folk remedies' end up making the issue worse, which was one of the things going on in the thread linked above.)

 

It’s easier to test and correct an occasional nozzle issue than fix a problem that may not exist. If nozzle is not the problem then go to plan B

 

That's swell. It's just when you find yourself looking for 'tricks' repeatedly or regularly, and not for "an occasional nozzle problem" with a particular nozzle at a particular station, then it's good to remember that when things act like they're not working right, it can indeed be because they are not, and can be fixed.

And then after they are fixed, you find yourself enjoying refueling much more than you were while you were trying to trick your way around nonexistent nozzle problems all the time.

 

Incorrect assessment of what, I said.
In my case I’ve never had a problem with tank filing until this Costco station. The nozzle there was a weird one. I’ve seen many types all over the country and overseas. This was an oddball. Second only to the California elephant trunk nozzle.
Took me a minute to reposition it and get it to fill. Never have had a problem since then elsewhere.
People can look for complicated solutions from the start or try something else. I’ve had problems with the evap small leak error on one of my Lexus’s too. Unfortunately that was quickly diagnosed to be a real problem with a cracked charcoal canister.
Like I said, if the reconfigured nozzle doesn’t solve the problem then go to your plan B. It's not always the complicated problem.

 

That's fine, as I agreed above. You personally had a simple nozzle issue.

It wasn't my aim to assess what you, personally, said. You said it in a thread about someone else's issue, where there are also posts from other people, and all of this happens in a forum that has been filled with related threads in the past. Not all of those have been simple nozzle issues, and they have involved a lot of people inventing a lot of odd dances and using them routinely.

In those cases, it isn't doing a person any favors to direct them away from the likelihood that the system acting as if it isn't working right really just isn't, and can be fixed (and especially when some of the odd dances end up worsening the problem).

I find this an interesting use of the word 'complicated'. Not necessarily wrong, but interesting. In my mind, when something mechanical doesn't work right, looking for why it doesn't and then fixing that often turns out to be the simple approach, and what seems more complicated to me is inventing whole odd rituals around it that avoid fixing it.

 

we had the problem on our 2006 before it died, but could get in 5-6 gals. At some point if you overfill the gaso will gush out, which I do not recommend but that one way to gauge it.

Then we got a new 2020 RAV4HV and by gosh it had the same problem with a fixed tank. Toyota said a subtle change in tank shape caused the issue, which was fixed by a customer satisfaction campaign, with new tank and all. Now our RAV4HV is still a bit hard to fill up, but I pump slowly and try to know how much I can get in. So anyhow, re: Gen2 you can imagine it may not take too much mis-shape of the flex tank to cause an issue. And of course there is no way to see the darn tank.

Consider yourself lucky if you can still do the calibration. At some point our 2006 Prius HUD display got ornery and we could not do much with it.

 

Sometimes a Prius won't start on one gallon of gas after tank is drained down. You might need as much as 3 gallons... Also a way to clear the error code would be easier than waiting for it to go away.

 

There is no might, you will need to put in 3 gallons or more to get the car to restart after a 'no gas' stop.