NO fix for Prius Gas Tank Filling Up Issues

As I have said before, Toyota caused a lot of this by listing the fuel capacity as 11.9 U.S. gallons, which it is not. Gross capacity and usable capacity are never the same, even in a normal tank, but the bladder makes the delta larger. I suspect this was a marketing issue: "Ooohhh, let's list the fuel tank capacity as 11.9 gallons. People will like that." It's coming back to bite them in the nice person. I would have listed the capacity as 10 gallons. Most people can get a little more than that, but getting more is okay. Getting less makes you feel cheated.

My sailboat has a high density poly tank with no bladder. It's about as simple as they get: vented to the air and a simple dip tube for intake. The tank is clearly listed as 36 gallons net, 37.5 gallons gross. The last gallon and a half is what is left under the dip tube when it starts sucking air. You don't want to pull fuel from the very bottom of a diesel tank.

Why couldn't Toyota be clear about the useable capacity of the Prius tank? It's not like they were hard to sell in those days.

Tom

 

I'm going to be upset if Totoya is changing the design because of a few nit-pickers--in that case NIT-PICKERS RULE!!!! Toyota has to deal with the gas vapors; if the new system is troublesome, I'm coming after you nit-pickers--I've saved all your posts. And you probably thought I was sane.

 

I'd suspect that the people who wrote the information sheets simply translated the 45 litre capacity of the Japan/EU fuel tank, and didn't account for the lower capacity of the bladder.

No doubt the same people are responsible for listing the oil capacity as 3.7 litres and the tyre pressure as 35/33psi...

(On the oil capacity front, I found this document which disproves the suggestion that 3.7 litres is the dry-fill quantity: it says 3.4 litres without an oil filter change, 4.1 litres dry-fill.)

 

well said tom. my prius is really an awesome car. just about no other complaints.

tom, since you've made these comments, let me ask you, ON AN AVERAGE FILLING, how many miles can you drive before the first pip is gone? ANYONE ELSE, i've asked this, please tell me what your average is.

thanks in advance

 

Depends for me, sometimes 170km and sometimes 80km, and I don't have a bladder.
Wonder if I could start a business exporting Australian spec petrol tanks to North America? Do they sell Prius in Mexico?

 

pat - that's a big variance. what causes this variance? it sounds as much as when i force feed or stop at one click!

 

For me, the first pip lasts around 30 to 50 miles, but I don't top off after the first click.

Tom

 

OH WOW. ok, let me ask you tom, how many miles do you have at the HALFWAY MARK?

for me, 80 before the first pip, and about 200 at the mid way mark.

 

I could easily have 80 on the first pip, sometimes as much as 100 in the summer. There is a lot of variation with the bladder.

I don't recall the mileage at the halfway point. I don't pay a lot of attention to it, other than to get gas when it tells me to. In day to day driving I fill up anytime I am below half. We live in a tourist area, and the nearest semi-reasonable gas station is 25 miles away in the city, so our strategy is to fill up whenever we go to the city if the tank is half or less. Sooner if gas is cheap. On the highway I start looking at two pips. At one pip I take the next station regardless of price.

Tom

 

My 2008 developed the same problem once the weather got cold. I was told it would get better in the spring, but so far nothing has gotten better. Almost impossible to fill the car up.....Help

 

It's not a problem, it's a feature.

Seriously, though, the bladder is what it is. You can't fix it, you just learn how it works.

If your tank capacity has changed significantly, you may want to recalibrate the inclinometer, which is used to adjust for parking on a slope. If it gets off, it can skew the tank readings, making the tank look more empty than it is. The procedure can be found here on PC, or you can get your dealer to do it.

Tom

 

Hello all:

Just a newbie here. But I've been pouring over the gas tank issues (no pun intended), and can see the high level of frustration on this. I can only pray that I don't end up with the same issue.

Today was the first fillup for my new 2009. It seems as though the dealer had correctly filled the tank (or it came from the factory that way). Anyway, I was able to put in 4.5 gallons. The car had gone 222 miles, and was still above half a tank on the pip meter when I filled it.

What I have decided to do was to follow another member's advice by pushing the nozzle "all the way in" until the pump nozzle boot makes a secure seal with the tank inlet (sorry, can't remember who suggested this -- my heads foggy from reading so many posts).

Everything was perfectly normal when I tried this today. I did notice a very strong "suction" after the tank was full, and had to twist and pull the nozzle to get it to release. So I guess that the vapor recovery system on the pump hose was working properly. But at least the tank filled properly.

After seeing the photos of the tank that DH ripped apart, I can appreciate the complexity of this system. So when I filled today, I also stopped at the first click (I filled on the slowest setting), to prevent any liquid back up into the emission control plumbing.

My logic is that with so many valves, etc, I should try to minimize any liquid introduction into the valves or vapor recovery system, on the assumption that this could damage the valves, carbon cannister, or other components and thus induce the gas filling problems that others are experiencing. If I ever see this problem begin to happen, I will report it back here.

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On a related note, I wanted to share about the problems that I have with my Chevy Uplander (no laughing, please...I actually like this van!). After having the van for only a few months (purchased new), I started noticing a problem after filling: during hot weather, if I filled to the first click on "high" speed, and then tried to put more in on "low" speed" until the hose clicked again, the gas gauge would begin going nuts. Although the gas gauge may initially go to "full", after a few minutes it would begin dropping, in some cases going all the way to "empty", and causing the system's "low fuel" light to come on! I would then have to continue driving for another 50 miles or so until the gas gauge would drift back up, and read correctly.

The problem first seemed to happen during warm weather driving, which is why I didn't see it at first. Also, being on a long trip seemed to have something to do with it, where I was filling the tank when the car was fully warmed up.

The solution seemed to be to stop after the first click, and not to try to squeeze in another gallon or two (it has a 25 gallon tank). Even still, I can't say that it never occurs in warm weather, as I just have stopped paying much attention to it since using this new technique.

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Last anecdotal story: I previously had a Chevy Venture van. Shortly after purchasing it new, I had to have the gas tank replaced! The problem was that I could only put gas in by manually squeezing the lever on the pump nozzle as little as possible (couldn't even use the slowest automatic setting). I was told by the Chevy dealer (who has a really good repair shop) that the problem was that the tank had "baffles" in it to stop the gas from sloshing around violently. One of the baffles had broken free, and was partially blocking the filler neck.

This made me wonder if anyone here has actually cut open the Prius bladder itself, after removing it from the tank. Does it also have baffles inside? Could this contribute the to Prius filling problems? I didn't see any pictures of the inside of the baffle that DH removed.

Best wishes,

 

The sad part is that the bladder problems some of the cars present really shouldn't be an issue at all. During WW II, there was considerable use of bladders in fuel tanks, and mission requirements didn't allow for bladders to hold that much less at 30,000 feet & cold outside, vs sitting on the apron of the runway on a sunny day, and particularly if you look at a plane which first relied on drop tanks and only began tapping the bladder when already at altitude. Point is, many problems with bladders were encountered and addressed in the 40's ... If we're experiencing that now, it makes me wonder whether Toyota used the best available material in making the bladder, and whether they made the bladder's design secondary to something else. All that said, I still love the car!

 

Wow, just wow. Shawn Clark and Jon Dough, I'd like to thank you for your refusal to bend to the neigh sayers. Let me just share my experience from this past January. There was about a week where it never got above 0F and the two surrounding weeks weren't all that balmy either. During this time frame the most I ever got into my tank was 6 gallons, and twice in a row I got around 2. I get gas when the last pip starts to flash. Now I don't have a problem with the fact that my mileage goes right down the crapper and I start getting 33-35 MPG when it's that cold, but when I have to "fill up" every 70 miles, that pisses me off. I signed up for a car that could go ~500 miles between fill ups, not a tenth of that. Now don't get me wrong, I love my car, but I'm not such a fanboy that I can't criticize an obvious flaw. I read this thread to see what other people do, if there's a fix, and who I can complain to at Toyota so they'll at least fix the problem for the next generation so I can buy another Prius when this one wears out. BTW, This past week I actually got 9 gallons in the tank and my mileage is back up ~45

Now I'd like to respond to a few choice posts. Obviously some of these posts are trolls because the level of douche-bagginess is so high, but I'm going to feed the trolls anyway.

Finman: "Jesus people, just sell your Prius and drive something else. It really isn't a big deal."
Your roll-over-and-die attitude is inspiring. If you were around in the 1700's I'm sure we'd still be a British colony.

Moegs "Will you all you stop about this re-filling saga? It's simple. Just re-fill when the pip is on one."
Yes, anyone with a gas tank problem is not as brilliant as you and we simply can't figure out how to work those gas pump contraptions.

jtmhog "Who cares how many gallons of gas is in the tank. When it get to one bar, go get gas."
I tell you what, you drag your nice person up here and pump gas in a 50 below wind chill and we'll see how much you care and how often you want to do it.

Ordinarily I find the posts on Prius Chat to be helpful and entertaining but this thread is riddled with jerks.

 

cipher, here is a question for you: do you think your filling problems in cold weather come from the tank not taking fuel, or from the fuel gauge reading empty when the tank is mostly full? Either will produce the symptoms you describe.

Tom

 

I may have the same problem. 1 year old 2008 got it at the end of last march, during the summer june to sept. the amount of gas i could put into the tank was 8 gals per fill. At around 15K miles, I could only put around 6 gals per fill (avg), also the start of cold weather.
The 1st pip during the summer would not drop out untill after 150 miles, now it drops out at 50 miles. During the summer I could go 400 plus miles on a fill up.
Now I don't dare go over 300 miles (1 pip). The mpg i got was around 55 mpg now around 48 to 52, may be due to weather. I hope I get back to 55 range this summer.
I am now at one year, 27K miles. This tank full issue may not seem like much but the range put it just like any other car/truck, but at less cost.

 

I had last year around 150 miles, now it seems to be around 50 miles. Good question.

 

Tom, For a long time I wasn't sure. When the only thing you have to go by is the gas gage and your mileage, and both vary widely, you have no constants to work with so you never really know. But when I had those two 2-gallon fill-ups, the gage didn't reach full and it plummeted when I left the station. So I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that the tank doesn't take the fuel. The only thing I've found that helps at all is inserting the pump handle "upside down" in the tank. You look like a dork when you're pumping gas, but I run with what works.

It's too late to experiment this year (it's finally nice out!), but next year I'm going to try making sure the seal around the nozzle is lubed to see if the slight pressure helps inflate the bladder. If that doesn't work I'll try taking some cocktail straws and shimming them in with the nozzle to see if relieving the pressure works. That seems a little less drastic than chopping out the rubber gasket completely. I'm not overly optimistic about either of these tests, but it'll be easy to try.

Thanks for the interest.

 

Louis, All I can tell you is my car does not like the cold, at all. I always get the best mileage in July, the hotter the better (I'm not a big air-conditioner guy). My mileage never quite bounced back to the same level of the first summer I had it (maybe a couple of mpg less), but I'm due for a 60,000 mile service so we'll see if that helps.

Good Luck, and happy motoring.

 

Interesting. For me I find it works best to pull up on the pump handle as I am filling, which exerts a downward twist to the nozzle. When I do this I hear a hissing from around the seal, so I suspect it lets trapped air escape. Obviously this doesn't stretch the bladder, but it does keep back pressure from building in the tank.

I suspect there is more than one factor at play with this problem, which is one of the reasons there are so many opinions and so much argument.

Tom