That Darn Gas Gauge Again

> Who else uses ONLY the same pump at the same gas station all the time and never tops off?

I forgot to add an important part. We have already proven that fast filling causes the pump to shut off too soon...

So you must also fill up only at the SLOWEST pump speed.

 

If there is a fix, will this be covered under warranty?

Perhaps they will make us pay as it is not a safety related issue?


Chris

 

Indeed, I've been using the same pump for the last three fills. Each time I've had anywhere from 25miles after the blinking bar to 40 miles after the blinking bar. The first two times, in 65-ish degree weather, the pump shut off first time at 8.9-9.1. The third time, yesterday, at 48deg weather, the pump shut off at 6.9. The first two pumps I went up to 10.000 and 10.150 respectively, the last pump I went to 9.5 (started getting nervous).

-m.

 

Man, what a great quote. It was odd they marketed the movie to the action crowd though, but that's marketing for you.

-m.

 

Interesting that the trend of miles/bar is pretty solidly downard until you got to 2 bars, then it went double the 3 bar value then crashed for bar 1. Was there a significant difference in the terrain or city vs highway for bar 2?

 

The 76 miles to lose the first bar indicates the tank (and filler tube) didn't have as much gas as possible.

My record is 167 miles before the first bar went out. It requires awful, evil, anti-environmental, blah blah blah topping off to get that much gas in, so some people will never do it...

 

No, there was little difference in terrain. There was perhaps a little more city than highway driving, but the biggest change was the big (overnight) temperature change from sunny mid-70's, to windy, rainy, mid-40's.

 

I've put almost 8K miles on the car and I haven't burped the tank once. My first couple of tanks the weather was colder (average in the 30's), I was untrained as a Prius driver, and there was probably some breakin period for both car and driver. My mpg was in the high 30's and I only got a little less than 7 gallons in the tank at fillup; I didn't wait for the flashing bar but filled up at one bar. After reading several posts on PriusChat I felt emboldened to push the range a bit and actually waited for the flashing bar; at the flashing bar I consistently put about 8 gallons in. If I drive another tank mpg before filling I can get about 9 gallons without burping. The couple of times that I've had the nerve to drive 10 times the tank mpg I was able to put about 10 gallons in.

I really don't have any complaints about the gauge since I've never owned a car with a linear guage -- the needle always dropped faster when it got to the last quarter tank. My frustration is with those who manage to meet or exceed the EPA estimates for MPG when the best I've been able to manage is high 40's for the tank (I've gotten 50+ for 2-3 days but not through the entire tank).

My suggestion is to organize some road trips where a Pride of Prii could tank up at the same time and place, drive the same route in a caravan formation, and compare notes at the end of the day. This might help determine how much difference there might be in an individual car's performance. I would want the one with the highest average mpg to lead the parade so I could compare his/her driving style with my own and the mpg at the end of the day as well as gallons to fillup at the end of the day.

 

I'm happy for John and his consistent, perfect fillups. I'm also hoping that John has no affiliation with Toyota.

His staunch defense of the '04 Prius fuel delivery and metering system only amplifies the fact that he is the only owner I know of, online or in person, who has not experienced issues with this system.

The fact is, the fuel gauge on MY Prius always "Cries Wolf!" (apologies, Wolfman) and blinks the same ambivalent message of Impending Doom.

I routinely go to the same service station to fuel unless conditions dicatate otherwise. Even then, other pumps behave the same or a little worse, as one pump that caused the filler pipe to blow a cupful of gas onto my shoes.

On average, the pump(s) always shut off 1.5 to 3 gallons early.

I always have to click/squeeze/burp/click/squeeze/burp until the filler pipe stabilizes and the the fuel stops bubbling, burping, spitting or "leaking" back down. That is roughly equivalent to 75 to 150 miles at 50 MPG.

Routinely, the total amount of fuel added after initial "click off" often exceeds 10 gallons vs. the initial 6.5 to 7 gallons auto shut off at the "slow" fill rate.

For the record: I'm a very happy Prius owner.

Conversely, I'm very displeased with the bladder/sensor/display/ system. It's behavior is not normal, is inconvenient and, at times is unsafe (spitting fuel out of the filler pipe). These observations are based on more than 50 years (yeah, 50) years of driving and gassing up private, businesss and miltary vehicles of diverse sizes, types, countries of origin, both gas and diesel.

I know there is a fuel management problem with the '04 Prius because I'm living it as you read this.

All of John's perfect fillups and Toyota's arrogance on this matter cannot change how my car is behaving. Fact is, Toyota is not fixing the problem nor improving my attitude about Prius Product Management practices.

Whether John agrees or not, WE HAVE A FUEL SYSTEM PROBLEM HERE!

If John were experiencing the problem, I suspect he would be leading the charge to get Toyota off their Yuppie Butts and do right thing.

If I get one more fine-spun, treacly, weasel-worded, "select-a-reply" from some Toyota 2nd Lieutenant in Torrance on this issue, I'm going to puke.

So I'm asking Danny And The Moderators (my favorite Pop Group) on this board: What can Priuschat.com do to finally get a substantive response from Toyota on this matter?

I'm Bob Shaw and I approved this email!

Regards to all,


Bob

 

Thanks, Evan, for the the quality response.

I'm very much in accord (not the Honda kind) with your suggestons for desired behavior by the fuel gauge.

As to Toyota's behavior, I have a hard time believing there isn't more we of/on Priuschat.com can do to make Toyota a little more uncomfortable than we are with respect to this matter.

I have to wonder what the Japanese perspective is on this issue.

Perhaps they provide all-metal tanks in Japan as they do in some other versions and therefore have trouble comprehending why we are so upset.

This really is an aberration that should be corrected. Short of a Class Actiion Suit (seldom a palatable remedy for either side), I feel there is a more powerful, proactive action we can take.

Is Toyota now too big to extend Kaizen Spirit to it's Customer Relations in the US? I truly wonder.


Regards,


Bob

 

I reckon that part of the lack of info coming out of Toyota is that the problem is quite large.

To simply remove the bladder would mean that the car might no longer qualify as a PZEV. The bladder reduces a significant amount of evaporative emissions during refuelling.

Of course most of that is undone by folks who insist on trying to fill it no matter what and spill gas. I think one "topper offerer" with their "minor" fuel spills puts out the same amount of pollution as 100 Prius just going about their business and filling normally. It's terribly sad.

More often than not, the issue of fixing a problem is figuring out what the problem is.

I am hopeful that there will at least be a software fix that will allow us to know how much fuel is in the tank at any given time and either calculate the remaining range based on current mileage or at least tell us what our "reserve" really is.

As for the bladder issue of not allowing people to "fill" the tank, I think that's going to be much more difficult - but it may be more urgent because there are so many people (at least 5 I know of on this board) that overfill consistently and spill.

I'm comfortable with a range of 8 gallons of useable gas ... as long as I know how much I've got. I might be sitting on 10 gallons of gas in my car right now ... or only 6, who knows?

Until we become consistent with our complaint, it's going to be much harder for Toyota to concentrate on finding a solution.

 

It is my belief that only US spec Prii use that infernal bladder. That bladder is not needed to cut down on evaporative emissions. A simple flexible "washer" of sorts that effectively seals the opening with the nozzle in place would do the exact same thing. The Prius has been the only car I've owned that has been this fussy about filling. I can pretty much gurantee that I've more than offset ANY reduction in evaporative emissions with the bladder system with the quantities of fuel that I've spilled "learning" how to fill this car. I can take any other vehicle out there, and easily fill the tank to the top of the filler neck without spilling a drop of fuel, regardless of the name on the sign, and location of the pump.

 

> I can take any other vehicle out there, and easily fill the tank to the top of the filler neck without spilling a drop of fuel

First, you are defeating the emission canister by filling it with gas.

Second, that is not true for "any other vehicle". The other PZEV cars have the very same issue, since they also have a bladder in their tank.

Whatever the case, you are sacrificing cleaness for the sake of squeezing in gas beyond the intended limit.

 

On OBD II systems, flooding the canister will trigger the check engine light. To date, I've never done this with any of the gassers that I've owned.

After learning how to fill the car, I haven't had the problem with spilling fuel. It is still a system that is far more complicated than it needs to be. BTW, stopping after the pump clicks off for the first time results in 1 to 2 gallons less fuel being pumped into the tank. This is 50 to 100 miles difference in range, and when you drive 100 miles EVERY day, this makes a real difference. Designing a system that did not utilize the bladder would have been a better approach. I won't speak for the other PZEV cars that were just introduced. I'm commenting based on my experience owning various makes and models of cars and trucks over the last 17 years.

 

I never located a description of the benefit of a bladder: is it to prevent fumes from forming during filling, or just in general? At some point after the car has been burning fuel, the bladder will not have gasoline pressing evenly over the whole inside surface, so fumes WILL form. I have to guess that these fumes are escaping the same way fumes would escape from a normal tank that doesn't actually leak. Those probably fall into some "acceptable loss" category.

Perhaps just an almost-airtight seal like the Prius has would benefit other cars. It certainly would be a share-the-pain experience for people who like to gas and go, but if they have no bladder in the tank shoving gas back out they might not suffer as much...

 

You'd think with the problems inherent with a bladder, they'd choose another system - perhaps a lining on the inside of the tank made of the same material of the bladder that does not expand or contract - this way the gas would also be easier to measure. Perhaps they couldn't do it because of some reason or another, who knows.

-m.

 

> You'd think with the problems inherent with a bladder, they'd choose another system

Not when you want to keep costs under control.

For a few hundred more dollars, a new approach could have been implemented. But since every single dollar makes a difference in the early stages of hybrid rollout, it's just not worth it.

Later, greater variety of configurations will be available. For now, if you just accept the 9-gallon design you won't have any trouble. Pushing beyond that intended limit is when the issue surfaces.

Patience.

 

That's pretty funny...if I wasn't laughing so hard I might be offended. I had no idea I'd elicit such a backlash. Of course I think most of us on this board are unwitting salespeople the way we talk up the Prius whenever we get the chance -- we just don't get paid for it

I'm not denying anyone's experience..I was just relating my own. My point in suggesting a group outing / rally or whatever you want to call it (or several regional ones) is to make as many of the variables the same as possible (climate, gas station variations, route, driving style as much as possible by caravaning, etc.) Such an exercise may well bring to light some variances between vehicles (perhaps due to a different firmware rev, etc.) -- or, I could be way off base and the results would be relatively consistent.

BTW I never use the slow fill setting either because I'm just too impatient. Maybe the pumps I use are designed differently or perhaps I insert the nozzle to a different depth or my edition of the Prius arrived a little later with some better gauge logic -- who knows? I'd gladly trade a fussy bladder for the 50+ mpg that some are claiming.