Gas tank took 11 gallons!!! Then puked it back out

[Godiva]

I never trust the automatic shut off enough to walk away. I stay with the car to monitor the fill.

[brick]

I find it irritating that a feature designed to improve air quality has, in many cases, resulted in a fuel spill that defeats its purpose many times over. Even if the pump should have cut off, fuel wouldn't dribble, stream, or gush out of the tank under pressure if not for the bladder. I really hope Toyota ditches it in the next model because it seems worse than useless.

Watching the pump would be a good call, though. I never leave mine partially because I've read so many stories just like this.

[rigormortis]

ive posted before my opinions about the fuel bladder.

i want to go to a wrecker yard and get a real prius bladder to see how much liquid that bladder actually holds.

i believe when toyota says the fuel capacity is 11.9 gallons what they really mean
is 10.71 gallons at 90 % ullage and 1.19 gallons of vapor

its hard to imagine the prius holds 1.19 gallons of gasoline vapor "in the system" outside the bladder, and i dont think gasoline vapor really burns anyway it just goes
back to the gas stations tank to be picked up by the truck, hense "vapor recovery system"

run dry the most ive ever been able to put in the tank and not take a chance of overfilling or damaging the charcoal canister is coicidently 10.75 gallons

[rigormortis]

and also the prius manual says:
the given fuel tank capacity is measured on EPA/CARB orvr testing conditions which is approved for nominal capacity measurement condition

on page 9228 of http://www.epa.gov/otaq/url-fr/fr24fr98.pdf it says something about either 85% ullage or 95% ullage of the tank, and unless your in -10c or 14 degrees f) i think were risking a lot of damage to this car by following all that "stretching the bladder to restore capacity" advice.

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by F8L

...I just put the pump at the middle setting and went to wash my windows and get a drink from inside the store...

This was a fault with the auto-shutoff on the pump, which is why it's illegal in most areas to walk away from the pump while refueling. It's not much fun, and shouldn't happen with good equipment, but ultimately you can only blame yourself for leaving the pump unattended.

Tom

[F8L]

Originally Posted by qbee42

This was a fault with the auto-shutoff on the pump, which is why it's illegal in most areas to walk away from the pump while refueling. It's not much fun, and shouldn't happen with good equipment, but ultimately you can only blame yourself for leaving the pump unattended.

Tom

I cannot argue that Tom. I am not placing ultimate blame on anyone but myself. Yes it would be nice for all of the associated systems to work correctly but the world is not perfect.

I do however wonder if I would have had a leakage problem even had I been attending the fuel pump like a good citizen. If the auto-shutoff did not activate and it kept pumping to say 10 gallons (which I doubt my car could have held at that given time) and I decided to stop pumping would the fuel tank have decided to "purge" the excess fuel out anyway? What I'm saying is, the fuel pump was not running when I walked back to the car, it had stopped at 11 gallons yet fuel continued to leak out of the filler neck for the next 15min or so.

[brick]

F8L- The exact situation you are describing happened to me, and a spill was averted. I'm used to getting maybe 9 gallons in when it's on the last pip and I decided at 10 gallons that the pump was misbehaving. I left the nozzle in for a few seconds for things to settle and carefully removed it.

[F8L]

Originally Posted by brick

F8L- The exact situation you are describing happened to me, and a spill was averted. I'm used to getting maybe 9 gallons in when it's on the last pip and I decided at 10 gallons that the pump was misbehaving. I left the nozzle in for a few seconds for things to settle and carefully removed it.

Good to hear you didn't have an issue. For the sake of future problems I will just stay with the pump and once if it hits 9.5ga (I've never put more than that in the tank that I recall) I'm callin it quits. lol

[richard schumacher]

Keeping your hand on the nozzle also removes the possibility of static discharge starting a fire.