pump over filled tank by gallons and now guage not working

Besides get it checked by a Toyota dealer, or an ASE certified mechanic?

 

how many miles have you driven since filling?

 

I typically get almost 100 miles before my gauge goes off of full.

Also, there IS clearly something wrong with the pump. It SHOULD have stopped before it poured 3 gallons in the ground (and everywhere else).

 

if it's running fine, you're fortunate and perhaps it will somehow reset itself in a few tanks. no harm in having a dealer look at it, but i would give it some time before i paid anyone to repair it.

 

You haven't driven far enough to burn off the excess fuel. Once you do, the gauge will start moving again.

Tom

 

I've had this happen to me too. The tank was very full and it took nearly 200 miles before the first pip dropped. I wouldn't panic on this quiet yet. Dive another 200 miles and the pips will start a droppin.

Other people here have reported similar problems after overfills but they always eventually worked themselves out and were back to normal after a few tankfuls.

 

BTW I forgot to mention why it happened to me. In a nutshell it's caused by pumping too slowly.

The more slowly you pump then the less back-pressure is produced and the more likely it is to fail to trip the cutoff. In the case when it happened to me the slow pumping was the fault of the pump, due to an almost fully blocked filter, but you can get the same effect from just manually controlling the pump lever to make it slow.

 

state board of weights and measures wouldn't cover this, I don't think. They would just cover if it was measuring a gallon corrcectly not whether there was some sort of failure of the auto-off feature.

 

That's one reason why you should always stay at the pump with your hand on the nozzle. Here's another:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3x-8tj49ac]Gas Pump Fire - YouTube[/ame]

 

In Victoria and I think most other Australian states the trigger locks have all been removed by regulation and new pumps don't have them.

 

Yeah in Australia when petrol stations went to "self serve" then by law they had to remove the trigger locks. So you don't have any choice but to stay there and hold the lever while filling.

 

Our Prii have the proper metal tank though as well, not the bladder thing, which is probably more susceptible to problems.

 

A few years back before the trigger locks were removed, a guy on the cell phone mistook my car as his (wasn't even the same color or type of car) and pulled the nozzle out spraying fuel everywhere. I have learned to "guard" my nozzle ever since.

 

they have removed them in mass too.

 

Now that's one I haven't heard before. About the only way that could have been worse is if there was a cigarette involved.

FWIW, we still have trigger locks here. Some stations took them out years ago but then put them back when they went to digital pumps with card readers. I think some stores still don't have them but I can never remember which do or don't so I just look and adjust my habits based on the store having them or not.

Oh, really that was how I thought of it before I got the Prius, now I add that to the mix. I still put gas in a plastic container for the lawn tools, the 2nd car, etc. I don't like using the trigger lock with the Prius but if I do I keep my hand on the outside handle ready to release it when I hit a few gallons from full so I can slow it down and see how much will go in at a slower speed.