Can't fill the tank after overfilling

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by saneesh8, Nov 19, 2025 at 10:46 AM.

  1. saneesh8

    saneesh8 Member

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    Hi All,

    After auto shutoff at the pump, i forced it to fill and it took extra 1-1.5 gallons and gas came out from the filler neck. After that, next refuel, it wont take any fuel. The pump cuts off immediately. I guess i ruined the charcoal canister :( or something related to it.

    Looking for Somone Who's Changed a Charcoal Canister | PriusChat post 8 says it can be bad Fuel Cut off valve or Refuel check valve.

    Do i need to drop the tank to check these valves / charcoal canister? Haven't climbed under the car yet, but want some opinion. What would be most common culprit.

    Car is 2009 base model with 156k
     
  2. Moving Right Along

    Moving Right Along Senior Member

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    Have you tried fueling the car at multiple gas stations? With my 2009 Prius, there were several times I had to fuel it slowly or rotate the nozzle to get it to fuel. I also once overfilled the tank, but I had no lasting damage from that. The issues I had with filling the tank were present before overfilling and tended to happen the most when I went to certain gas stations.
     
  3. saneesh8

    saneesh8 Member

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    No.. tried it only at one gas station. Thanks.. i will try at a different one.
     
  4. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Gen2 Prius has a rubber bladder inside the tank and cold weather combined with lack of a full tank for a long time causes the bladder to fail to fully expand when filling and gas stations with high pump pressure will sense the back pressure and shut off. So you'll want to find a gas station where every pump is being used, which lowers pressure, or an old station with just a pump or two usually has lower pressure.

    The best way to stretch that rubber bladder back out is keeping your tank full as often as possible... Also driving non-stop through a couple tanks of gas on a long road trip in warm weather stretches it out because of all the constant from driving down the road.
     
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  5. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    The pump nozzle is a design that's been around a long time, that senses a change in the flow of air back out of the tank, and is triggered to shut off. In the old days, the car just had a plain tank with a filler neck, and the nozzle was designed to work with that.

    The Prius tank is part of a system that's built to interact with that nozzle and trigger it to shut off when it should. To the nozzle, it just looks like an ordinary old-school tank. To you and me, it looks like this:

    [​IMG]

    The bladder is just one part of that system, and it's not a part that would abruptly go from "works ok" to "can't fill" as a consequence of overfilling.

    The thread the OP linked to in the first post already lays out the information pretty well.
     
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  6. saneesh8

    saneesh8 Member

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    Thanks all.. Tried filling at a different gas station and it worked !!. I need to keep monitoring..