Can't fill tank, usual fixes didn't work!

is this under the hybrid warranty? keep us informed, all the best!

 

Thanks for reporting back and congrats on the resolution.

Do you happen to recall what parts comprised the fuel tank filler assembly?

 

I've got the identical problem on a 2005 Prius w/80k miles. Yesterday, my dealer said I needed an entire new tank (bladder) at a total cost of $2100. They're denying that replacing the "fuel tank filler assembly" would work.

I was hoping you could provide more specifics on your repair from your invoice and/or your engineering ticket.

If you have the invoice, could you provide the part number(s) that was/were replaced? What was the total cost, parts and labor? If you don't have that, do you happen to know the service adviser name and name of dealership so that I can contact that person directly and ask them for the details, if they can find them, since they have solved the problem? In the alternative, do you have specifics from your engineering ticket (i.e. ticket number) if the answer came from there?

I'm just trying to track down the correct solution, which I hope comes at (much) less cost than the solution my dealer has proposed.

Thanks very much in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Don't let them replace the bladder. There are stories of that being replaced and the problem still existing.

 

If it comes to that, gas tank replacement, that's a pretty sorry state of affairs. Toyota really should be doing this gratis. Isn't there a non-bladder tank version for the second gen, in other countries? I guess if they replaced with a non-bladder tank it would set a precedent.

 

OMG! Now I'm having this EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!! '06 Prius, 71k miles.
What do I need to fix, is it a stuck valve??

 

Another symptom is that there is no suction sound when I remove the gas cap (no built up vacuum in the gas tank).

 

Sorry to necro bump a thread, I realize that this was posted many years ago.

I've been having this problem with my 2008 for a few years now and despite my constant searches of this forum, this seems to be the only thread where a solution has been confirmed. Like the OP, all of the tips and tricks touted by other users as fixes make absolutely no difference for me. I've even overflowed the tank trying them, which seems to have made my problem much worse. (Max capacity down from 4 gallons to 2)

Can you at least post a picture of the old part? Some basic Google searches are showing me a filler neck, but no websites (even Toyota's official parts website) call it an assembly, and there are many parts that can be bought (besides the filler neck) which attach to the filler neck, which are sold separately.

From 1 flashing pip, I can fit about 2.1 gallons into my tank (down from the usual 4 gallons) before the pump shuts off and the guess gauge reads full. The first pip disappears after about 10 miles of driving.

 

A thread with much of the information you're looking for is this one.

It's worth reviewing that thread (and some later follow-ons to the same story), which serves as a pretty good illustration of how certain habits (such as "topping off" when filling, the way Grandpa used to do in cars without ORVR) can invite the problem back, and back, and back again.

 

My first thought is that your fuel gauge sending unit is bad. The sender is a variable resistor that changes its value based on the position of the float arm. When the tank is full the resistance is low (4-36 ohms), and as the level goes down, the resistance increases to a "max" of about 110 ohms. I bet that your sender has a worn spot and goes "open circuit" after you use a few gallons (which defaults to 1 flashing pip) . I have seen them at 200 to 300+ ohms (out of normal range) when they fail. You probably have at least 3/4 of a full tank of gas.

You could wait until you get a flashing pip on the dash then pull the back seat base and gas tank "access" plate. Unplug the 8 wire connector on the tank and measure resistance on the two terminals (on the tank) for the black and brown wires. See the service manual for details.

If this is what's going on, the only repair is to replace the fuel tank assembly.

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Our 2006 was down to about 5-6 gals when we traded for a RAV4HV.
Somewhat crazily, our new 2020 RAV4HV then had a somewhat similar problem , which Toyota fixed for customers with a new fuel tank and sender unit. Apparently Toyota made a subtle shape change in some of the RAV4 fuel tanks which caused the problem. Now I am finally getting 500+ mile driving range, which is very nice for change, after all these years with "unfillable" tanks..

 

Thanks for the reply. I actually stumbled across this test while looking at the factory service manual. Indeed, the noted solution for this problem is "replace fuel tank assembly". I plan on performing this test, but only after the I perform a visual inspection in the various valves on the filler neck, per ChapmanF's post.

Glad to hear Toyota found a solution for your RAV4. Looking back through older threads on this forum, people claim to have been getting that kind of range in the 2nd generation Prius when they were new. (Others complained about this fuel capacity problem at the same time as well). I can only imagine how nice it would have been to go 400 - 500 miles on a single tank of fuel in a 2nd generation Prius. Seems fantastical and too good to be true

Oddly enough, I first started to notice this problem when I could only pump about 5 gallons into the tank with 2 pips remaining on the gas gauge. The maximum volume I could pump into the tank (before the pump would automatically shut off) steadily decreased to about 3 gallons over time. I never tried to top off the tank and always put the pump up once it clicked off. As I already said, I've managed to overflow the tank twice (in 3 years) trying the various pumping methods suggested in other threads.

Rotating the nozzle any amount in any direction made no difference to the amount I could pump before the pump shut off. Both overflows were caused by me trying to pump gasoline at the slowest rate that the pump allows. (And I noticed a SIGNIFICANT decrease in maximum volume in the subsequent fill ups) The latest incident allowed me to get about 4 gallons into the tank (from 2 pips) but upon removing the nozzle from car, gas started pouring out of the fill hole and all over the ground. Thankfully I got no warning lights or DTCs following the incident, but the maximum capacity is now down to just over 2 gallons.

 

There has been much on this topic. You can pump very slow and try to invert the nozzle when filling.
I don't think we ever got a definitive cause, but we know USA Gen2 has a plastic flexible "guess" tank.
You can try calibrating but like many Gen2's my MFT display was not working very well enough to do the procedures..

 

Any time fuel has poured out of the fill hole, it's probably a safe bet that it has also backed up into some of those ORVR passages and valves where liquid fuel does not belong, leading to weird behavior for subsequent refueling.

While various posts have advocated those kinds of nozzle-position games, it's worth keeping in mind that those also can be very good ways of getting liquid fuel where it doesn't belong, causing future refueling issues instead of avoiding them.

 

I've had this problem for several years, but it is so sporadic and random that I'm not quite to the point of being pissed off enough to be really driven into tackling it (yet)....
However, a friend of mine showed me a fix he claimed stopped his problems with it cold.
He cut a short length of vinyl tubing, and stuffed it down into that rubber lip around the entrance to the fill nozzle of his car, between it and the metal pipe, to make it breath better when he fills. The theory was to allow the air to escape from around the bladder better. He says he has never had a problem with it since.
I have not tried this yet, but I may be getting around to it if my frequency gets worse. Maybe somebody here could report back on it if they try it.....

 

I'd suggest starting with a diagram of the system (one is linked back in #32, others are available) and trying to figure out whether the friend's idea of what that tube is doing is accurate.

 

If I understand priuscon's post correctly, the tube just sits next to the filler neck and "vents" that area to the inside of the fender. The only thing that I could imagine that accomplishes is that excess vapor pressure from refueling would go out the "vent" instead of into the bellows seal on the pump handle- which would trigger fuel cutoff. That would suggest the normal vapor path is blocked or restricted- likely from damage due to previous overfilling.

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