I encountered a problem when filling up my '99 Corolla; regardless of how much gas is in the tank I can only pump a very small amount of gas until the pump cuts off, as if the fuel tank is filled. This problem started recently and has gotten worse it seems - it now takes about 15 minutes of literally pumping the gas nozzle to fill my tank. A bloody pain!
I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem, knows why it's happening, or has suggestions to correct it. Any help will be much appreciated!
Sounds like the gasoline vent tube is clogged up on your car - as a similar thing happened on my old Celica. There are several tubes running to the tank as well as within the length of the fill tube - one is the main fillup tube, and you have a smaller return tubes (note: the little hole on the side of the gas tank fill opening is one of them) - all to help equalize the pressure (vent) at the opening of the fill tube and the gas tank - so you can fill up easily without kicking the auto-shutoff on the gas pump or worse, spilling fuel all over the car and onto the ground.
One of those tubes also runs to the vapor canister or charcoal canister. If you have a habit of topping off the tank, instead of stopping at the first "click", should really stop that. There is a chance that liquid fuel can be forced into the vapor canister - if that happens, it will not vent properly and ruin the canister.
Options here are to double check that none of those tubes are clogged or pinched off visually. An air compressor down one of the vent holes might work, though I wouldn't recommend that unless you've done it before and you have a good regulator on it. Too high of a pressure will force an gasoline out at high speed (like getting hit by a Super Soaker, but with gasoline instead of water) and/or blow out a fuel tube, various cutoff valves, and EVAP system components, etc. Might have to disconnect the fill line to the gas tank and see if there is anything physically in it. I know vent tubes can get filled with cobwebs, there is also a pressure valve (inside the tube) that can cut off too so - this is likely if you get fuel splashed back out the fill tube.
Yeah, spiders are pretty tough critters. They probably were overcome by the fumes, but not before they were able to complete some webs.
As for disconnecting the tubes - not much to worry about. Just don't try and force them apart, sometimes just the action of checking and wiggling the lines to check for cracks and whatnot - "automagically" fixes the problem.
Sorry for digging up an old thread, but I ran across this one in searching for a similar problem with my sister's '00 Chevy Prizm. I've not seen any direct answers to this problem here, and if I missed it I apologize. If not, here is something I think is worth looking into. Fishexpo, you were pretty close to the solution but the problem I located was in a tube coming off the emissions canister and venting into open air.
Ever since the car was brand new she has not been able to fill up her tank at any pump without the nozzle clicking off after a few seconds regardless of how empty the tank was. This meant a constant cycle of clicking the handle to put 10 gallons of gas in (very time consuming). She has also thrown a check engine light that will intermittently come on and go out when it chooses to.
While the car was under warranty she took it back to the dealer to have the problem diagnosed. After several trips and no success the dealer apparently took the fuel tank and filler neck off of another Prizm on the lot and installed it and still could not solve the issue at which point they gave up on it. Because she and I were both in college at the time and live miles away from each other if we did see one another it was for a few minutes at a time. Now we are both working and our schedules haven't gotten much better so I've not had any chance until now to give it a look.
Fast forward to now. I recently moved to a town that has a small airport. For one of her recent trips I convinced her to drive her car here and fly out and leave it with me for a week. The car needed strut work done so while I was at it, I crawled underneath to take a peek at the fuel system because I knew something just wasn't right. The car now has 137,000 miles on it and is 10 years old so she has lived with this since forever (don't ask me why- not my car and not my choice).
What I found was this:
This is the valve and corresponding hose that is attached to the driver's side part of the emissions canister that sits right behind the gas tank. The hose is open on the other end and was simply stuffed into a hole in one of the rear crossmembers. Spiders had crawled into the tube and built a nest inside the tube, completely blocking it off. We are not talking about cobwebs here, but a full fledged mud nest. Of course they were kind enough to die and further complicate things. To give you an idea of what was in the valve and the tube:
My sister picked up the car today and reportedly filled her car up for the first time with no interruptions. We are not sure if this is a fluke so she will be testing it for awhile at several different stations to make sure, but this was definitely something that should not have been there. Others who have this problem at the pump may want to look into a possible blockage in this vent tube (especially if the car has sat for awhile which hers probably did when brought onto the lot in 2000).
Last edited by thor2015; 06-21-2010 at 12:28 AM.
The Following User Says Thank You to thor2015 For This Useful Post:
The hose at one end is left venting out into the open (or in this case into the hollow cross beam behind the tank). To a spider (or any other pest for that matter) it's just another dry hiding place. VERY easy to get to. I'm thinking this may have been a pregnant spider that built the nest, laid her eggs and died and the resulting babies also died once they hatched. Whatever happened, it/they did a really good job of sealing off that opening.
The Chevrolet dealership this car was purchased from sits in a town of 300 people. It is a farming community, so most of the sales are pickup trucks and SUV's. It was also a hail damage special so it was probably really low on the desired list of cars and probably sat on the lot for awhile before my parents came across it giving easy access to any pest that wanted in. My parents also live on 20 acres of nothing but woods which is also home to a lot of such critters. When the car was originally purchased, my sister had just gotten her license and was still in high school. She and I both got cars when we turned 16 simply because it was 20 miles each way to school and our required school activities sometimes caused major conflicts with our parents' schedules. My mom worked in the same town, so if we were all on the same schedule we all rode in one car (usually hers) to save gas. Therefore, the need for my sister's car was strictly occasional and it ended up sitting for days at a time. However, when I was in school and had to leave my car sitting I never encountered this problem with the fuel system. The difference between my sister and I is that I knew how to work on cars so I was given the 1979 junkyard special that I had to repair on a regular basis and probably emitted enough fumes from the gas tank to keep stuff like that from building up in there. My sister didn't have that same interest and my parents thought it best to get her something that would be mechanically dependable so that she wouldn't get stranded in the middle of nowhere since cell phones typically don't work out where we are.
I've been working on cars for quite awhile now, and one thing I've learned from it all is to never say never.
I have been dealing with this problem for over a year now with no avail nobody knows why it acts like it does. I know im bumping an old post but it goes to show ive searched for months and ive finally came across one! I myself have a 99 chevy prizm and have been having the same problem. Im goign to check it out tomorrow and ill post an update on fixed or not Im curious to if joseph fixed his issue but since hes had 3 posts total im sure hes not a active member.
Haven't checked with my sister recently but about a month ago when I talked to her she said the problem hasn't come back. If checking the filler neck vent lines doesn't give you any results, I'd look into the EVAP system behind the tank. If the tube and valve I pictured is clear, maybe the valve is not opening or there is some blockage or fault elsewhere in the system. I don't know what is causing your issue specifically, but what I do know from my experience is that if the fuel tank is unable to vent through this system it will also cause those same filling issues.
I want to start my thanking thor2015. I have got under my Prizm today and took off a few things specified by thor2015. To my surprise I found mud in a certain area and it completely cut off the air/ vacuum process. I took some pictures but I guess I dont have enough posts to put them on here. I haven't filled up my tank yet to test and see if this was the only problem but im hoping it was. I spent 20 mins yesterday doing it cause it was semi warm outside .
Last edited by Automechnic077; 11-09-2010 at 11:34 AM.
Reason: figured out how to post pictures
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Im curious to if joseph fixed his issue but since hes had 3 posts total im sure hes not a active member.
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