Tank Assembly Problems of Toyota Prius - part 1

The fuel gauge for my 2008 toyoto Prius recently became inaccurate and it was determined defective according to the toyoto dealership, which required me to spend $1,115 to have it and its gas tank replaced. I wrote toyoto on June 24, 2017 asking that they reimburse me for the defect. When they failed to respond I called toyoto customer experience center, who told me that they would not reimburse me because the defect was "out of warranty" and there had been "no recalls. " please investigate and order toyoto to conduct a recall and reimburse its owners. Inaccurate defective Prius fuel gauges appears to be a widespread problem, with repairpal. Com reporting 119 complaints. And in the past the NHTSA has determined that inaccurate fuel gauges is a safety issue since "it may result in the vehicle unexpectedly running out of fuel and stalling, increasing the risk of a crash. ".

See all problems of the 2008 Toyota Prius 🔎.

The contact owns a 2009 Toyota Prius. The contact stated that the fuel gauge would provide inaccurate readings of fuel levels. While driving 25 mph, the vehicle completely shut down without warning due to a bladder fuel tank problem. The vehicle was towed to the dealer who replaced the bladder fuel tank under warranty. The manufacturer was contacted who offered no assistance. The failure mileage was 43,000.

See all problems of the 2009 Toyota Prius 🔎.

The gas gauge of my Toyota Prius 2007 is defective and has created a very dangerous situation. I first noticed this about a month ago. The tank was empty, I put a few gallons of gas in the tank and it did not register at all. The gauge still said empty. The next time I filled the tank, it seemed to be working properly. Then, on January 16th, I had a tank that was nearly empty. I had been driving for an hour or so when I noticed that the gas gauge spontaneously went from almost empty to full. This creates an extremely dangerous situation since the gauge is not accurate. There will be no warning before we run out of gas. If this should happen on a highway, it could easily be fatal. Slowing down without warning is as dangerous as accelerating without warning. Toyota must be held accountable for this defect. They will "recalibrate" the gauge at a cost of $180/hour to me. This is not a satisfactory response to a safety issue. This is a known problem with these cars and Toyota needs to provide all Prius owners with reliable gas gauges. Thank you.

See all problems of the 2007 Toyota Prius 🔎.

2009 Toyota Prius, car has had a bad fuel gauge , drove off the lot new and have had fuel tank replaced once. Fuel gauge failed again this is the second time. Dealer unable to repair, told me it was a design flaw and it could not be repaired, I am running out of gas and I can not use this new car on a long trip. I do not know and I am guessing on how much fuel I have. This is unsafe and uncalled for. Running out of glass on freeway and it is dangerous.

While driving a 2009 Toyota Prius at 50-55 mph on a single lane highway outside of prescott az, the drive system suddenly shut down and no response was felt when depressing the accelerator pedal. Lots of indicators came on and my wife was able to steer the car to the side of the road where there was just sufficient room for following traffic to go past. After spending a few minutes going through the owner's manual and finding no easy answer to explain this condition, we tried and were able to re-start the car. It must be noted that the fuel gauge when recently checked had indicated slightly less than 1/4 full and that we were proceeding up hill when the event happened. No add fuel indicator light nor low fuel alarm had occurred prior to this event. When the car was restarted it was on a more level but not flat surface. We proceeded on our travel with the flashers on and at a speed no higher than 30-35 mph. Soon thereafter we did observe both an add fuel indicator light and then a flashing light on the fuel gauge itself. We stopped at the nearest gas station and added fuel. The next day we took the car in to the Toyota dealer to have them look at the fuel gauge and electronically recorded history. The report showed that the car responded to an empty fuel tank by shutting if the engine and then the battery drive when its charge went too low (to protect the battery). We were told the this car has a bladder type fuel storage device and that it can act funny when it gets low. The car was checked out fine and returned to us with the words no wisdom to not let the car get too low on fuel. My concern is that the engine and drive systems shut down under high speed driving conditions without any low fuel warning indicators being activated.

Ran out of gas in an '07 Honda Prius . Emergency vehicle supplied 2 gallons and we went on our way. Two tanks of gas later following a regular service visit to dealer, I ran out again just minutes after leaving service while the gauge indicated that I should have about 3 gallons remaining. I coasted into a station and put 2 gallons in tank. Car started but only died after several tries. Towed back to dealer. They reported the car was out of gas. I told them I'd already added gas. They put in 5 gallons and said the gauge indicated "full. " 3+2+5 does not equal the 11. 9 gallons that the tank is supposed to hold. These cars feature a bladder tank which is monitored by computer and if the computer decides that the tank is empty, it will shut the car down. This is not a safe situation under any circumstances. The dealer, picked up the towing expense, the cost of a temporary rental and the cost of the 5 gallons of gas. They refused to explore the problem further and said we might need a to replace some part of the fuel monitor system. Could it be that the bladder tank will not fully recover if a driver runs the car out of gas?.

Over the past several I've noticed at least twice that after filling up my car with gasoline that the gauge reflecting gasoline status does not reset correctly, e. G. , it tank was half full, filling up does not cause it to reset to "full". I suspect that this is due to some type of electronics error. In over 50 years of driving I've never had a car that didn't correctly reset to "full" upon "filling up". Last incident date was in February 2010. Prior occasion was approximately 5-6 months earlier.

See all problems of the 2005 Toyota Prius 🔎.

2006 Prius gasoline tanks has erratic behavior, based on temperature. Fill up capacity ranges from 6 to 10 gallons, on a 10. 9 gallons tank.

See all problems of the 2006 Toyota Prius 🔎.

I own a Toyota Prius 2007 which it was performing excellent until 3 months ago that the fuel economic went down dramatically to half of it"s usually fuel consumption an average now I getting around 200 miles for tank when I use to get at least 400 per tank now that's it is a big difference. I was thinking on contact the Toyota dealer but my car it is been out of the warranty because it only have 3years or 36,000 miles so I am afraid they want to charge me for checking my car it is very suspicious that I start w/ this issue after my warranty expire besides that the car it is working excellent but I pay a lot more to save on gas an now it is performing like any regular because the most mileage I am getting now it is 35 miles per gallon. Very disappoint about this and hope you guys look into this issue because it is very serious.

Fuel bladder seems to have collapsed. When I am showing 1/4 tank left I can only put 6 gallons in the tank.

I was driving to work and with 3 bars of fuel showing on the fuel gauge, the gas engine stopped and I continued to a safe street to park with the electric motor (which has about a 1 mile range). I had the vehicle towed to the nearest Toyota dealer. There inspection revealed multiple failure codes but that it basically ran out of gas. They reset/recalibrated the ecms and I picked up the car 2 days later. I contacted Toyota about this issue and they denied any responsibility and advised that I should not run below 25% of the tanks capacity. The 2010 Prius uses a rigid gas tank versus the flexible gas tank in my vehicle (I believe they know it is a problem but are doing nothing but advise people to not go below 25% fuel capacity. Since the tank may be from 10 to 11. 9 gallons this is not that clear). The Toyota case number is 0910135219 which is already closed (denied).

The contact owns a 2008 Toyota Prius. While the vehicle was traveling at a speed of 55 mph the contact noticed that the check engine light appeared on the dashboard, moments later the vehicle suddenly shut off. The vehicle was taken to the dealership. The contact was informed that the failure was due to the fuel tank being empty. The failure mileage was 20,000 and the current mileage was 35,000.

The contact owns a 2003 Chevrolet trail blazer. The contact stated that the fuel tank was leaking around the spout since there was an inlet check valve fracture. No maintenance was performed on the vehicle prior to the failure. The vehicle was taken to the dealer who confirmed that the inlet valve was cracked. The dealer refused to assume responsibility for the repair cost. There were no recalls or warranties related to the failure. The Chevrolet manufacturer was notified and stated that they would review the case and inform the contact of the outcome. The failure mileage was 119,000.

My 2008 Toyota Prius has a defective fuel tank. I can't reliably fill it up or rely on the fuel gage to determine endurance. Running out of fuel in the left lane on a busy highway is a major safety hazard for myself and other drivers on the road.

Decreasing capacity of 2007 Prius gas tank.

I own a Toyota Prius. On June 22, the fuel gauge started to act up. I took it to the dealership after having my car for almost 2 weeks they claimed it was fixed. They replaced almost everything to do with the fuel. I then took it back less than a month later with the same problem. They told me there was nothing they could do and just to never let my tank go below 1/4. To me, this is a danger. I never know how much gas is in my gas tank or when I may run out of gas. I then took it to another dealership and they explained to me this is a problem with the Prius, yet Toyota does nothing to fix this. Every few days I have to stop and get gas because my gas gauge does not work properly. I am driving around an accident waiting to happen.

Gas tank will not fill up fully. Any auto shutoff gas pump will start shutting off with about 1. 5 gallons to go. If I dribble gas in a lowest possible delivery, we can fill it up, but it takes about ten minutes, and then it often will regurgitate gas when it is full. We have complained to dealer several times. They say this is normal due to bladder in gas tank. We think this is a defect, that it does not allow us to get full range of tank on a trip. Our previous Prius from 2005 did not have this same problem. Dealer will not address the problem further.

Collapse of fuel bladder cause the Prius to run out of fuel with 2 gallons of gas in the vehicle while on freeway. Caused towing to dealership. When fuel was added to car only 8. 9 gallons could be added to a reported 10. 9 gallon tank capacity.

2008 Prius, can not fill gas tank without continuous stops and starts, and then fuel percolates out of the tank, onto shoes and ground. Very unsafe. Can cause fire. This is due to defective "rubber bladder gas tank". Dealers can not fix.

Fuel tank capacity dangerously variable in Toyota Prius. Our 2009 Prius routinely is unable to fill to full capacity of 11. 9 gallons. Worse is cold temperatures. Was not told of this issue at time of purchase. Have since learned more about the fuel bladder from consumer chat forums, but Toyota needs to disclose the range of fuel capacity in their manuals, or improve the design to.

Passenger side hid headlight goes out every 3-4 months. At first it is intermittent, and difficult to say when failure occurs. Over time the period for failure gets shorter. Dealer says it is my problem. Cost of continual repair is over $300. Per light. Also, fuel gauge say add fuel when tank partially empty.

Unable to properly fill the fuel tank. The fuel bladder collapses.

Prius bladder tank is a bad and flawed design leaving the consumer with inaccurate tank and mileage readings.

I own a 2007 Toyota Prius. I cannot fill up the gas tank without it having an overflow of 1-2 pints of gas onto the ground. It seems to build up a back pressure and kick out the gas I try to put into it. If this is happening to other Prius owners as I read it is on the internet, we have a severe environmental hazard occurring from this gas tank defect.

The fuel gauge on my Prius registered 3 gallon fuel remaining (according to the owners' manual). I ran out of fuel on a busy expressway without warning. Fortunately, I was not hit. I was towed to a Toyota dealership who informed me that the Prius gas tank is a plastic bag and the fuel gauge does not register correctly. I asked what Toyota was doing about this. I was told that they were "looking into it". That was more than one year ago. The Toyota dealership told me to keep the gas tank 1/2 full in order to prevent my Prius from running out of fuel. Of course, this cuts the vehicle range in half. I assumed that Toyota would work for a solution, but frankly, after all the recent revelations, I wonder if Toyota has looked for a solution. At the very least, Toyota should inform all Prius owners to keep their gas tanks 1/2 full in order to avoid the potentially dangerous event that I experienced. (I am a registered professional engineer, mechanical, state of California. ).

I own a 2008 Prius. The fuel gauge does not work at all and the dealer has told me it's a function of the bladder gas tank. I cannot fill the tank because it will not take enough fuel before the pump shuts off. This is a common problem I am told now by other owners. Toyota should tell people before they buy the car. I have less then 1000 miles on the car now.

Summary: Prius low fuel warning light/buzzer came on, and only 5 miles later car ran out of gas, in a bad place at night on highway. The manual states that when low light comes on you have three gallons or less. With the Prius, even treating this conservatively as only 1 1/2 gallons, that should still be over 60 miles. I had driven the vehicle between 30 and 50 miles with low light on multiple times previously. This usually works occasionally fails fuel warning is clearly dangerous. And from internet researching, it is clearly a widespread problem, and Toyota not only is completely ignoring it, they denied to me having received any complaints on this (there are previous complaints on this even right on this NHTSA website). Driving from colorado to kansas city on I-70, a little after passing the sign that said "topeka 27 miles", just after 10 at night, the low fuel light illuminated and warning sounded. We planned to stop at the next fuel stop, which we expected to be within 20 miles at the most. About 5 miles after the light illuminated, the car suddenly lost power, the gas engine clearly had quit, the red triangle warning illuminated, along with another warning. After the initial scare, I pulled the vehicle over, slowly, under battery power, not knowing what had happened. In the manual we found that the second warning indicated "hybrid system malfunction", and not to attempt to drive the vehicle. Some 10-15 minutes later, as we were trying to get emergency help, that warning disappeared, and a new message came up, "add fuel". Eventually we borrowed gas from a family that stopped to help us in this rural area, and got help from a highway patrolman. Toyota checked vehicle, denies problems, denies receiving complaints, refuses to send warnings to Prius owners. Nhtsa, this is a safety issue, like your recall 00v384. 6/19/08 add * the consumer believed that the low fuel warning light was defective.

The first time this happened was approximately 3 weeks after purchasing my new '08 Prius. I was attempting to fill my nearly empty gas tank, when the gas nozzle clicked off after about 2 seconds of filling. I repeatedly tried to continue filling only to have the nozzle repeatedly click off without filling any further. I would squeeze the handle, a little gas would go into the car and the nozzle would click off. After about 5 minutes of this frustration, I removed the nozzle from the car and whatever gasoline was in the tank came gushing out of the gas tank. A lot of gas, poured down the side of my new car and onto myself. After this, the gas gauge was apparently stuck on ?full?, as I drove the car a about 100 miles and the gas gauge remained at the ?full? setting even though I had not even put in 3 gallons of gas in my seemingly empty tank. With most every subsequent fill after this it would take forever to fill the tank with the nozzle constantly clicking off?plus it is difficult to tell when the tank is actually full. The gas has continued to pour out onto my car and myself on occasional fills over the course of the last 5 months. I've put 16,000 miles on my Prius and it has most always been the same routine when fueling?the nozzle constantly clicking off and me standing there squeezing the nozzle handle over and over and trying to guess when the tank is actually full. I often could not put more than one second of fuel in my Prius before the fuel nozzle would click off and I keep having to pull the pump spigot out until it just barely squirts gas past the little flapper door, and even then it keeps shutting off. It takes me almost 20 minutes to put less than 6 gallons of gas in this car and it is an environmental and a safety concern to continue having gas pour out of the tank to the ground and onto my clothing/body. Toyota will not remedy this problem and it is both an environmental and safety concern to myself and others. There is documentation since 2004.

I recently returned from a 2,300 mile road trip that began in woodland wa. During this trip, we filled up in ashland ore on our way to reno nv. Ore requires that an attendant do this and off we went, next gas fill up was to have been reno! we headed east, turned off I-5 and onto hwy 89 and switched drivers. After only 83 miles, the gas tank showed that there was less than 1/2 a tank. Luckily we had not missed mccloud California, last stop for gas for many miles! when we filled up in reno, the gas pump shut off way too soon! we had to pull the gas nozzle way out and extremely slowly managed to fill up the gas tank. During this slow process, air and gas would bubble up and at times out of the tank. We repeated this process at every fill up along the trip and since we have gotten home. Temperature, time of day and altitude seem to not have any effect on getting the tank filled, the pump shut off early at every instance. Another issue is the fuel gauge. The car would travel 200 miles before even one gauge indicator would click off. There are 10 indicators and the tank supposedly holds nearly 12 gallons of gas. I bet that the car does not get 200 miles per gallon! I spoke the owner of a 2005 Prius. He indicated he also has challenges filling his tank. He was told that this has to do with the ambient temperature. I have talked with a Toyota Prius technician. He stated that there are no parts that can fix this issue. He noted that this has been going on since the first Prius, that there is no fix available. He also noted in the winter that at least one Prius owner comes in each and every day with this same gas tank concern. I also did some research on the internet and this appears to be a long outstanding safety hazard! it appears that Toyota is continuing to manufacture a defective, unsafe product with full knowledge of the issue. I thank you in advance for working on this major safety and longstanding safety problem.

The contact owns a 2008 Toyota Prius. While placing fuel in the vehicle, it will not fill to its full capacity. This is a continuous failure that occurs in all weather conditions and temperatures. There is a malfunction with the fuel gauge device. The inaccurate readings of the fuel gauge causes discomfort when driving. The Toyota manufacturer stated that the vehicle would only consume 6-7 gallons of gasoline, even though the fuel tank capacity was 11. 9 gallons. The manufacturer is aware of the failure, but the fuel tank cannot be replaced in these vehicles. The tank would need to be redesigned. The contact recently took the vehicle to an authorized dealer and the mechanic stated that the fuel tank failure was related to the bladder system. The vehicle is currently being repaired for the failures. The failure mileage was 5,000 and current mileage was 9,000. Updated 07/07/08. Updated.

On a 2007 Prius gas gauge showed 2 bars and was driving across a bridge in California when the gas engine stopped. Looked at the gas gauge and it still showed 2 bars. Was fortunate enough to be on a section of the bridge with a breakdown lane. 1/2 mile further on and we would have been stuck in one of the traffic lanes. The vsc, check engine, and hybrid system failure indicators where on - but not the low fuel!!! got towed to a dealer. Service manager told us that the car was out of gas and that the "gas gauge was stuck" that's why it didn't show empty. He blamed it on the bladder design of the fuel tank and said it was "a design defect" that Toyota new about. This is a significant safety issue - we could have been killed.

2008 Toyota Prius, is advertised to have an 11. 9 gallon gas tank - yet when you fill it up it will only take 7 gallons. The dealer says that they cannot fix it. I am uncomfortable with a gas tank that does not work properly and I feel this is a serious safety issue.

2001 Prius fuel tank was discovered to have a pin leak and had to be replaced. Prior to finding right after 100,000 miles the check engine light started coming on.

See all problems of the 2001 Toyota Prius 🔎.

Hard time getting gas in the vehicle. For example, I was told by the dealership to let the gas gauge get down to 1/4 tank or less and fill the tank slowly as there may be air behind the bladder that is in the gas tank on the Prius. About 2 miles from the gas tank the "add fuel" warning came on in the vehicle. Upon pulling into the gas station and adding gas into the vehicle I was only able to get slightly over 4 gallons into the tank. The Prius had an 11. 9 gallon gas tank. So if the gas was really below 1/4 tank, why am I only getting 4 gallons in the tank. Even if the 1/4 tank means there are 3 gallons left in the tank, those 3 plus the 4 that I got in the tank still only add up to 7 gallons. What happened to the other 4+ gallons that I should have been able to put in the tank? this happens every time I put gas in the vehicle. So far the dealership has told me its because its cold outside that this happens. . . Well how do they explain it in summer? it was over 60 degrees when I got gas last Thursday. The have told me that I have to put the gas in slowly, and they have re-set the gas gauge.

The flexible gas tank on the Prius often fails to fill up all of the way to full. In cold weather the tank often fills only 8 gallons(when completely empty) and sometimes clicks off at 3 gallons or less and keeps clicking off until more gas is forced into the tank. The Prius was brought in to the dealer and they looked into the tank issue and found nothing. There recommendation was to fill up on the slowest level and to tilt the gas nozzle to side or upside down to force more gas into the tank. This did not rectify the situation and the dealer could not offer any further remedy. The dealer will not do anything further to fix the situation.