Charcoal canister issue?
 

Has anyone else run into an issue with their charcoal canister causing the gas to back up when you pump gas in your car?

My 2013 FR-S is currently at the dealership and that's what they're telling me the problem is. Fat price of $1,721 to fix it. Not sure if I should talk to another mechanic shop.

I know this is useless to you now but this is typically caused by overfilling your gas tank too often.

People like to round their total amount to the nearest number and overfill their tank in the process. I told someone this at the gas station and the rude guy didn't take my advice very nicely. Claimed to have done it all of his life and had no issues so therefore I was wrong.

I have had this happen to me on a used Audi I bought and it slowly went away by not topping up the tank. The charcoal can dry off and allow flow again if you are patient enough and its not fully plugged.

Interesting. I generally just turn the pump on until it kicks itself off. I have no idea how to tell when it's almost full if I'm filling it.

[EDIT] Also ended up finding more threads about this once I searched using Google instead of forum search. Seems to be a fairly common issue with the early 2013's. /sigh

Yes, I'd suggest you get a second estimate. That sounds like a lot to me - :confused0068:


humfrz

I just took a look at the factory service manual. The reason they quoted you such a high price is that, according to the official procedure, you have to drain and remove the differential to be able to reach the charcoal canister. What should be a ten minute procedure removing a few hoses, two bolts and five nuts turns into a much bigger ordeal.

Maybe somebody has found a way around that step. It would probably involve very small hands and wobble sockets and extensions. But if people can change the spark plugs without lifting the engine, perhaps there's hope for this.

You can figure it out pretty easily. The tank holds about 12.5 usable gallons. The low fuel light should come on when you have about 2.4 usable gallons left. If you fill it right then, dispense about 9.5 gallons. That will leave you half a gallon from full. Maybe just give it 9 gallons for an extra half gallon of safety.

If you're worried about not being able to fill it right when the light comes on or don't want to have to wait until it lights up, you can run an OBDII wireless adapter with your smart phone and check the fuel level before you fill up. The car actually has the data for fuel remaining in gallons, and Torque will display it as a virtual fuel gauge showing gallons instead of a needle. If you pull in for fuel and it says you have 4 gallons left, pumping 8 gallons will get you to half a gallon below full.

I'm not seeing how you thank someone on here... but thank you for the responses.

I did end up telling the dealership I'm not going ahead with the repairs. They gave me a part list and another sheet about what they were supposedly going to do.

Here's the breakdown of the part list they gave me:

* All online prices were taken from www.toyotapartsdeal.com. I didn't shop around for anything cheaper.

SU00301027 - Canister US $294.13 - found online for $171.86 (~171% markup)
SU00301108 - Valve Assy Elcm $225.49 - found online for $131.75 (~171% markup)
SU00301086 - Tube Canister Dr $101.11 - found online for $40.71 (~248% markup)
SU00301087 - Tube Elcm $71.37 - found online for $28.60 (~249% markup)
SU00301083 - Tube Drain US $75.26 - found online for $30.15 (~249% markup)

The dealership was obviously trying to bend me over on part prices on top of their high hourly rate for labor.

@kizmar perhaps let the car sit a couple days, only taking it for a couple light drives. The EVAP pump comes on a few hours after a drive and might help to clean out the lines.

After you post about 10 times a "thanks" button will appear at the bottom of peoples posts. If you like their post, you can punch it - :thumbsup:

It would seem to me that their should be a way to pump air through that charcoal canister system to evaporate the gasoline - ??

Anybody have any ideas on that?


humfrz

Don't know if you came across this when searching but there is a second possible cause of the same problem. It was a bit more rare than the canister but a couple of guys replaced the whole canister system just to find out it was the filler tube collapse.


https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61043

LOL. $250 for hoses. What a crock of shit.

If nursing it back to health doesn't work and you decide to do the work yourself, you can actually get the entire assembly used on Ebay for as little as $60, including the canister, valve and hoses. That's a significant enough savings over even the online new parts prices that I think I'd risk it.

Check for that collapsed hose Tcoat mentioned before you do anything else. I thought I remembered something about that. That should be an easier fix if that's your problem.

I actually read about that on another thread here yesterday. When I picked up my car last night, I asked the guy at the dealership about it. He said none of the hoses were collapsed. Who knows though.

I'm going to have my father-in-law check it out and work on it. He's a mechanic at a Ford dealership that also does work on Toyotas. He laughed at the price when my wife told him the story.

I work from home so my car does tend to sit for a day or two fairly regularly. I did notice the problem would be worse some days and not others. I'll pay better attention to it now that I know what's going on (assuming I don't get it fixed before then).

Wowee. I've never heard of overfilling causing a problem like this. But I just read a few articles and yea, looks like you should avoid filling passed the first "click."

Is it possible that Toyota/ Subaru designed the system poorly to allow the user to over-fill the car before it clicks off? Is that why this is happening, or are people just doing the click-click-click-click-oh gas spilled out I better stop?

The first click on the pump is when the tank is full. I know that I have always tended to fill past that and try to round off but have been trying to not do that after reading these stories.

Definitely get a quote from a few indy shops, maybe even a smog shop that does repairs.