by Bull6791, April 25, 2015
How do you prevent your charcoal canister from going bad. Also what is code for bad canister.
Is one way over filling. Do not over fill your gas tank because the canister can become soaked with fuel. That is just what I heard and do not know if it is true.
I've always filled mine up to the fuel cap, or as much as I possibly can. It takes about 15 US gallons for me to fill up. I've never had any charcoal canister or EVAP system problem whatsoever.
Dom
When gas pump shuts off because your tank is full do you end it there or do you over fill tank by adding more gas.
So are you saying By over filling tank does not effect charcoal canister.
Then what makes charcoal canister go bad.
Under normal operating conditions - pretty hard to damage the vapor canister. Unless a vent was clogged, or if you excessively overfill the tank, or if there was prior damage to the vapor canister.
On the 9th gen and newer - the location of the vapor canister makes it unlikely to be easily flooded if you overfill the tank. I've seen owners fill them literally up to the filler neck (gas is basically running down the side of the car).
On the 8th gens - that is a different problem all together - those will over-fill in a heartbeat. So with that, I only pump to the first click - never add any more gas afterwards.
The other cars - depends on how I'm paying, where I'm driving. If with a card - I usually stop at the first click. Case - usually round up to the nearest buck or so. If I'm driving to fairly long distance where stations are of an unknown quality - I might pump past the auto-shutoff point to get a couple extra miles of range.
So over filling your tank and making canister soaked with fuel will not make it go bad.
Also where is location of charcoal canister. In tank.
No, soaking the canister with raw gas WILL damage the vapor canister. Just in your case, that is exceptionally difficult to do unless you are purposely trying to damage the canister (ie. plug certain hoses, reverse the CCV and VSV valves, continue filling the tank while raw gas is pouring down the side of the car, etc).
Vapor canister is between the rear wheels, nestled right next to the gas tank.
Fish
Now I got it. Tank has to be over filled to point of gas running down side of car to damage charcoal canister.
Correct. With the cars you have, you have to do a LOT to saturate the vapor canister.
Every vehicle is different - some just are more susceptible to overfilling. Like I mentioned the 8th gen Corollas are this way, anything past the auto-shutoff point and you risk soaking the vapor canister. A couple of trucks are that way (mid 2000s Chevy Silverado, etc.).
To avoid any issues / safest practice - always stop at the first auto-shutoff point. But as many will note, this can be significantly less than the actual capacity of the tank, some cases may be as much as a 2 or 3 gallons short of a "full" tank. But by doing so, you definitely will not risk any chance of overflowing the tank.
But like dom mentioned, with most cars, they can take a little more fuel after the pump shuts off and be OK. My Matrix is that way - if I pump past the first click, I can get another gallon of gas in there. That means I can make it a whole work week on a tank instead of having fill up partway through the week. Sure I know what people will say, first world problem, but hey - sometimes it just makes the work week that much easier / fits better into my schedule.