What You Need To Know About The Rav4 Hybrid Fuel Tank Lawsuit

Agree the article is rubbish and missing a lot of detail on the problem, moreso for a headline that says 'what you need to know'.

Hopefully someone can find a write off model, drill a hole in the fuel tank and get a good solid measurement of its capacity. Might not solve the problem, but it would shed more light on it than this Toyota Happy Ending puff piece.

I agree that a class action lawsuit is needed.i bought the 2019 over a year ago now and they still don’t have a solution. I filled three formal complaints with Toyota and a case with their engineering team. They sent a worthless piece of paper warranting my RAV4 hybrid for 100,000 miles regarding the gas tank issue but I have a sinking feeling I will have 100 k on the car without resolution. Then they will tell me it’s out of warranty, This article is BS and I think they are either too optimistic about Toyota’s integrity or are being compensated by Toyota.

I agree and can’t get my dealer to replace tank

I completely agree with you. Toyata dealship said who cares that I get 8gallon tank. No solution was given

Good morning,

I'm looking into purchasing a 2019 or 2020 RAV4 Hybrid. Been doing my investigation and getting a lot of misleading information from Toyota Customer Service, and starting to investigate the Toyota new car dealers directly on specific vehicles they have on their lot for sale by Vin#. Yesterday I spoke to Toyota customer service via their 800 customer support line. I was told that they are aware of the issue, it's currently under investigation. Additionally, they informed me that they have a "Customer Support Program" in place now at all their Toyota new car dealer franchise locations which allows their service departments to access Toyota's database, search for the affected vehicle by VIN to verify if it qualifies for the "Customer Support Program". The consumer does not have access to that database to check for themselves through any other public database access method. The rep would not disclose any details of what the "Customer Support Program" includes. I asked if the the VIN # of the potential purchase vehicle does not show up as a vehicle qualifying for the "Customer Support Program you go ahead and purchase that particular vehicle based on that information, and then later it presents as an issue then would it automatically fall under the "Customer Support Program". The rep indicated that the internal list of effected Vin#'s is updated frequently and if the vehicle you purchased is added to the list after purchase then Toyota would send a letter to the registered owner advising that their vehicle qualifies for the "Customer Support Program" The rep described the issue as "Distance to Empty" issue.

I am completely utterly shocked that the 90,000 plus people affected by this issue never thought to do that! Especially in an extreme case like mine, where it only takes 3 gallons. Oh, yeah... We did, and it doesn’t work for most of us. Glad to hear you’re in the minority who have a solution. And in any case, it’s a manufacturer defect, they are committing fraud by not informing people about it before purchase, and it compromises the resale value of these model years, including yours. Yeah, you’re out of pocket on this issue too. So there are serious financial losses here, not fixable by holding the nozzle a few inches out. Knowing that isn’t rocket science.

What is else we need to do to fill up 14.5 gallon in my Lexus Hybrid. I have at the issue as most of Hybrid owners.

This is my experience as well. If I'm careful I can get 13+ gallons in my tank shortly after the fuel light comes on. Also there's been some in-depth testing of the tank that showed the reserve in the tank after the light came on was a lot more than expected. It could be as simple as a fuel sensor coming on too early making you fill up more often.

I am getting 13.5 gallons only if I go to a station that allows the pumps to “trickle” flow. It still takes 10 minutes to fill and often overflows. The dealer knows the issue, but says Toyota doesn’t have a solution. The service manager told me the trick to get it full because he had the same issue on a RAV hybrid his daughter owns. I’m disappointed because Toyota just wants the issue to go away. I’m going to join the class action lawsuit because I think it’s the only way to get them to address the issue. This article is BS.

But I shouldn’t have to do that on a $38,000 vehicle!

If you refuel when the gas light is on you can put in about 9-10 gallons when the pump shuts off automatically. The owner's manual says it has a 14.5 gallon tank and there should be about 2.2 gallons remaining when the light comes on ... so where's the missing 3 gallons? Either the tank isn't actually full (a problem with the refueling system), the tank has far more gas in it than it should (a problem with the gauge or measurement system), the tank is smaller than it should be (a problem with the tank itself), or some combination of these.

The workarounds all violate the guidance in the owner's manual: you either have to keep refueling after the pump shuts off, forcing it in until you think it's actually full and risking overfilling and damaging the evap system, or you keep driving well after the low fuel light comes on and the gauge reads empty, risking running out of gas, burning out the pump, and getting stranded.

There are reports of people "topping off" with multiple gallons of gas. There's also reports of people who drive 100 to 150 miles after the gauge reads empty. Something is seriously wrong.

It doesn't matter if you fill at a half tank or at empty, you get the same result: the '19-'20 RAV4 Hybrid has about 9-10 gallons of usable fuel in it, despite having a 14.5 gallon tank.

Should we compare to the Prius tank fiasco a few years back? It was fundamentally similar, with the tank not filling to the advertised capacity. At least with that one it was documented in the owner's manual as part of the design of the vehicle (a bladder tank). Toyota fought and won that lawsuit. The RAV4 doesn't have a bladder tank and this behavior is directly contrary to the owner's manual.

Oh, and the problem seems to only affect North American models. Which means whatever is different between the America models and everywhere else is the cause (my money is on the emissions system).

This article is pure garbage. It reads like a paid promotion for Toyota. And don't get me wrong: I do trust Toyota and I hope they come out with a fix. But when? How much leniency do we give them? Some people are halfway through their lease and Toyota has yet to do anything more than acknowledge a problem to the media and offer an "interim fix" that doesn't actually fix anything. They refuse to buy back the defective vehicles and refuse to fix it under warranty (because they can't). They've promised individuals (as part of dispute resolution) to have a fix by certain dates ... all of which have come and gone. The latest rumors for a fix (nothing official, mind you) are this fall.

I want to have confidence in Toyota's customer care here. But they've been silent. Barely an admission that there's a problem, a token repair that even they admit probably won't fix it, and absolutely no communication of when a fix might come. I'm willing to give some leeway on timelines due to Coronavirus, but even that doesn't excuse the communication problem. And so I've basically accepted that my fuel gauge is broken and my car has a 12 gallon tank. Which still makes for a very usable vehicle, but disappointing to some.