Anyone have fuel fill issues?
 

For the past few months I have had issues filling the tank at certain stations.


Costco works fine and they just got brand new pumps.


Several other stations, BP's, Sunoco, etc will either have to be filled very slowly or will not fill at all, no matter how slowly you pump or how far out the nozzle is in.


Took it to the dealer and according to them it is a problem with the pumps, not the car. There are complaints about this problem and it is said to affect the C7 more than any other car.


They are continuing to look into it but I've been at certain stations, including the one closest to my office where I cannot fill the tank. Took 5 minutes to put in 3 gallons before I gave up.


Anyone else?

Never had a issue at any pumps I've visited. Includes Costco, Shell, Sheetz, Exxon.

I think I've read somewhere that others were having issues and they just turned the nozzle upside down at those weird pumps.

California has these damn modified vapor guards on a lot of pumps. I usually find them at Chevron or better places (unfortunately). On my C5 I had to physically hold the vapor guard back or it would shut off after a gallon or two... very Frustraing. I've found it kicks off on my C7 every now and then, but not nearly as bad. Try holding the vapor guard back from the car when filling if you can.

Had this same issue with both of my C6's. I found it to be related to the flow rate of the pumps.

BobD

On some, no problems, but on a few, I found that if I insert the nozzle all the way, it cuts off....pulling it out a little usually corrects the problem.

Turning the nozzle nearly upside down has been discussed over in the C6 section in the past and has worked.

For me, it always happened with nozzles that had the newer vapor guard collar. Never had any issues with the older style nozzles without that collar.

Honestly I have never had a problem with gas pumps and the C7, I seldom go to the same gas stations but we dont have any of those vapor guard style pumps around here.

Only C7 fuel fill problem I have read about was a guy pulled the nozzle out part way to top it off and ended up filling up his vapor canister with fuel.

About 50 percent of the stations here in GA have that issue with my C7. When there is an issue just flip the handle to a 2 o'clock position, easy fix.

I have a few customers who are also experiencing issues with fuel fill. They each say different stations/pumps act differently. I would try to stick with a station you haven't had any issues with and hope Chevy puts out a service bulletin for an answer.

Can the cap be replaced with a regular spin off cap, I have no love for this fuel cap.

Probably not.

Calling it a fuel/gas cap would be stretching it. It's a spring-loaded valve (or door).

I didn't want to press my luck, I was going to try to take it off, but I decided I would wait to see if anyone else knew if it came off.

Bob, I guess I don't understand why you would want to try and change to a cap type system as the valve system has nothing to do with this issue that I can tell. Here is my take on what the problem is this: the car has two gas tanks, (one on each side of the car) and only one fill nozzle, so there is a secondary fuel pump in the tank to pump the gas from the tank on the fill side to the tank on the passenger side. The problem comes in when your filling up at a station where the rate of fuel flow from the station pump is too much quantity for the fill tube diameter or possibly that it exceeds the the rate of fuel flow from the secondary pump.

I think this could be fixed with a TSB from GM, but likely would require them to drop the tank and spend hours repairing something with not much reward for them as this isnt a required fix for a safety issue.

The way I see it, its a good excuse to let people drool over the car an extra minute at the gas station. :thumbs:

Ant

Well not for me.


I'm in the minority that drives their cars. I split my time between 3 cars and still managed to put 12K miles on my car this summer.


I fill up 2 times per week when I'm driving it and I'm usually on a schedule so spending 25 minutes filling the car is not workable for me.


Got the car back from the dealer and basically they admitted there was a problem, they just could not fix it.

I can still relate to you on this though.. I have had my C7 since april and have nearly 16K on it. Its my DD. Is the dealer going to look at it more or did they just toss up their hands and say I dont know? If so, contact Chevy Cust Service on the forum.. Once they are involved, things get handled much better..

I believe they looked into it pretty seriously. They tried a few fills but had no problems, could just be their pumps.


They researched it and said there is a complaint rate of about 50 percent on C7's.


Those numbers are hard to judge through. I know people with C7's who have 3k miles after 10 months of ownership. Based on that I would say they usually fuel up at the same location most, if not all the time.


Hard to get a good sample based on how people use the cars. Taking it up with GM is my next step.


As much as I love the car, not being able to fill up is not an acceptable situation.

Fuel flow is determined by how far you depress the lever on the pump handle, not the stations pumping capacity. I don't think that's the problem. I don't have any facts, just speculation, and I think it's when the station's pump is mixing air in the fuel as it's being pumped from the tank to the car.

I haven't had the problem happen with my C6(very rare) as often as with my C5(almost as rare), but when it happens, I stop filling and go to another station, down the street, to finish filling my tank. That always seems to fix the problem for me.

I've had it happen only a couple times. All I did was turn the nozzle upside-down (or nearly so) and it pumped normally. Many other folks, in other threads, have recommended trying this, and it does seem to "fix" the problem.

At one nearby station that had the full sheath over the nozzle I couldn't get more than a couple seconds of fuel in before it cut out unless I held the nozzle and fueled manually at half rate. They just changed to just a flat plastic piece and it now fuels just fine. Looks like it is more the nozzle design than the fuel input design.

While in NJ, where the law is that the station must pump gas, I tell them to pump slow. Of course, at first they pump fast and pump turns off. They then listen and pump slow, and all is OK.