There has been many asking about the dangers of over filling the Prius. Until now it was hard to find any information about the problems this might cause. I found a site with a PDF file that might help everyone who might like to find out more, here is the site: http://autoshop101.com/forms/Hybrid13.pdf It has plenty of drawings and pictures say a thousand words. Let us all know if this helps. Cheers, John
^^^ The hybrid PDFs at AUTOMOTIVE TECHNICAL ARTICLES were written only when the NHW11 (1st gen Prius) and NHW20 (2nd gen Prius, model years 04-09) were out. You have a ZVW30 (3rd gen). On the 3rd gen, they ditched the (quirky) bladder. I don't know how different the rest of the fuel tank and system is on ZVW30. As a side note, it was definitely possible to cause overfill damage on the Gen 2. See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-technical-discussion/30593-gas-bladder-exposed.html.
It has been said many times and this goes for all gas engines with EVAP emmisions components, you can have liquid fuel go where it does not belong if you try to overfill. can this damage components over time? sure. will it? maybe. you could get liquid fuel in the canister and the purge solenoid could pull it to the intake and cause a driveability issue temporarily, i have seen this on vehicles i work on (not toyotas) when a component fails on the tank and the customer fills up it will overfill slightly and put liquid fuel in the vapor line. the symptom is typically "dies when coming to a stop" (because too much fuel is getting added when unneeded by the purge solenoid) our vehicles are different and you may never even notice the symptom being as our engine will shut down on its own coming to a stop and this only lasts a short time and in city driving until all of the liquid fuel evaporates or is sucked through the vapor line.
