mmarshall

Well, of course no system is 100% foolproof, but my point was that loose-fitting and/or worn screw-type gas caps are a common trigger of the Check-Engine light. When people ask me what to do when the light comes on, that's usually the first thing I tell them....screw the cap on a little tighter (or take it off and put it back on again) and see if that doesn't do the trick, though sometimes it will take the computer a little while to re-set itself.

The reason that loose caps trigger the light is that it is an EPA-regulated function. EPA regs state that evaporation of gas fumes into the air from the filler-pipe and canister has to be prevented, and the caps normally do that with a tight seal. As the cap wears, or if it is not screwed on tight enough (usually, clicking sounds indicate a tight fit), small gaps can open up in the seal, allowing fumes to leak out and trigger the light. But........because the light says "Check ENGINE", not the gas-cap, a lot of people, without the proper training, don't know to look there first.

Toys4RJill

Was doing a little research on this today. The capless designs do have their issues too. Check engine lights caused by a slightly open filler valve as well as a host of other issues. I will say, I don't think most people will have an issue.

What I do find interesting is that the German brands have not gone to this method of filling the gas tank. So it looks like it is an American and Honda thing for now. But Toyota for sure will offer it at some point.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

apparently they did.

https://www.google.com/patents/US5071018

i doubt that's the reason, they probably just don't want to pay ford to use it.

i think everyone will have it in a couple of years just like stupid keys are going away.

Toys4RJill

Agreed. Toyota could very easily put together a capless filler in no time. Its just not essential right now. Eventually it will be. With their Tundra, Toyota added Flex Fuel to select models to try to better compete. With the capless filler now starting to appear on Honda, I wouldn't be surprised if were just a few years away.

mmarshall

It will probably become less important in the future than it is now, for several reasons......among them that the auto industry is, in general, becoming more and more electrified, less dependent on petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline and diesel-oil, and more dependent on alternate sources. More and more vehicles will be plugged in overnight (or for several hours) to get recharged, with small gas engines and relatively small fuel tanks in reserve only for longer trips where the hybrid-battery can't produce enough power for extended ranges.

We see that even on my car, the Lacrosse. One of the things that screwed up my factory-order was that GM decided, at the last minute, to yank out the 3.6L V6 I wanted out of the 2018s and make a four-cylinder hybrid powertrain as standard....lowering the base price some $1500 and making the V6 an option. They obviously made the hybrid standard for gas-mileage reasons, though the V6, 9-speed, and start/stop feature for the engine make for surprisingly good MPG for a car of this size as it is.

jkeller

Ah... MMarshall, you're taking me back to the days of my youth. Leaded-to-unleaded gas funnels, arab oil embargos, 55mph speed limits, speedometers limited to 85mph, lets not go to the metric system, disco sucks...memories.

mmarshall

Yeah....although I am not a speed demon, and generally got used to the 55-MPH limit, in general, those were the Dark Ages of our automotive history. The only good things to come out of that age (1970s), IMO, were standard front-disc brakes, lubed-for-life chassis components, and cleaner-running engines and fuel that no longer needed conventional tune-ups. EFI, clearcoat paint, and overdrive automatics, in general, waited till the next decade....the 1980s.

S2000toIS350

My NSX has it

Very nice convenience

Och

iTrader: (3)

Wow, people get spoiled so easily - a capless gas tank. I'm not even that old, but I remember in my Grandpas 80something Soviet ZAZ you had to lift up the hood, unscrew a cap, insert a funnel and pour gas from a 20 liter canister.

mmarshall

That wasn't limited to just cars from behind the Iron Curtain. On the famous rear-engined, air-cooled Beetle, from West Germany, before the slightly larger, redesigned Super Beetle came out in the late 1960s with a conventional filler-door,, one did essentially the same thing as you did for refueling. You lifted the hood, and the gas tank was sitting in the cargo area, with a screw-off cap. You simply took off the cap and (visually) refilled it to the top of the tank, like with a typical motorcycle. The spare tire fit in the deep well just forward of the tank. I can remember filling many of them up in my first job out of high school, working at a military PX gas station that was extremely busy......we pumped around 300,000 gallons a month.

Aron9000

Where I live, they check the seal on the gas cap as part of the emissions testing. If your cap doesn't seal correctly, you fail. I'm sure they test the capless systems as well, if it doesn't seal, you fail.

Now tell me which is cheaper/easier to replace???? $10 for a new gas cap, or having to replace that whole filler neck or assembly that bolts to the fender??? I had a kind of brain dead friend who would always forget to replace the gas cap after he filled up. Well after losing the gas cap, he bought an aftermarket one that allowed you to insert the nozzle right through the middle, you didn't have to take it off. Of course it failed emissions, being a Chinese made POS.

mmarshall

Well, that's (probably) on him. Unless it was an old vehicle where parts were no longer available for it, all he probably would have had to do is get a new, factory-spec gas cap from the dealer parts-department. It might (?) have cost a little more than an aftermarket part, but it would have fit, passed inspection (assuming nothing else was damaged), and had a factory warranty on it.

As for the idea of Chinese-made vehicles being POS, I can't speak for all of them, but the Chinese-made Buick Envision is available in the American market. I've looked at several versions of it, and test-drove one for a review. Didn't find any assembly problems at all...it seemed as solidly screwed-together as anything I've seen from Japan or Korea, though every Envision I looked at did, for some reason, have a funny chemical-smell inside that was not your usual pleasant new-car smell. That smell was noted by other reviewers as well.

Byprodrive

iTrader: (1)

New Aston Martin's have cap less gas fillers.

mmarshall

Not surprising. Ford invented the system, and it wasn't that long ago that Ford owned Aston Martin. Notice the Aston-style grilles on a number of Ford vehicles.....that's probably where the styling-influence came from. Of course, we're also seeing capless systems from companies that are not owned by Ford (my Buick, for example, has one)....so, perhaps, it's also a case of patent-rights expiring with time.

Aron9000

I meant the aftermarket gas cap was chinese garbage that failed emissions, if I wasn't clear.

I know the capless gas cap thing might be nice for keeping your hands clean, I assume that's why manufacturers have gone to it. Of course you could just clean that area when you wash your car, takes like all of 10-15 seconds to wipe it down with the car wash sponge.