Filling up

Took my Rialto Piglet for a drive yesterday and stopped to get some petrol.

Every single time I fill up, fuel starts to spill under the filler opening down the body work without the pump shutting off.

Is there a knack to filling these cars? Or does anyone else have this problem? I'm sick of washing it off and wiping with the paper towels!

Are we talking dribbles or serious fire hazard?

It's only a moderate dribble when the tank becomes full. It's just I'd expect the petrol station pump to shut off by itself before that point (like they have on all my other vehicles) and it doesn't. So I have no way of knowing when to stop, unless I learn how many litres to put in for a given gauge position.

Obviously the fuel must be filling up the filler neck to a point where it somehow leaks (could it be a breather hole?) without covering the pump nozzle enough to shut it off.

I generally squeeze the petrol pump lever quite hard because I expect it to shut off more reliably then, but maybe I'm doing it wrong for a Reliant!

I just listen to what's going on within the filler neck and gently squeeze the fuel pump's trigger - I've got used to that some time ago.

I don't remember ever having that problem.

Modern petrol froths much more than that of old. It tends to bubble back and spill out of the filler when the tank is nearly full. Modern cars have narrower filler necks and devices to restrict this.

The filler neck fits into a synthetic rubber pipe which connects to the tank. If the rubber has split or the jubilee clip(s) is loose or missing you will have fuel leaking until the level falls below the leak. I had this on an accident damaged Cit**en AX where the plastic connector had a split in it.

The filler tube where it passes through the body is steel and can rust through due to wet road dirt lodging between it and the bodywork. If detected this can be an MOT fail.

My experience is that modern autostop pumps are too sensitive making making filling at full flow difficult and topping up my Robin (and my partners 2cv) difficult due to the bubbleback. I have never had a problem with a pump failing to stop.

I have also learned to keep my feet well away from the splash zone!

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Emma I think you might be right that it's foaming up. I'll just try filling the last bit much slower next time and see if that helps. I expect there must be some kind of leak near the top though as I'm pretty sure it's not actually running out of the open neck. I'll give it a closer look.