New mbr and to pass some EVAP CEL information

Where I dont personally own a Tundra, my 80 year old dad does. I joined to read up on issues he may or has had with his truck.

Recently he had a check engine light come on just before a scheduled oil change at 27k. He went to the Toyota dealer and check engine light code (I need to look at service record) to find code, but came back as the EVAP canister.

Dealer quoted $1700. to diagnose and replace, he did what I asked him to do and called me from the service writers desk. I talked to the service writer as I googled the issue and code. All the reading I did was primarily overfilling the gas tank by rounding up to a whole dollar, and in fact the service writer was saying the same thing. Dad said he was guilty, but couldnt afford to repair the canister at that moment. I considered charging to my credit card, but he didnt want to put the burden on me. Getting back to topping off, at todays prices, how much gas at 4$ a gallon can you squeeze in to round off ? Not much.

It occured to me while he drove home, #1 they were charging him for the larger evap canister for a 36 gallon tank when he has the 20 gallon tank (verified two different part numbers for 20+ and the 36 gal tank) and both are very differently priced, verified part numbers with rock auto and the cost.

Dad lives on a very dusty dirt road. When he got home I asked him to look at his gas cap, and wouldnt you know, the O-ring was jammed full of dirt on half of the o-ring.

I had him clean the o-ring and filler neck with WD-40 and wipe clean. First fill up next day, he pulled away from the gas station and the check engine light went out on its own within a mile, and that was 2000 miles ago.

Ive seen a few posts with pictures on the evap canister, and most of them are pretty dirty. Im willing to bet, theres quite a few dirty gas cap o-rings out there and wanted to post our experience and hopefully save someone a ton of cash or credit in these economically hard times.

Also verify parts and part numbers. Most dealer mechanics work on commission, they need to eat too but in this case my retired dad could have paid, but it would have seriously taken an unexpected bite out of his budget, and who knows what he would have skipped to pay this bill.

 

Welcome, Dan! Good on ya for taking care of your Dad and saving him the $$$.