When I managed to refuel, I’d driven a total of 271 miles, 260 with the van in tow. I put in 9.4 galls (43 litres) and again, the fuel gauge read correctly (one big division below half full)

3 minutes ago, Albourneboy said:

When I managed to refuel, I’d driven a total of 271 miles, 260 with the van in tow. I put in 9.4 galls (43 litres) and again, the fuel gauge read correctly (one big division below half full)

That fuel gauge reading before refilling doesn't sound right to me - what is the capacity spec. for the 190?

Should be about 65litres so filling with 43 should have taken it to two thirds full...   So that gauge is reading wrong 

It was a third full before I filled it so why would 43 litres only take it to 2 thirds. Think you’ve got your maths wrong there

2 hours ago, Albourneboy said:

It was a third full before I filled it so why would 43 litres only take it to 2 thirds. Think you’ve got your maths wrong there

 

Ok im confused now.  If it was a third full and you then put 43 litres in it should nowbe full...   You said your gauge was showing one big division below half full after filling.  If so its way out.

I’ve just re-read my post and realised that I didn’t explain very well. The gauge read one big division below half full BEFORE I filled up with fuel. It read full afterwards. Sorry for the confusion. I used to be a technical author so should know better 🥴

It might just be a dud pump at the petrol station where you encountered the problem. 

Possible but I did try a 2nd pump albeit at the same station with the same result. Also, the guy i persuaded to look at it in a nearby garage said the pipe between the filling point and the tank was full of fuel. 

Well, here we are nearly a year on and it’s gone and done it to me again 🤬. Filled up at a Super U near Coulon in France on Tuesday. Drove up to St Malo yesterday with caravan in tow and have just been to fill up today but can’t. The fuel gauge shows just under half a tank so expected to get about 40 litres in but the diesel nozzle clicked off almost straight away. Tried to pump it in slowly but the fuel just came out of the filler neck so looks as though the pipe between the tank and filling point is full of fuel again. What on earth is stopping it going into the tank?

On my old Passat there was a funky button you could press to vent the tank to get a little more in.

 

Not sure if it’s accessible on a Superb but I wonder if your vent is kaput which is stopping you filling up

No, nothing like that. Seems very odd that this has only happened to me. Must be 10s of thousands Superbs out there (though I realise that far fewer owners subscribe to this site) so you’d think at least one other owner had had a similar experience 

When this latest failure to fill happened, did you try rocking the vehicle to see if that cleared the filler tube?

I didn’t at the time. I have since but will not be attempting to refuel until we get to Winchester tomorrow evening. Mind you, I’d driven about 200 miles through France and the first and last. 10 miles or so we bounced over dozens of the speed bumps the French have fallen in love with so you’d think it had had more than enough rocking about to clear the filler tube

I've had this occasionally happening to some of my other cars, not yet to the Superb.

Never understood why it does it.

But, since by definition I seldom refill an empty tank (leftovers of my motorcycle years), I just close the cap, move away and refill elsewhere. Usually, after a day or two it works and I refill without problems. I have no idea what makes it.

Got to Winchester camp site late last night due to m275 closure so didn’t attempt to refuel until this morning and to our great relief, I filled the tank without any problems. I’m booking the car into a garage when I get home to see if they can find the mysterious clunk my car has developed from somewhere at the back. Can’t make it do it bouncing it or rocking it but as soon as I go over a pothole or speed bump ‘clunk’. I’ll ask them if they can shed some light on the mystery refuelling problem 

I'm sure there is something down there to stop people siphoning fuel out so perhaps that is faulty or there is a forgeign object obstructing fuel. If you take the rear arch liner out you can see most of the tube.

Thete is an anti-syphon system I believe as well as a vent. Can’t find any details though that would  give me a chance to work out what might be happening 

Has this only happened when you have the caravan hooked up ? 

Strange I know but a friend of mine had a similarly sporadic thing happen to his car and it only happened when the caravan was on.

I have absolutely no idea tho  but it's definitely an issue that needs sorting out, if it was under warranty they would most likely replace the tank and tube .

3 hours ago, Albourneboy said:

Got to Winchester camp site late last night due to m275 closure so didn’t attempt to refuel until this morning and to our great relief, I filled the tank without any problems. I’m booking the car into a garage when I get home to see if they can find the mysterious clunk my car has developed from somewhere at the back. Can’t make it do it bouncing it or rocking it but as soon as I go over a pothole or speed bump ‘clunk’. I’ll ask them if they can shed some light on the mystery refuelling problem 

Does the rear of the vehicle appear to squat excessively when the van is hooked up? The 'clunk' could possibly be from the rear bump stops.  

8 hours ago, MP74 said:

Has this only happened when you have the caravan hooked up ? 

Strange I know but a friend of mine had a similarly sporadic thing happen to his car and it only happened when the caravan was on.

I have absolutely no idea tho  but it's definitely an issue that needs sorting out, if it was under warranty they would most likely replace the tank and tube .

No, the caravan hasn’t been attached on any of the occasions when this has happened 

8 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

Does the rear of the vehicle appear to squat excessively when the van is hooked up? The 'clunk' could possibly be from the rear bump stops.  

No, it started doing it at the beginning of June, just after I had had the gearbox oil and Haldex unit (it’s a 4x4) oil changed. It does it regardless of whether the caravan is attached or not. I can’t get it to ‘clank’ by rocking the car or by bouncing it manually and it doesn’t do it over every speed bump or pothole

Car went into garage this morning and they’ve just called me saying they easily found the source of the clunk - the driver’s side rear coil spring has broken 😳. So I’ve driven over 1500 miles, at least 1000 of those towing our caravan, with a broken coil spring and not noticed any problems apart from the odd clunk 🤷

35 minutes ago, Albourneboy said:

Car went into garage this morning and they’ve just called me saying they easily found the source of the clunk - the driver’s side rear coil spring has broken 😳. So I’ve driven over 1500 miles, at least 1000 of those towing our caravan, with a broken coil spring and not noticed any problems apart from the odd clunk 🤷

It may seem rather improbable, but it will be interesting if your fuelling issue goes away after the rear spring replacement.

Can’t see a broken spring having any bearing on the refuelling problem, especially as the first time I experienced that issue was in Wales last year and the spring certainly wasn’t broken then. 

7 minutes ago, Albourneboy said:

Can’t see a broken spring having any bearing on the refuelling problem, especially as the first time I experienced that issue was in Wales last year and the spring certainly wasn’t broken then. 

I was wondering about the possibility of the fuel filler angle being slightly lower than normal with the rear spring broken on the same side.