Refueling Problems

[BigWalmac]

Hey guys -

So My wife's X5 has been a trooper. 2001 3.0 with almost 230,000 miles on her. Over the last year, however, I have had an increasing problem.

When we fill the X up, at almost any gas station (Costco, Shell, Exon, etc.) the fuel pump pops and stops filling as if the X is full, when in fact it is not. Sometime this happens at 3/4 full, sometimes it happens almost every gallon from the 1st gallon up. I know that I have a 22 gal tank, so on refill if I only add 10 gallons, I know I'm not there yet. It is as if the tank is not venting properly or something.

For a while I thought that filling the tank very slowly helped, but that doesn’t always work... also, sometimes the pump will keep filling and overflow down the wheel well - this will happen even if the tank isn’t full. I can’t figure it out, but refilling is getting to be a major problem.

I can’t figure out what is causing this. Any ideas? Anyone seen this? Any suggestions?

One side note... about 6 months ago I had this problem. I filled the tank slowly, I don’t think I even got it completely full, and in the following days the X smelled like gas. I took it into the mechanic and they said there was gas on top of the tank in the saddle wells. They drained it and the smell was gone. Beyond that, however, they had no suggestions for why this would happen and noted no leaks on the tank elsewhere. I haven’t had issues with the smell of the tank since.

Part of me thinks it maybe a full charcoal canister or something, but I'm not sure how that ties into refueling...

I appreciate the help!