Toyota driver runs out of gas on the freeway, then presses a hidden button that solves everything instantly

A Toyota driver recently shared that running out of gas on the highway doesn’t stress him out at all. In a Facebook Reel, Chad Mfive showed off a special feature in his Land Cruiser that takes away any worry about an empty tank. The video has gotten over 7.4 million views so far.

In the clip, Chad is driving down the freeway when his gas gauge shows he’s almost out of fuel. But he’s not panicking about it at all. He reaches under the steering wheel and presses a hidden button, and just like that, the problem is solved. The button switches the car to a second fuel tank. 

When his main tank ran empty, he simply turned on the second one, and the gauge showed a full tank again. Chad told Motor1 that his truck has two fuel tanks built in from the factory. When the main tank was completely empty, he just switched to the second one to keep driving. While he did run out of gas, he had a backup ready to go.

The dual-tank system used to be everywhere

Many people in the comments section remembered this old-school feature fondly. One person wrote that Toyota doesn’t make trucks like this anymore. Other mentioned that other trucks had this feature too. 

“Remember the Ford F-250 😂 we tried doing the same only for the reserve tank to have a hole in it,” one person recalled. “Switching to your secondary is always faster than refueling,” another commented.  Toyota owners often face surprising costs at the pump, making features like dual tanks even more valuable.

Some viewers made jokes about the feature. One commenter said they know people who would still run out of gas even with two tanks. Another pointed out that switching tanks is faster than stopping to refuel.

Dual gas tanks were common in Ford and Chevy trucks from the 1970s to 1990s. Trucks had them for several reasons, including giving drivers extra fuel for long trips, helping balance the vehicle’s weight, and saving space. The extra tank was especially useful for towing heavy loads, which burns through gas quickly.

However, the dual-tank setup caused some problems. Drivers had to fill each tank separately at gas stations. Sometimes the valve system that switched between tanks would break, making one tank unusable or causing one to overfill into the other. Speaking of Toyota issues, some drivers make costly mistakes with their vehicles without realizing it for years.

 The biggest safety issue was Chevy’s side-saddle design, which put tanks outside the truck’s frame where they could easily get hit in a crash. Over 2,000 people died in fires from crashes involving these Chevy trucks between 1973 and 2009. As cars became more fuel-efficient in the 1990s, manufacturers stopped using dual tanks.