Conspiracy and cynicism

[stag36587]

I wonder how many of you struggle, like I do, to fill your petrol tank to just the right amount. No matter how hard I try, I get £20.01 rather than £20 and £30.01 rather than £30. Not in every garage I use, but in some. I've also made a point of using different pumps but to no avail - the results are always the same! Is this as a conspiracy to increase fuel tax revenues or a cynical ploy by the oil companies to maintain profit margins!? Of course, having said that I realise there is an obvious omission - I fill by £ rather than litre or gallon. I am away to do some new comparisons....

[chrisryder]

i just keep going til my feet get wet

[Alex'n'Ane]

I always fill with £20.01, and the person inside the petrol garage normally lets you off and just takes the £20, its free petrol

[cadetchris]

having worked in a petrol station for many years, the amount of people i have stood and watched try and get the amount bang on a round number, £10, £20 etc and then get annoyed when they click it over by a penny runs into the hundreds.
the simple fact is that when you have the nozzle in your hand, it measures the fuel that is coming out, this includes the actual contents of the nozzle that have passed the measuring device within it, so as your approaching the magic round number, and you get to £19.99, yes you have put that amount in the car, but there is still the 1p worth in the nozzle, which owing to the measuring device being after the valve, will fall out regardless if you want it to or not.
If that makes sense.

an example of this is: we once had a problem with the pumps and they wouldnt reset in the morning when they where first turned on, unless a sale of a few pence had been put through the till (dont ask me why, the man from Tokheim fixed it), in order to fix this, you had to twitch the switch a few times to essentially fill the nozzle beyond measuring device and thus allow the pump to behave. doing this didnt make the fuel come out the end, it just filled the pipe, so the first customer of the day got 5p free fuel.

anyway, the long and short of it is essentially that these things happen, if you dont want to look for the extra 1p, aim for £--.99p instead of the round number.
The majority of the petrol pumps in this country areover 10 years old, they cost a lot to repair and a huge amount to replace (£45,000 per double sided pump, with 3 nozzles on each side. I know this as we had to replace our 2 pumps and the cost wiped out our entire previous years profit and we decided to close down instead).

on the lighter side, it does keep us bored cashiers occupied seeing people get very irate. lol.

hope that makes all sense, its not a conspiracy, but merely human error

[dp]

Did you never see 'Not the Nine O'Clock News'? The cashier has a special button that they press to add the last 1/2p

(It was some time ago)

[simmitc]

It used to be easier when petrol was cheaper! It took far more petrol to click up 1 penny, whereas these days about a teaspoon will cost 10 pence at least

[WPR678B]

In the days when i payed cash for petrol then i used to try and round it off, but these days as its all cards then i make sure that i do get an ODD amount as it stands out on the statements.
With the amount of petrol stations that get used to clone card details so high, they will normally take round amounts so as not to be noticed which is why i always end at whatever the pump says when it cuts out!

[bmcecosse]

I just aim for ending in 99p and make the garage give me the 1p change....
What is extra annoying is when I have stopped - and checked the amount - and then as I put the nozzle back in the pump holster it clicks on another penny or two. Now that IS the operator pushing a button I'm sure........

[ferret76]

Don't the pumps there have a button to push to select how much you want to put in? Here if I want to put exactly $20 in I press the $20 button, or if I'm filling it up I just stick the nozzle in and start pumping.

[bmcecosse]

Ahh - but do you pay anything like equivalent of £1:40 per litre?? And sadly no, I haven't come across a pump that dispenses a fixed amount of fuel - but it's a good idea!

[cadetchris]

the operator can set the amount you want to put in, either litres or money. I wouldnt try it at a large petrol station, as they will just give you an odd look (some operators are just sheer monkeys who are strategically shaved), i would try your small local station, where you know the people behind the till.

as for the pump flicking over when you pop the pump back on, thats because you give the switch a little twitch, that fills the nozzle and thus pops the amount over by 1p. as for as the pump is concerned, you have filled it up with say £20 instead of £19.99 and regrettably owing to the computer set up, we cannot deduct that 1p.
blame the oil companies and please please dont focus your anger at the poor person behind the counter, we dont set the price, we just get told to sell it for a set price by some pencil necked desk jockey down in london who has no real idea that anything outside the M25 exists.

n.b, i did change the price quite regularly and i did take out a broom to beat off the adoring crowds away with when we reached £1.419 per litre of diesel (consiquently after a BBC report on east midlands today, our sales tanked and we closed 4 weeks later with the loss of 10 jobs owing to some busy body who didnt even live in my village)

[bmcecosse]

To continue the cynical theme - I see that road fuel sales have dropped by 15% due to the cost - I thought this was the overall idea - to cut fuel consumption/emissions/save the world etc etc ad nauseum.... But hang on - the 'Government' are losing important TAX income because of these reduced sales, and so they have come up with the wizard wheeze of increasing the M/way speed limit to 80 mph. This will increase fuel consumption by ~ 15% and thus TAX revenue will be restored!! The Good News is - this increased speed will 'Save Britain' as important Salesreps spend less time on the road - and more time encouraging us to buy their rubbish in the shops........

[chrisryder]

and you don't think they're all doing 80 anyway...?

i imagine the idea of setting a pump to dispense a set amount only works if you know how much you need. you could set it to 20 litres, but only have room for 15...

[bmcecosse]

At present - many run 70 to 80 mph in the knowledge they are unlikely to be booked. When the limit raises to 80, they (mostly running on 'Company' fuel - not from their own pockets) will run 80 to 90........using all that extra fuel and generating more TAX for the 'Government' - simples !!

[chrisryder]

supposedly it'll be more heavily enforced.

so they make it sound like a nice comprimise, that you can all go faster, but not much faster.

but actually it's a case of 'you can all go as fast as you were before anyway, and we'll book you for going a bit over'.

doesn't bother me. 70 is plenty!

[bmcecosse]

I've realised my 'modern' TDCi does 60 mpg at 60 mph.........so pretty much that's my speed now!

[badobsession]

do not know why we do not do the same as in the USA and pay for the fuel first then they set the amount and that is what you get
and it will stop all the drive offs as well .....just my 2p worth..

[linearaudio]

Comes back to the question- what if you have prepaid for £20 worth of fuel, and only have room in the tank for £15 worth?

[cadetchris]

simples, you pop the handle back on the pump and wonder back into the shop and your refunded the amount you havent paid for.

[Sam_1688]

My local tesco has a set amount button, select the amount you want, then paying by card or at cashier then start filling but I don't know if its just me but tesco petrol seams to last less than other fuels,
Maybe just me