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This dates back to early June, before I was a member, but it's a story I think belongs here.

I was traveling from Fort Collins to Breckenridge I forgot to fill up before I left town, so I stopped at Del Camino (the Longmont exit on I-25) and my station-of-choice was closed. So I drove around and parked at the first open pump I found. Got out, stuck the pump in, got back in the car to wait (the weather was truly hellacious.... heavy rain and 80 mph winds).

After a minute or so, I turn to look at the fuel pump gauge. I'm looking at it rather idly...seeing it but not really paying close attention... until, I see the dollar wheel zoom to 50 and I think "Man, gas is higher than I realized!" then it goes to 55, 56,57 and I suddenly wake up and say "Wait! my tank only holds 16-something, AND I had a quarter tank when I pulled in..... WTF?!!?!?! I jumped out of the car thinking it was a "rip-off" pump but what in fact was going on was that the auto shut-off had failed and gas was spewing all over the parking lot. Roughly 30 bucks of gas that I paid for. All. Over. The. Friggin'. Parking. Lot. Ground.

Anna

I had that happen once...well, sort of. The thing clicked off at like 8.1 gallons and I didn't believe it since it would have been an insanely high MPG. (It was.) So I tried to top it off. Looking up at the pump (I always fill to the nearest five cents) I see 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6...

Until I look down.

"Oh, ****. Mother****ing ******* bull**** piece of **** gas pump..."

For some strange and unknown reason :D, our norwegian pumps had the lock removed many years ago, so we have to stand there and squeese the pump handle...

For some strange and unknown reason :D, our norwegian pumps had the lock removed many years ago, so we have to stand there and squeese the pump handle...
Same in Ireland. I guess we couldn't be trusted to watch it properly either! Or maybe somebody turned on the pump, locked it, dropped it on the ground and legged it!!
For the craic of course. Yeah, funny ha ha.:Banane28:

ollie

we got the lock off the pumps in canada as well. some sort of law that filling up the tank has to be a supervised activity.
nevertheless, i've overfilled my tank once, but i didnt spill too much.

With pumps that have the lock gone or disabled I just stick the gas cap in to hold it up. Works like a charm! Then I can wash the windshield while gas is pumping.

Ouch....very dangerous. Many US states have outlawed the lock. Usually its also a crime to pump gas "unattended", which usually includes sitting in the car.

So what did you do after turning off the pump?
If you did it again, would you stand in nasty weather or would you still sit in the car, but keep a closer eye on the pump and nozzle?

You can pick up a static charge by getting back in the vehicle, causing a spark when you touch the nozzle. Guess you can discharge by touching metal well away from the nozzle, but I see lots of warnings against getting back in the car while it pumps.

It is sometimes amazing that end consumers are trusted with
handling large volumes of very flammable liquids like that.
And they worry about a few high-voltage batteries with very
safe interlocked connectors, such as we might see in a pack
exchange station?? Fuel is way worse for all the reasons given.
I always hold the handle and monitor what's going on closely
regardless of weather, and when you do that you can *feel* when
the nozzle is beginning to sense the onset of full before it
actually clicks off. Then of course I try to do the "bladder
shakedown" trick in the prius to make sure the air is where
it's supposed to be and to round up to some more convenient
cost amount.
.
Bottom line -- as maintenance of pump nozzles is falling victim
to the same dismal apathy that drives much of this country,
don't trust any of the supposedly automated mechanisms to do
what they're supposed to. The non-english-speaking attendants
don't care, and they and the corporate structure above them
will just finger-point and be happy to continue charging you for
the gas that landed on the ground.
.
_H*

Yikes!!! $30 worth of gas is 7 GALLONS!! Gas really spreads out ,I'm surprised you didn't smell it.

Here in La some of the auto hold open detents are scraped off(obviously intentionally by owners) , some aren't.

Wow , I'm surprised they didn't call the fire dept and make a huge deal out of it. Good thing the weather was so bad - washed it away.

Charlie

It is sometimes amazing that end consumers are trusted with
handling large volumes of very flammable liquids like that.
***

We're lucky they trust us to drive! :D

With pumps that have the lock gone or disabled I just stick the gas cap in to hold it up. Works like a charm! Then I can wash the windshield while gas is pumping.

Ditto here

Wow, that could have been tragic if there was a spark. :eek: Even though they still have locks in California, I think I'll pay more attention in the future when the tank is near the top. :)

There is a small hole near the end of the spout. If it is clogged, it will fail to shut off. In cold weather, they are bad about icing over.

I had a fuel pump/line connection failure a few months back. I was sitting at a stop light (ICE on mind you... the days before I was HM) and smelled gas, looked down to see my gauge steadily dropping, opened the door to my car, saw a puddle and did a u-turn to drive the 1/2 mile back home.

I don't recall how much gas was leaked but it always sucks wasting gas.

Most stations around here have the auto lock still but I remember stopping at one a few weeks ago that didn't... I just thought something was wrong with the pump, now I realize it was probably intentional.

Bad weather? this station wasn't covered I'm guessing?

It is sometimes amazing that end consumers are trusted with
handling large volumes of very flammable liquids like that.

They're not trusted that way in New Jersey. My mother-in-law, who lives there and who recently turned 70, still commutes to work but has never pumped gas in her entire life.

Oregon, too--they won't let you pump your own. (Instead, some high-school dropout does it, often while smoking a cigarette...) Mom always has a hard time when she comes back to Ca to visit; she doesn't like to pump her own gas and full-serve stations are pretty hard to find around here anymore.

And to think, her father taught her how to do all of the basic maintenance work on a car--oil changes, ignition timing, and all of that.

-soD

Which is rough when they need to leave NJ. We had a classmate at PS Berks when was I college that was from NJ and refused to learn how to pump gas. She'd flirt up any guy available to pump it for her.

They're not trusted that way in New Jersey. My mother-in-law, who lives there and who recently turned 70, still commutes to work but has never pumped gas in her entire life.


Yes, I laugh remembering when we moved there in 1988. I drove all over the place for a week looking for a self-serivce station. I was hoping to save some cash, but I got a lot of funny works when I asked the natives about it. We moved for a new job and didn't know anybody there, did no research about living expenses, had a phone interview and took the job never having set foot in the state. LOL those were the days. Young and naive. Now it would take 6 weeks of family meeting to even think about doing something like that.

The NJ no self pumping law is true.

As a result I get to wait in line behind 2 to 3 SUV's filling up while I wait for the highly trained attendant to get to my car and give me my 8 gallons.

Then there is another wait while waiting for the same attendent to service some more SUV's and get back to my car to remove the pump handle. (Yes, we are not allowed to even touch the handle here even when it is done.)

It used to make me angry to waste so much time for something that I grew up doing myself( I'm from NY). But now that I have taken the Hypermiling anti-anxiety course I just clean my windows and watch the other drivers get more miserable every second the pump is on.

On a side note my wife and her sisters are terrified to travel out of state because they might have to pump their own. :eek:

Roughly 30 bucks of gas that I paid for. All. Over. The. Friggin'. Parking. Lot. Ground.Guilty here too. I call that a gas bath, and I bathed my car in 3 gallons on it's 10th tank. Kinda mistake that only happens once. Been driving for 15 years and that was the first time the shut-off failed. I'll never likely to trust it again.

What I would suggest is to do what I did. I raised cane with the station owner and got a refund. I then penned a letter to the "Customer Service" department of the brand, as well as the local Fire Marshal and state agency in control of pump inspection. I was mad, but also wanted to make sure this stuff didn't get swept under the rug. If the state offers pumps with auto-shut-off, they darn well better work. I would have been a lot angrier if the pump spat gas while I was standing there, and I couldn't imagine how bad it could have been if I was actually looking at the pump while is sprayed gas around. Gasoline is none to kind on corneas.

11011011

Hmm, wish I'd thought of that...

One day, I used a pump that someone had left "locked on". Pulled the nozzle off of its hanger, moved it over toward my car to put it in the filler, flipped the switch on the body of the pump to "on", and gas spurted out. All over the roof of my car.

No, I wasn't happy.

I now check, or I don't select the fuel grade/push the "start" button until the nozzle is in the tank!

-soD

I never take my hand off the nozzle. No matter how cold or wet it is outside I never take my hand off the nozzle. I've been a witness to one lady who locked the nozzle so she could step away and smoke her cigarette while talking away on her cell phone. She was so busy talking that she didn't even hear the gas spilling onto the ground. Thankfully someone nearby saw it and stopped it before she could run to it with her lit cigarette in hand. She never once put out the cigarette.

But now that I have taken the Hypermiling anti-anxiety course I just clean my windows and watch the other drivers get more miserable every second the pump is on.

That would drive me nuts, too. But at least you don't have to visit the gas station quite as often, now that you are getting 55+ MPG lately, thanks to hypermiling. :D

The NJ no self pumping law is true.

As a result I get to wait in line behind 2 to 3 SUV's filling up while I wait for the highly trained attendant to get to my car and give me my 8 gallons.

Then there is another wait while waiting for the same attendent to service some more SUV's and get back to my car to remove the pump handle. (Yes, we are not allowed to even touch the handle here even when it is done.)

It used to make me angry to waste so much time for something that I grew up doing myself( I'm from NY). But now that I have taken the Hypermiling anti-anxiety course I just clean my windows and watch the other drivers get more miserable every second the pump is on.

On a side note my wife and her sisters are terrified to travel out of state because they might have to pump their own. :eek:

I guess I won't be filling up in NJ anytime soon. Frankly, I don't trust anyone filling up my gas except for myself. (Unless they're willing to pay for it, in which case fill it up. :))

At least you get to watch Fsp owners cringe a bit as those numbers rise and the money flies away.

I wonder if anyone's taken someone's blood pressure before and after a fill up at the gas station and noticed a difference?

Hmm, wish I'd thought of that...

One day, I used a pump that someone had left "locked on". Pulled the nozzle off of its hanger, moved it over toward my car to put it in the filler, flipped the switch on the body of the pump to "on", and gas spurted out. All over the roof of my car.

No, I wasn't happy.

I now check, or I don't select the fuel grade/push the "start" button until the nozzle is in the tank!

-soD

I once had a pumped locked in the on position, I was fortunate enough to realize it before turning the pump on or anything. So now I always check by grabbing the pump and checking with my fingers to see if the lever isn't locked on before pushing any buttons on the pump. As I remember I've never pushed the start buttons until the nozzle was in the tank anyways.



Edit: Just realized this is my 100th post. This by far surpasses the total of all my posts on any other forum I have ever posted on.

.....

Wow , I'm surprised they didn't call the fire dept and make a huge deal out of it. Good thing the weather was so bad - washed it away.

Charlie

IIRC In most places 25 gallons is the threshhold for a reportable incident unless water resources are impacted. I responded to an ~18 gallon spill last week (we didn't charge since it was the station across the street from work.) A number of gasoline compounds are toxic and absorb through your skin, so you want to wash it off as soon as you spill it on yourself. Gasoline is probably the most dangerous material commonly handled by untrained people in the US.

Gasoline is probably the most dangerous material commonly handled by untrained people in the US.

Amen to that. Especially since most people don't understand the fumes are deadlier than the liquid itself.

I've seen people smoke at gas stations before (idiots). The absolute scariest fillup I ever had was at a no-name "chain" station. No vapor barrier or recovery device on the handle. Slightly shady day and as I'm pumping I can see the shadow of a 5' tall vapor plume churning off the tank area.

:eek:OH, @#!%:eek:

Stopped pumping, alerted the attendant (um, duh, what dude?), called customer service (no response at 4PM on a weekday), and finished the fillup at another station 5 miles down the road.

... So I drove around and parked at the first open pump I found. Got out, stuck the pump in, got back in the car to wait (the weather was truly hellacious.... heavy rain and 80 mph winds).
... the auto shut-off had failed and gas was spewing all over the parking lot....

$30 bucks is a cheap price consider you could've started a costly fire.

My hand is always on the pump handle when I am pumping gas. I hate it when I see people use the gas lid to force the nozzle to stay open and then go back inside the car or wash the windows. Not only this action is dangerous, it shows how careless the driver of the car can be when it comes to safety.