Do any of you have the feeling that some stations may be cheating you on the correctness of the gas pump?
Also, the quality of the gas?

They can change the price in a second electronically and I am sure there must be a trick to change the flow rate given the crookedness that abounds these days. I know in SC the state checks them unannounced, but the dealers know how to avoid this easily.
I wonder which stations would be least likely to do this, probably a large company owned one would be less likely.

I would have to say in prior days that maybe some small station might try something if they could figure out how but with the public being as smart as they are now and on the alert if you will to people or businesses trying to pull the wool over their heads I really don't honestly think that anyone in their right mind would try to short change the gallon delivered at the pump.

The feds would be all over them and I would think since taxes are involved in every gallon delivered to the public that prison time would be in order and I don't think the normal business owner would take a chance on that.

However; anything is possibe.

Terry

this gets debated periodically in about every forum here...

There is no 'magic switch' that suddenly slows the pump yet keeps the display ticking along. Think about the level of control that would have to be maintained over every single employee- given the caliber of attendant at many of your neighborhood stations, do you think that would be able to be kept a secret if it existed?

Bottom line is generally that you can't control it, so don't sweat it. They can't be systematically off be THAT much all the time. Chances are they overpump as frequently as underpump...on balance, you end up getting pretty close to what you pay for. Fill up a jerrycan and see for yourself.

I know the pumps say pretty darn close to what my 2 and 5 gal cans claim they hold.

I posted something about this a few months ago when I filled up pmy HCH with WAY TOO MUCH gas. The gauge had to be off. It was a Wal Mart gas station with no calibration sticker stating when the last test was performed and by whom. I asked the attendant and she said the guy was just there a few days before.

Twice I've squeezed over 15 gallons (according to the gauges) into my HCH. The thing is, I ALWAYS stop at the first click. I think both times something was fishy.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."

Strange

But I would have to say again that especially a business like Walmart is not going to mess around with the gas pumps.

Terry

Most states I've visited inspect pumps via a weights and measures department that keeps gas pumps, grocery store scales, shipping store scales, etc. in check. With the digital units, I'd imagine the calibration and adjustment is a bit tougher than the old scrolling number units most of us grew up with.

What I'd be more worried about is whether or not there's really mid-grade or premium in the tank. There's also a pattern of some small stations displaying a brand of gas (like Sonoco, bp, or exxon), then buying the basic gas from the distributor. It's not that the gas is bad, it's just that there's a different blend and amount of additives to the gas.

I forgot to say that I saw several years ago where the pump was programmed to skip digits every so often. The weights and measure folks dont do a full gas tank. They usually have a container that holds just so many gallons, so in this computer age, whats to stop them from making it happen after 5 gallons and up? Heck there are people out there that kill a friend over a dollar.

I used to do periodic checks of gas sold by one major gas brand. They would send me a sampling kit and I'd go and pump a specified amount of gas into a gas can, take a sample from that and place into small glass vials (labled) and ship the vials off to a lab for analysis. I sampled both the regular and the premium at the same station at the same time. I suspect that this was precisely to monitor for situations like the above.

I remember reading an article about some station where it would gradually skew off the correct amount as you approach 2.5 gallons, then skew towards being correct at 5 gallons, then the same thing at 7.5 and 10 gallons. It would have worked fine except that the state weights and measures had recently started using non-standard sized containers and easily found the error. It ended up costing the station owner something on the order of like 200 times as much as he ever collected from crooked gas sales. The average station owner makes all their money from the store, not the pumps anyway, so there's no motivation to scam and potentially get fined or shut down.

At first I thought they were being dishonest, then I wrote it off a just a freak occurance. That being said I get gas from that Wal-Mart station maybe every other fill up and never had any problems.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."