How do you know for sure...

[Titan]

I went on a trip saturday, and my gas gauge doesn't work, so I always pay attention to my miles and I usually get 20 or so MPG. This means I top off my tank every time I gas up. On most of these trips upstate, my car historically has used about 10 gallons every 200 miles, that's my usualy gas-up range.

Anyway, this saturday, I did something I never did before, I stopped in downtown Albany looking for comic shops. I ended up stopping 3 times, and I had to stop at maybe 5 lights in stop-and go traffic. Other than that, I hardly did anything excessive in fuel comsumption.

So as I'm heading down the Taconic, I stop and gas up at Getty, with only like 180 miles since I gassed up, but I didn't know when the next station would be so I played it safe. When I topped off the tank, it read 14.5 gallons! It did stop pumping twice prematurely, I continued until it was full. I didn't know my tank could hold 15 gallons, I need to find the spec sheet on a '91 volvo 240DL. Paying 30 bucks for a fill-up was a new experience for me.

So this got me thinking, how do I know for sure it pumped 15 gallons? It's just a meter in the pump right? I'm wondering if theres a chance that some pumps cheat someplace, not to say that this place did. But I barely did any excessive driving to burn that much gas, and experience contradicts the gas pump, so I dunno what to think.

 

[rh71]

I'd imagine some cars with electronic guages could tell so what are the chances the stations cheat you ? What you do have to watch out for at the pump is when you have the attendant do it... you tell them you want $20 regular... and he hits the 89 octane and gives you less gallons for the $20 (because it cost more per gallon).

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

your gas tank is 15.8 gallons.

 

[allisolm]

Pumps are inspected (in Fl every 18 mo) but according to this article, 1 in 50 pumps in Florida delivers less gas than you paid for. Sometimes the amounts are negligible, but some delivered as much as 1 gallon out of 5 less.

I think your Volvo holds about 16 gal gasoline. edit: (or 15.8 🙂 )

 

[kranky]

Any chance that the station you went to wasn't perfectly level? There's a station by us that has a slight slope and if I fill up there from near-empty I end up with almost an extra gallon in the tank because of the way the car is situated.