Thread: How to check gas pumps so you don't get cheated

A friend emailed me this not sure if it is true or not but with gas so high it don't hurt to check.

This is a true story, so read it carefully. On April 24, 2008, I stopped at a
BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville, GA. My truck's
gas gauge was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was priced at
$3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around
14 gallon's to fill it up. When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped
I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck
has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on
the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had
calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person
actually got.

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:

Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then
look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times
the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my
case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount
for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only check the pump. It
doesn't matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If
you do find a station that is cheating, contact the Georgia Agriculture
Department, and direct your comments to Tommy Irvin, Commissioner. In
other states contact proper authorities.

Please don't delete this until you have sent it to all people in your
address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of
customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/cheating.asp

Could go either way..........

from the snopes article
Vendors of gasoline are subject to a variety of state and federal laws requiring them to maintain adequately calibrated dispensing equipment and calling for periodic inspections by government regulatory agencies to ensure that they are in compliance with said laws. However, this does not guarantee that every gas pump you might encounter will necessarily be accurate, for a variety of reasons: Some agencies may not have the funds to regularly carry out required inspections at every location, regulators' equipment might itself be inaccurate, understaffed agencies may not be able to adequately enforce compliance with regulations, etc.

it's called the department of weights and measures, STATE govt, and their equipment is accurate AND certified to be so

I swear they get me sometimes I think they get ya good at the older pumps thats one reason I like digital. I have already been that person that pumped more than my tank held........I have also seen it on dateline yrs ago too

Gas pumps are only supposed to run between certain "speeds" as well (not too fast or too slow) otherwise they can function incorrectly. I have had to take a stopwatch with me and time how long it takes to pump X amount of gallons into my car at certain gas stations for mystery shops before.

Thanks ! I appreciate this info. Ya know, I never thought much about the pumps being properly set... but, with the price of gas now... it's worth checking !

In fact, for the first time in my life... in the mountains last week... we had ¼ tank of gas, and, were at a place that had gas, so, we thought we had better dump $20 in the truck before we headed back to the chalet. Well, we put in the $20, and, the tank only went to ½ tank, that's it.

After we left, we both started talking about it... that it should have moved the needle more than that. We didn't go back or anything, but, we know we should have got more... 'cause in another town, on the way home, we got down to ¼ tank again, and put in a $20, and had between ½ and ¾, well, almost between the two... it certainly moved more than it did from the other station.

Most gas tanks are smaller on the bottom half then on the top half so it will take less gas from empty to half then it does from half to full.