There’s 4 main ways a gas pump can screw you over:
1. Meter Jump
You go to put gas in but before you pull the nozzle switch, there’s already a dollar amount on the meter. This usually happens because some part inside is worn out. When you hit the activation switch it’s supposed to recharge itself with a bit of gas, but when meter jump occurs, the meter is charging you for the gas that’s charging the system.
2. Meter Creep
The nozzle clicks off because it thinks the tank is full, but the machine keeps adding pennies even though no gas is flowing.
3. Short Volume
Can happen for a number of reasons, but essentially the pump is not pumping as much gas it says it is.
4. Big Sign, Little Price, But Little Sign, Bigger Price This is when the big sign facing the road shows a lower price than is on your pump or on your receipt. With gas prices fluctuating the way they do these days, this usually happens because the gas station didn’t get a chance to change the sign yet.
The reality is that consumers are not getting shafted at the pump that much, and of them, the first three we mentioned are the most common.
- Stats from the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures:
66,000 fuel devices statewide
22,000 device inspections per year
9% of inspections find actionable problems
1-2% of the inspections find pumps shorting the customers
“Meters and gas pumps wear out and parts need to be replaced, a gas pump is a pretty complicated piece of equipment,” said Steve Meissner, Communications Director of the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures.
However, If you notice any discrepancy, you should bring it up with the store. If they don’t fix the problem or you don’t like their answer, contact your local weights and measures department. They will take complaints by phone, email or letter. They investigate every complaint and if you request it, they will let you know the exact results of their inspection.
How do you know if there’s a discrepancy? One commenter Verdigris use this technique: “…fill your tank by stopping at the 10 gallon mark. If the price is ten times the amount of 1 gallon, you know you aren’t getting screwed. I tend to keep my eye on the price when it gets around 10 gallons every time I fill up.”
RELATED: Keeping the pumps on time [Contra Costa Times]
(Photo: whatatravisty)
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I have only noticed one pump that jumped up a couple of cents before I even stuck the nozzle in my car. It pissed me off a bit because I wondered if this happened most times & maybe i never noticed before. At this same station I noticed someone scratched into the pump face the words “gas rape” (the reason I got my avatar). When a new station with new pumps opened up down the street & had the exact same price of gas … I switched to them.
i was thinking about this the other day (while i waited for the yankee gas guy to come change their meter). why don’t states require a certain percentage of pumps to be changed (not just tested) every year? considering 9% of pumps in this study were incorrect in some way, shouldn’t w&m be doing more to ensure standards are followed?
now i know that may be expensive, but here in ct they collect a “gross receipts tax” of 6% from gas station owners on ALL SALES (gas, soda, cigarettes, whatever & yes, that’s on top of all other taxes, so tax is taxed too). i think the state could set aside a portion of that windfall to pay for the change of 1-2% of pumps/year.
This will get your blood pressure up:
Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. That barely beat the previous corporate record of $11.66 billion, also set by Exxon in the fourth quarter of 2007.
Excluding money set aside for a recent damage award related to the Valdez tanker spill back in 1989, Exxon made $11.97 billion in the quarter.
So they managed to postpone almost 20 years paying damages for that fiasco, and then it was a pittance. And screwing the consumer all along the way.
Wow, people really do not understand this industry AT ALL.
My family has owned a gas station for 4 generations now, with my Dad and uncle owning their station for almost 30 years.
You do not lose money when the pump slows down. It slows down so you don’t get more gas than you paid for, keeping the overall price you pay at the pump DOWN. If everyone got a little more than they were supposed to, prices would go up because they’d have to compensate for that.
Secondly, articles like this, while, yeah, it’s good to know this could happen, the odds of this happening are extremely low and this really just creates a stream of FUD that makes consumers more wary than they already are and should be of station owners. Gas stations are pretty greatly scrutinized by lots of different people: their landlords, distributors, jobbers, who they franchised from if applicable, the city, the state, the department of agriculture — you piss off any one of those people and there’s more than a slap on the wrist: it can cost you money. And in a time where the profit margin is about 10-15 cents per gallon for station owners, you can’t afford to lose more money.
And why change the pumps every so often other than calibrate them? Do you get a new car every year, or when you fuel pump or door lock breaks, you get it replaced? Each dispenser (that’s what everyone calls a pump. The pumps are actually underground) is about $5-10 thousand, maybe more if you have multiple hoses, TV screen, etc. The cost of requiring this would never be the government’s responsibility and would ultimately be borne to the station owner, which would — wait for it — INCREASE GAS PRICES.
Yeah, gas prices suck right now, but trust me, it could be WAY worse and station owners are hurting as much as everyone else. Yes, my own mother has to pay for gas when she gets it from my dad’s station. There are no free rides in this industry. Profit margins are down and now that nearly everyone pays at the pump, few come inside to buy impulse items like candy and drinks (the high margin items) which cuts into profits further. The mechanic shop at my dad’s station is keeping them afloat. If they had to rely on gas alone, he’d have no house.
@mac-phisto:
Why change out a perfectly operational pump? We still have lots of cars from the 80s and 90s going. A gasoline pump is a piece of industrial equipment. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that properly maintained older pumps fail as rarely as new pumps.
As noted, only 1-2% were shorting the customers. The rest would probably be signage/sealing/maintenance issues as another poster mentioned.
As for using sales tax to replace pumps – I’d say no again, that’s for the city’s purposes, not to pay the gas station to replace it’s pumps artificially quickly.
I’ve caught a penny-creeper pump, and reported it to the attendant. Another customer said I should call the local news station’s consumer watch line, but it didn’t seem significant enough for their attention. Frankly, the 5 or so cents I got ripped off didn’t seem like much compared to what I was paying for gas (and it was about 2/3 then what it is now).
The only time a penny creeper is a problem is if you don’t hang up the pump shortly after it stops. Since I stand by the pump and don’t top off, this isn’t usually a problem for me.
Having worked at a petrol station I have a few things I would like to point out. The hose is ALWAYS full of fuel before you start pumping. The only time it has no fuel in is when it is being fitted, and when this happens the engineer will hold the lever open until fuel flows out the nozzle. Shaking the hose to “get all the rest of it out the hose”as some customer claim happens does not work.
The nozzle will only dispense fuel when the line is under pressure, the trigger is pulled, and the overfill vacuum valve has not been triggered. The reason people think this happens is because if you hold the nozzle upright and pull the trigger slowly until the nozzle fills with fuel you will actually find it can hold a small cupful of fuel. This gives the illusion of fuel still flowing after you release the trigger.
The gauge in your car is no-where near as accurate as a fuel pump. In you car it has the markings Empty, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, full. In the UK at least our pumps are calibrated to pump a maximum of -0.5 to +1%. All garages should have a 20L calibration can. I think the calibration can we used was marked to 50cc over and under the 20L mark, and was reported for maintenance if it went outside of this. Thinking about it 50cc is in fact 0.25% tolerance, extremely accurate
If I recall correctly the reason the pump occasionally (very rarely) clicks over by a penny is due to the final calculation being preformed/slight tolerances in the pump parts.
Another thing is the flow meter counts to 3 decimal places, however displays 2, which is why you sometimes think you are being overcharged by a penny, simple rounding. It works the other way too.
If the display does not show £0.00 before you start pumping then don’t pull the damn trigger, its simple. If you don’t want to be charged for it then tell the attendant before you fill up, otherwise it just looks like you want some free fuel.