Gas pump freebie!

Here is something that has never happened to me before. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this. On Thursday I finally got out for my first ride of the season (the weather has been really shitty!). I have been wanting to test the new heated jacket liner and gloves, so went out for a short ride. As the low fuel light started flashing, I pulled in to a gas station to fill up. The pump stopped at about 18 liters, but with the fuel light flashing and having ridden a bit with it on, I knew it could take at least 20. I am also terrible for trying to top up as much as possible to delay the next gas stop as long as possible. So, I kept going. After a few seconds of slow pumping I glance at the pump and saw 18 liters. So I kept going. A few more seconds, and still 18 liters. I repeated this a few more times until it clicked in my brain that the pump was still pumping, but the fuel and dollar amounts were no longer counting! At this point I really started wishing for a bigger tank! I considered this a bit of a fluke, and estimate I pumped about 2 liters of gas (~ 0.5 gallon) without the pump recording it. Anyone else have this happen?

As a follow up, after working on Saturday I took my car to the same gas station and same pump to see if I could duplicate this situation. As it turns out, I could! If I allowed the pump to click off on its own and then tried to pump very slowly, it stopped counting again. The downside is that it goes VERY slowly, so much so that it would really not be worth standing there for an hour or more to fill your gas tank. I also feel a little guilty about it, but hope to get over that as the price of gas goes inevitably higher!

ps, the heated jacket liner and gloves were fantastic (Hotwired, from Cycle Gear). Probably some of the cheaper ones available, not not sure how durability will be, but with the one test so far, I am happy with them.

Never had that happen to me at the gas station. Curious - was the pump the old style with the mechanical counter, or a new one with a LCD display?

Your story reminded me of a time long ago when my daughter was about 7 years old. At the Walmart checkout, she was holding her Mon's hand being her usual good little girl self when she looked down on the floor and found a $20.00 bill. She showed it to her mom and they went straight to the customer service counter.

(Mom) "My daughter found this money on the floor in the checkout isle"

(C/S clerk) "Ok - I'll make sure it gets to the person who owns it."

Obviously, Pants wasn't with them that day or our method would have been all together different.

Theft under $5000.00

And a Hybrid offense at that, traveling with you could damage my good reputation

Canadian FJR

It has been many years, but I remember using a pump that would allow fuel to trickle out after the counter stopped counting. I suspect a bad valve in the pump that allowed fuel to get past even though the valve was closed. It will probably be discovered and fixed during the next routine service of that pump.

hppants said:

Curious - was the pump the old style with the mechanical counter, or a new one with a LCD display?

Click to expand...

The pump is a modern, digital pump. The station in question actually just updated their pumps in the last year or two, although they still rarely give me my receipt without having to go inside.

hppants said:

Never had that happen to me at the gas station. Curious - was the pump the old style with the mechanical counter, or a new one with a LCD display?
Your story reminded me of a time long ago when my daughter was about 7 years old. At the Walmart checkout, she was holding her Mon's hand being her usual good little girl self when she looked down on the floor and found a $20.00 bill. She showed it to her mom and they went straight to the customer service counter.

(Mom) "My daughter found this money on the floor in the checkout isle"

(C/S clerk) "Ok - I'll make sure it gets to the person who owns it."

Obviously, Pants wasn't with them that day or our method would have been all together different.

Click to expand...

My dad had a similar experience. He told customer service he found a certain amount in cash. They said their policy was for him to turn the cash over to them and if nobody claimed it, then he would be called. He said that's not his policy, but said that he would leave his phone number in case somebody claimed they were missing the precise amount. Walmart replied he shouldn't do that, but he replied it's just his policy. HA

If its just trickling, I doubt you pumped two more liters.

Did it set on 18.00 the whole time?

If it moved to 18.0x, you probably got, and paid for, .0x extra liters.

Modern pumps are pretty much bulletproof against favoring the consumer.

Never had that happen.. although I once closed the gas station for the night and forgot to turn off and lock the pumps.. Made local news..

Wow.

Nice score.

Thanks for sharing.

Here's another bonanza that gets overlooked.

If you dig into the dumpster behind popular night clubs on a Sunday morning, you can find tons of liquor bottles with

full fractions of an ounce of perfectly good alcohol still in them. You just drain them all into your own cup, and pretty soon

you've got a breakfast buzz going, and it didn't cost you a DIME!

Me and BikerGeek99 are going back next weekend.

Old Michael said:

Wow. Nice score.

Thanks for sharing.

Here's another bonanza that gets overlooked.

If you dig into the dumpster behind popular night clubs on a Sunday morning, you can find tons of liquor bottles with

full fractions of an ounce of perfectly good alcohol still in them. You just drain them all into your own cup, and pretty soon

you've got a breakfast buzz going, and it didn't cost you a DIME!

Me and BikerGeek99 are going back next weekend.

Click to expand...

IN!

Old Michael said:

Wow. Nice score.

Thanks for sharing.

Here's another bonanza that gets overlooked.

If you dig into the dumpster behind popular night clubs on a Sunday morning, you can find tons of liquor bottles with

full fractions of an ounce of perfectly good alcohol still in them. You just drain them all into your own cup, and pretty soon

you've got a breakfast buzz going, and it didn't cost you a DIME!

Me and BikerGeek99 are going back next weekend.

Click to expand...

That's disgusting! I'd never get left over alcohol out of a dumpster. It's a lot more sanitary and fast to just grab "empty" drinks from the bar before the waitress or bartender can clean them up and shotgun whatever's left behind. If you do it fast enough, no one will notice...

Is it possible you were just emptying what was in the hose?

El Toro said:

If its just trickling, I doubt you pumped two more liters.
Did it set on 18.00 the whole time?

If it moved to 18.0x, you probably got, and paid for, .0x extra liters.

Modern pumps are pretty much bulletproof against favoring the consumer.

Click to expand...

Knifemaker said:

Is it possible you were just emptying what was in the hose?

Click to expand...

I don't think this is the case for either. For the bike, you can easily see the fuel level by looking in the top. I certainly pumped at least half a liter, but I suspect somewhat more. The pumps measure to the milliliter, and it did not move during a minute or two of topping off. Also, when I repeated with my car I held the tip of the nozzle out at the top of the filler pipe. While it was slow, it was definitely more than what was in the hose and way more than enough to make the readings on the pump change. With the car I also noticed that I could hold the pump wide open without changing the rate of flow. I spent a few minutes playing with it (insert your own 'playing with hose joke' here). The behaviour would change with activity at other pumps and would sometimes resume counting, but I could get it to go back to the slow pumping/not counting mode. I believe the pump to be malfunctioning, but I will stop short of taking a gas can out to try to actually measure the amount of gas that can be pumped for free.

YEARS ago, like maybe 2003 or 2004, I stopped at a station near our house. Gas was like $3.50/gal. As I filled, I realized the pump was charging $.35/gal or only a tenth of the actual price. I filled my wife's little Murano and then hauled ass home and picked up my truck. It was close to empty and I filled it also. As I was finishing up, a guy next to me finished filling his car and then went in and told them about the mistake. I thought that was a hair disingenuous. He should have told before he filled up. Lol.

That's only happened once in my life. I've never seen one not register pumped fuel.

You guys pay for gas?!? I just siphon it out of police cruisers. Hey...my taxes pay for that gas anyway.

Way back in the day, the gas pumps for the store at the base of The Dragon were the old style with the mechanical counter. One day a buddy was low on gas, so we stopped at the store. True story:

Standing at the pump with buddy:

(Buddy) "Did you see this?"

(he points to a sign on the pump that says "$12.00 charge for replacement pump glass")

(Pants) "Hmmm"

Buddy's bike slips on the side stand and the left side of the handlebar goes right through the glass. The bike kind of falls on him and he grabs and recovers it before it hits the ground.

(Pants) "Well, now we know what that's all about"