8 ms·
Doesn't always shutoff! I was filling up one of my cars a year or two ago, watching the meter tick up and up and up so not watching the pump handle/nozzle itse
by mattlondon 6y ago
Doesn't always shutoff! I was filling up one of my cars a year or two ago, watching the meter tick up and up and up so not watching the pump handle/nozzle itself, just cursing the price of a full tank etc.
Someone in the car behind actually jumped out and came over to let me know that my tank was overflowing and going all over the floor.
No wonder it seems to cost so much :)
- exlurker 6y agoHaha, same happened to me in Spain two years ago. I stood there minding my own business like a doof until someone on the other pump were like, "Yo!! Watch out". Wasn't much, but still surprising.
- seattle_spring 6y agoYou weren't watching it? Do people actually engage the pump and then just walk away and assume it will all work out?
- mattmaroon 6y agoI’ve been doing this all my life and didn’t even know it could go wrong. I just assume everyone inside the store did this too.
- mattlondon 6y agoI was watching the price going up on the display, and not the actual hole in the side of the car where the fuel goes in. For UK pumps you actually need to stand there and physically hold the pump nozzle the whole time. If you let go it is spring loaded and it stops pumping. Of course, you don't have to look right at it while it is pumping...
- stuartd 6y agoUK pumps still have a hole which you can push a little rod through to lock the pump on.
- nkozyra 6y agoMaybe 25-20% of the pumps in the US are the same.
- loeg 6y agoIt really depends. I'd say 90+% of the pumps I encounter have working latches (NW US).
- ryanlol 6y agoBut what’s the deal with UK pumps stopping if you squeeze the trigger too hard? Drives me crazy.
- anticensor 6y agoThat may have to do with dead man safety.
- donarb 6y agoThat's caused by the mechanism described in the article. If you squeeze the handle hard you get a fast flow. This can cause the gas to splash back into the nozzle and cuts off the flow because it appears that the tank is full.
- tehlike 6y agoThe downsides to automation. More often than not, even if you are 90% of the time alert, you get fairly comfortable and not watching. I do watch my car while i am doing some other stuff or looking at my phone, but seen some other automation related stuff that makes me lazy. Like not locking the door at home when going out, because it's automatic.
- yellowapple 6y agoHonestly, I do. My usual routine is to open the fuel hatch, check for card skimmers, swipe my card, punch in my phone number for the loyalty program (if I'm at my usual gas station), punch in my ZIP, grab the nozzle, select a grade, stick the nozzle in the hole, set the trigger on the lower speed, head into the store, buy beer, put the beer in the car, wait for the pump to finish (if somehow it hasn't), put the nozzle back, close the fuel hatch, and drive off on my merry way. This all seems to be pretty normal where I'm from.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- inopinatus 6y agoA word of warning, all that moving around is potentially† building up a nice static charge on your body just in time for you to discharge it through the cloud of gasoline fumes as your hand closes around the trigger to unlatch it, with well-documented pyrotechnic results. † (sorry)
- mehrdadn 6y agoYeah I was thinking the same thing, this is probably a bad idea. You don't want to go sit in your car either.
- leeoniya 6y agoyou'll discharge it on the grounded pump trigger before you withdraw anything with gas on it. static builds up everywhere, all the time during dry winters, yet gas stations don't regularly start exploding seasonally.
- inopinatus 6y agoThis isn't a theoretical concern: there are numerous documented cases, even multiple instances with footage on <popular video sharing website>, so a notion of "this can't happen" argued from first principles isn't just moot, it is potentially harmful. The proper safety advice is that if you've been moving around, ground yourself by contact with some other earthbound metal before approaching the nozzle.
- dmitryminkovsky 6y agoYou don’t? I’ve done this hundreds if not thousands of times and it only didn’t work once, for the first time, a few months ago when I was filling my UHaul in Queens to move out of New York City. It was fitting.
- IshKebab 6y agoWhat do you mean walk away? Do you guys have a lock to keep it on?? That seems unwise.
- loeg 6y agoIt stays in place by gravity.
- bagels 6y agoYes, in many locations the dispensers have a lock to keep the trigger depressed.
- mitchdoogle 6y agoYes, I've done this my whole life and seen many (most?) others do it too. I've never even seen thought it's a bad idea, because the gas pump shut off has worked 100% of the time for me. Go to a gas station, start pumping, and lock it, then go inside the gas station to buy some snacks. When I come back outside, the gas is full and I can go on my way.
- kalium-xyz 6y agoYou cant do that in most European countries as the trigger will need to remain engaged for the valve to stay open. So you just stand there holding the pump handle bored the entire time. I get its more safe but I wish we had the same system as they do in the US
- toxik 6y agoI have never seen a nozzle without a latch in Europe, however, 90% don’t work and just unlatch immediately.
- Xylakant 6y agoThere’s usually a little latch on the handle that you can engage so that the valve stays open and you can let go then. No need to keep glued to the pump, even in Europe. You should still watch the pump though - you’re handling flammable substances.
- vvillena 6y agoIIRC some European countries forbid those latches, to ensure the pump is always actively watched.
- CodeWriter23 6y agoYou can always prop it open with the gas cap and let the diaphragm trigger described in the article do its job. Unless the air inlet is obstructed.
- kalium-xyz 6y agoThat trick doesn’t work for all cars sadly.
- dheera 6y agoPeople seem to do it all the time in California at least. I've never actually seen a tank overflow but if it did it seems like the potential consequences could be disasterous. Maybe they should remove those flip-up latches if they want to prevent people from doing that.
- recursive 6y agoYes. I do that. I've never even considered the possibility that it could be a problem, and so far it never has been.
- noodlenotes 6y agoWhen do you wash your windows if not when the gas is pumping?
- PascLeRasc 6y agoOne of my favorite monthly activities is having that two minutes to clean receipts out of my car and wash the front and rear windows.
- masklinn 6y ago> Do people actually engage the pump and then just walk away and assume it will all work out? You don’t need to walk away, I generally just zone out watching the volume and price display scroll.
- perl4ever 6y agoIn some areas, they do not have the latch on the handle to prevent that. They may (also) have a warning sign saying do not leave unattended.
- myself248 6y agoBut you can wedge the fuel cap into the handle to prop it on while you wipe the windows...
- userbinator 6y agoThe design uses a vacuum to trip the shutoff, and that's created by the liquid moving through the venturi, so one of the things that can cause it to not work, besides wear and damage, is if the liquid is moving too slow to generate enough vacuum to actuate the mechanism.
- incanus77 6y agoThis happens to me sometimes, too, though I drive a 1985 VW van. It seems to be related to the nozzle fit and holding it very firmly, but I find that today's pumps are pretty heavy, require a very firm squeeze, and are hard to hold just right. Maybe it's just an Oregon thing, where we are not allowed to pump our own gas. I've had licenses in four other states and gassed up myself plenty of times. Whenever I'm in Washington or other states with my van, I tend to let the auto-hold engage.
- refurb 6y agoNo it doesn't always shutoff. I had an incident where a customer told me "they spilled some gas". I go out to see ~20 gallons of gasoline on the ground (my best estimate - was a puddle about 16 ft x 6 ft x 1/2 inch deep)". They were filling a huge motorhome, so it would take a while to fill regardless and they weren't paying attention. I should have called the fire department, but was a dumb teenager working alone. Threw a few buckets of absorbent on it. It was over 90F that day and windy, so it took 10 min for most of it to evaporate.
- RandallBrown 6y agoOne of my old coworkers used to totally and completely trust the auto shutoff. To the point that he didn't even stop the pump before pulling it out of the car. He would just yank the still running pump out and it would shut off. One day he comes in to work complaining about how the pump he used the day before didn't work and he got covered in gasoline. We all just looked at him incredulously when he explained what happened.