Gas Station pumped more gas than my tank holds by 1.4 gallons

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

dude youre overthinking this for sure

there is no way for you to know exactly how much gas down to the right side of the . you have

within 5 miles of the station is not equal either

same station? parked completely flat? same payload in the car every time you drive that 5 miles? same speed down the same roads every time?

lot of variables man

plus when the manufacturer says you have a 12.2 gallon tank that does not mean it will not hold 12.3

think about it

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

In an effort to help you out I have to warn you that it is not good to run your tank till the low fuel light comes on. You are basically running your vehicle down to the last 1.2 gallons which is where the "trash" is that fouls your fuel filter. As well, if you actually run out of gas and drive a fuel injected vehicle, the modern ones have the fuel pump in the tank. If you run the tank dry, the car stops and you cant restart it by putting gas into it. They have to actually pull the tank to recharge the fuel pump.

Fill your tank when you are down to the last quarter full.

a reply to: TonyS

and the fuel in the pump keeps the pump cool

so go ahead and run that down to the last .3 gallons

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
Let me foresee the future for you. The owner has just bought another gas station over the Street. Even though he owns both there will be a price war between the two stations. One week the left station will be cheaper, the next the right station will be cheaper. We have two stations like that here. If nobody knows like you the same guy owns both they will believe that they are in competition.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Where I live, the petroleum division of the State Commission handles petro regulations and they do calibration checks twice a year. I would call them or weights and measures and give them pump # and product type and they will come out and check it. There's also calibration stickers on the pump that should tell you the last calibration readings. You usually have a permissible error of +3 to -3 off 0 per 5gls of fuel. It's a fairly small discrepancy when the meters are in tolerance.


The only way to properly check calibration is with an actual calibration can or system, in high flow and slow flow delivery, at the pump. If all the pumps of one type of product are off, it's usually a sub pump gasket in the tank thats gone bad, thats inducing air into the line. When this happens it may read $5.00 on the pump but only have $3.00 of product delivered, not a common problem but it does happen.


I was in the petroleum industry for many years and there's a lot of variables involved with petro e.g;. product type, air density, air temp, specific gravity, humidity, ground/tank temp, length and diameter of gas lines, steel or fiberglass lines, rate of pipe incline, etc., all of these factor into contraction and expansion of product and delivery system. So yep, things can change fairly often.