A pump at a local Chevron gas station tallied up 23 gallons when I
filled my 1987 Dodge Dakota V6, which has a 22 gallon tank. I have
never, in the 21 years I have owned the truck, ever seen the tally go
above 22 gallons.

I have come to be able to read the low end of the gauge pretty good and
by my reckoning I had about a gallon in the tank when I pulled in to
fill it up, but the pump read 23.004 gallons. I paid with a debit card
and got a receipt.

Does anyone know who to contact about this sort of thing? I was
surprised because this Chevron station was only charging $1.85 while the
El Cheapo no-brand station down the street was charging $1.97.

And thanks to all who have been kind enough to respond to me concerning
problems with MSD ignition. As I mentioned in the thread dealing with
it, a ballast resistor made all the difference and the truck is running
great!

Depends on where you are ...Texas has a department of weights and measures
which should control delivery of commercial materials.

There has been a lot of falsification and illegal metering devices, and your
station
may be fleecing people.

Or, not.

Never hurts to check.

If you want to for sure for certain find out if you were taken, put it in
writing, and send it certified. All written complaints have to have a
written disposition. They will check with this station, and if they're not
on the level, they will be fined. It's like zoning stuff. Once you make a
phone call or a written statement, they HAVE to send out an inspector. That
covers their asses.

But I have had cars that took more than the owner's manual. I think they
round it off, and in many cases, do not rate the capacity all the way to the
top of the neck like a lot of consumers fill their tanks.

Get in touch with:

Your states Department of weights and Measures.

They use a can that's graduated to half ounce increments for the last half
gallon, if the pump is not correct, they will lock it. Then the station will
have to get the pump recalibrated, and pay a somewhat hefty fine.

RK

I've been told there is a computer program that has made rounds of 'less
than honest' stations. It somehow alows the pump to show accurate
measurements up to 5 gallons or so, then starts cheating after that.
Supposedly, the first few gallons (can't remember if it was 1 or 5 or
somewhere inbetween) is accurate to fool the Weights and Measures guy.

This supposed program is sold underground (duh) to station owners. "Company
Owned" stations would stay away from that kind of thing. Of course, the guy
that told me of the program could have been filling me with BS too.

If I were you, not only would I contact your state's Weights and Measures
guys, but I would also send an email to CVX at conaffrs@Chevron.com and tell
them what you told us and include the location of the station.

Good luck,

FMB
(North Mexico)

I've owned many vehicles that would hold more gasoline than the tank's
rated capacity. My first new car, a Pinto, supposedly had an 11 gallon
tank. I routinely got more than 12 gallons in it. My Expedition with a
28 gallon tank often held over 29 when I ran it nearly dry. All tanks
include a substantial air pocket to allow room for expansion of the
gasoline due to temperature changes. You can easily impinge on this
pocket if the vehicle is at a slight angle or the pump nozzle has a
higher than normal shut off threshold. My current Nissan Frontier is
especially sensitive to front to rear angles. The tank is long and
thin. If you park with the nose of the vehicle substantially higher
than the rear, you can get a lot more gas in the tank. I keep a
gasoline logbook, and the variations in capacity make for some
interesting variations in single tank fuel economy averages. There is
one station I stop at that has a pretty large slant. If I park uphill
one time and downhill the next, I can make the single tank fuel
economy average look really good. Of course if I do the reverse, I can
make a single tank average look really bad.

I suppose it is possible that the station is cheating, so it can't
hurt to have it checked, but I think it is most likely you just had a
combination of a pump shut off and vehicle angle that let you put a
little extra in the tank. One of the most famous gasoline scams was
especially clever. The pumps showed the correct amount of gas for the
first 5 or 10 gallons and only cheated on larger amounts. This was
done to fool the weight and measures officials who checked the pumps.
See http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/09/local/me-30761. Also in
the past, there were scams where the gallons shown were correct, but
the multiplication used to calculate the price was wrong. In other
words it worked something like 5 gallons of gas being sold for $1 a
gallon would show up on the pump display as a total of $5.10 instead
of $5. How often do you check the multiplication? I actually check
this every time I buy gas, but only after the fact when I enter the
purchase in my spreadsheet.

Also, it is not clear where you are located. Canada allows for
temperature compensation of the fuel measurement.
http://www.ooida.com/straight_talk/T...n%20slides.pdf .
Be glad you don't live in Mexico -
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jun...s/fi-stickup13 .

Also see:

http://www.kvue.com/news/mmcguire/st...b.2771e6f.html

Ed

Definitrely true, Steve. I have seen the same thing. If you have long
experience
with a particular car and suddenly it starts taking more to fill it than it
has ever held
before, then I would get suspicious, as has the OP I guess.

One place just off the highway in northern New Brunswick Canada manage
to stuff 86 liters into my 76 liter tank for a cost of almost $140.00 a
couple years back. And I drove in there under my own power too....

There is an Esso also at Yonge and Finch on Toronto Canada that
regularly can put 80 liters, 82 once, into my 76 liter tank and again I
drive there under my own power.

Pure rip off assholes!

Mike

Normally, filling a tank will result in a little variation in volume for a
number of factors.

When the OP mentioned "I have never, in the 21 years I have owned
the truck, ever seen the tally go above 22 gallons" it raised my suspicions
that something might be astray.

Since temperature certainly alters the density of gasoline, how do the
fuel merchants, technologically, correct to a standard gallon? Is it
built into the pump?

Depends on what state you are in. Most states have an office of weights
and measures that goes around checking these things. Go to another gas
station and look for a certification sticker on one of the pumps, and call
those guys.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."