New silver fuel cans

Stephen_Leak

I have noticed that the plastic spare plastic fuel cans are now only available in silver, with a panel on the label, where you tick a box to indicate what fuel is inside.

They used to be colour-coded, red for leaded petrol, green for unleaded petrol and black for diesel oil.

I appreciate the manufacturers' reasons for the change (times are hard, economies of scale, etc.) but could this lead to an increase in very expensive instances of "mis-fuelling"?

sassy_one

It is done to lesson the amount of different colour cans they have to stock and carry.

May not be the best ideal in the world but as you say, at the present times.

I suppose if one were to buy a can you would remember what fuel was to go in your car, so that wouldn't really be an issue of mis fuelling

System

It's not another stupid EU idea like they did with fire extinguishers is it?
Instead of having the complete bodies colour coded for the type of extinguisher so that you could see the type in less than ideal conditions, it had to be changed to red bodies with a coloured band to show the type.

Nilrem

I suspect Sassy-one is right, it'll be a stock control decision for whatever store is selling them.
They can carry two+ lines one of which might not sell from one month to the next, and one might sell well enough that they constantly run low, in which case it's easier for them to carry a single Neutral colour one.

The green ones are still readily available round here at all the garages and even my local Tesco store I think (and certainly DIY/car shops), but black/red ones are rarer (hence one of the cans in our garage had "2 stroke" in permanent marker on both sides).

Sandoval

I'd venture that 99.999% of cases of misfueling would involve people putting the wrong fuel straight into their cars, not running out of fuel, walking to a filling station and putting the wrong fuel into a coloured can which is then poured into the car.

I very much doubt the cases of misfueling will increase due to this non-issue.

DCFC79

Sandoval wrote: »

I'd venture that 99.999% of cases of misfueling would involve people putting the wrong fuel straight into their cars, not running out of fuel, walking to a filling station and putting the wrong fuel into a coloured can which is then poured into the car.

I very much doubt the cases of misfueling will increase due to this non-issue.

i cant see cases of mis fueling increasing either as surely if you have a silver can you will fill it with the relevant petrol for your car

Inactive

Surely anyone can tell at a distance of about 10 yards if a can has diesel in it, filthy, smelly, horrible stuff.;)

goldspanners

if its got petrol inside it will probably smell a bit like... well petrol.

and if it has diesel inside it it might smell like...well diesel.

hardly rocket science.

i agree on the fire extingiusher point though,different colour for the whole bottle not just a silly stripe.

Strider590

If I made petrol cans and i'd got 40 thousand green cans sat in a warehouse because everyone was buying Diesel, id have a huge amount of money just sat there taking up space (which also costs money). In these financial times, a mistake like that could put me out of business! :O

So what do I do to avoid this situation again?????

Simple!! I make all fuel cans the same colour!!



I personally don't have a trusted garage any more, I used to until they pulled a fast one.... Well actually it was just one comment the head mechanic made to me, he tried to !!!!!!!! me so despite 6 years of good service, I dropped them like a hot potato and haven't been back since. Later turned out they'd changed owners.

sassy_one

Strider590 wrote: »

If I made petrol cans and i'd got 40 thousand green cans sat in a warehouse because everyone was buying Diesel, id have a huge amount of money just sat there taking up space (which also costs money). In these financial times, a mistake like that could put me out of business! :O

So what do I do to avoid this situation again?????

Simple!! I make all fuel cans the same colour!!



I personally don't have a trusted garage any more, I used to until they pulled a fast one.... Well actually it was just one comment the head mechanic made to me, he tried to !!!!!!!! me so despite 6 years of good service, I dropped them like a hot potato and haven't been back since. Later turned out they'd changed owners.

I have luckily found a very very good garage, and I can honestly say I do trust them 110% with my car, its the only place I would and do trust.

There a completely family run business, friendly, polite, professional and very honest with up front costs.

I feel very lucky to have them as a garage as otherwise I'd be really stuck up the tree!