Extra Pennies at the Pump

jtk174

ally_bee47 wrote: »

Yes I have noticed this happening a few times recently!! A lot of garages ask for the penny now as well, which is a pain when you have no change. I sometimes feel like filling it 9.99 each time and waiting for my 1p back

Brilliant. I know what I will be doing from now on.

Having been sad enough to stand and watch the pumps as I fill up, I have noticed at several points in the process the counter jumps 2p, while most other times its only 1p. I am pretty sure its not just at the 99p mark.

I won't worry now I have a solution. Thanks.

getzls

The problem is that modern day pumps are fitted with a copper detector.

If it smells a penny in your pocket it will jump 1p over the pound.

Honest.

sheerdelight

Well spotted JTK174. The display on pumps have been doing this for years but with higher prices there is an ever increasing chance that the pump will "jump" 2p. If people slow down the delivery and look at the price display they will see this happens at different points through the delivery and not just say at the £20.00 mark. It all depends on the price and the particle quantity that has been delivered. Thus the price display at one price per litre might change from £19.99 to £20.01 but at another price per litre it might go from £19.99 to £20.00. The final price to pay will always relate to the quantity delivered. While pumps only show 0.01 litre on the display they can and do work out the price to pay by actually reading to 0.001 litre. Go very slow and you can see that the price sometimes changes but the displayed quantity appears to read the same.

Always stow the nozzle as soon as possible after fuelling car in case any fuel leaking through nozzle causes that extra penny or worse still 2p (as per above) to show up on the display!

As regards the hose it always starts full and ends full. It is never drained so there is no point in trying to hold it up to try and drain it.

snowmen

seriously - a whole thread to save literally a penny.

some people just have too much spare time on their hands...

next we will be having people wait for the nearest pump to the entrance/exit to save fuel - and possibly another penny!!!

sheerdelight

In addition to my previous post some pumps have a preset allowing the customer to preset by volume or price (usually in multiples of 1 or 10 litre/pound) If you use the price preset the pump wil cut out at the exact pound and will not creep up by that extra penny.

ally_bee47

snowmen wrote: »

seriously - a whole thread to save literally a penny.

some people just have too much spare time on their hands...

next we will be having people wait for the nearest pump to the entrance/exit to save fuel - and possibly another penny!!!

Its not a thread about saving a penny, the point was being made in incidences when you fill up to a certain amount. Then when placing the pump down and the meter shoots up another 1/2p on its own, which is a very strange and makes you wonder if it's nearly being done on purpose (if you are as cynical as me )

bingo_bango

Shamelessly cribbed from the Hampshire trading standards site, but the same principle applies in NI.

'
We sometimes receive complaints from motorists who find that on replacing the nozzle in the pump that the price indicator ‘runs on’ by an additional 1p.
Measurement of fuel in a petrol pump involves the pumped fuel causing a ‘pulser’ to rotate and send a signal to a processor (computer). The customer display shows the quantity delivered and the price as calculated by the computer.
Because the price of petrol is now so high, a very small movement in the pulser can be enough to trip the price indication by a penny. In reality, this represents only a very small quantity of petrol – about a teaspoonful in fact. The running on can be caused by simply just passing the precise quantity through normal delivery, or when the nozzle is replaced, the internal volume of the hose can change due to internal pressure forcing more fuel into the hose. This effect is called ‘hose dilation’ and is simply the hose swelling slightly. The error in such cases, if any, is very minor and well inside the permitted pump error tolerances of -0.5% to +1.0%.
Before a pump can be put into use in the UK, it must be granted a Certificate of Approval issued by the National Weights and Measures Laboratory. Part of the Laboratory’s approval process is that they must be satisfied with the method of price computation.
The solution

As long as the price of fuel remains high, this phenomenon will continue to happen. There is no cure for the problem, but it may be some reassurance to know that as a customer you are not receiving short measure.
Some garages now have ‘penny boxes’ on the counter where some customers place the odd pennies when their transactions have ‘run on’ and that other customers, who are confrontational about the extra penny, take a penny out. This has been found useful in avoiding problems.'

ballyblack

That should end this thread !

NAR

ballyblack wrote: »

That should end this thread !

Hose said you could put a cap on this thread? :rotfl: