Tips on pumping gas

Jblk9695

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A friend of mine sent this to me and I thought it was informative, some of you may have seen this before but maybe a few haven't:D


TIPS ON PUMPING GAS
I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... but here in California we are paying up to $3.75 to $4.10 per gallon. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon:

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.

When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

I'm sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)...and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If It goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would it take?


Jerry
 

Jblk9695

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It does say when to fill up--
"Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold."
Most of its common sense and just in case it did have something evil:spank: embedded I copied and pasted it so the little black helicopters won't come and visit us:BLAA:

Jerry:D

My bad, I didn't even notice you said Yahoo, I'm sorry. But it does make a certain amount of sense about the cooler temps, I've heard that before from other sources so maybe there is some truth to it.
 
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tcmalker

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everything seemed legit until at the end when you 'encouraged' people to pass this along. I never understand these chain emails but I refused to participate in it.
 

Sawblade

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If everyone in the world followed this advice, they'd just raise the price of gas another cent or two to compensate. :)
 

Humperdinkel

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I reckon Travis' spreadsheet could tell us if the time of day / air temp has any bearing on the amount of fuel we pump :thumbup:

C'mon Trav , run some figures im curious now ;)
 

CHEMIKER

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I reckon Travis' spreadsheet could tell us if the time of day / air temp has any bearing on the amount of fuel we pump :thumbup:

C'mon Trav , run some figures im curious now ;)

Haha, you're on to me Dan! I have been thinking about this for a while, because of something unrelated. The theory I've heard is that if you fill up with cold gas early in the morning, your gas will expand during the warm day and overfill your tank. I don't think there is much expansion/heating/cooling to worry about.

I accept the challenge to measure the gas temperature after fill ups and at various times of the day in my tank.

My hypothesis: The gas coming out of the pump is the same temperature no matter what time of day you pump. From brewing beer, I have noticed that among all of the data available on my water, is temperature. The temperature is surprisingly stable regardless of time of year, to the point where my local water supplier would list the water temperature. I can only think of one thing that would make the water temperature so predictable; stable earth temperature. This leads me to believe that the ground doesn't heat or cool significantly during the day or even during the seasons. I'll collect some data and get back to y'all.
 

Circle

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I accept the challenge to measure the gas temperature after fill ups and at various times of the day in my tank.

My hypothesis: The gas coming out of the pump is the same temperature no matter what time of day you pump.

Damn.
This is what I love about this forum. :rockon:
 

Humperdinkel

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Haha, you're on to me Dan! I have been thinking about this for a while, because of something unrelated. The theory I've heard is that if you fill up with cold gas early in the morning, your gas will expand during the warm day and overfill your tank. I don't think there is much expansion/heating/cooling to worry about.

I accept the challenge to measure the gas temperature after fill ups and at various times of the day in my tank.

My hypothesis: The gas coming out of the pump is the same temperature no matter what time of day you pump. From brewing beer, I have noticed that among all of the data available on my water, is temperature. The temperature is surprisingly stable regardless of time of year, to the point where my local water supplier would list the water temperature. I can only think of one thing that would make the water temperature so predictable; stable earth temperature. This leads me to believe that the ground doesn't heat or cool significantly during the day or even during the seasons. I'll collect some data and get back to y'all.

I knew you would be up for the challenge mate :thumbup:

I gotta say Travis , im with you on this one when it comes to ground tank & temp fluctuations but I reckon there is something in the evaporation side of it ;)
 

Jblk9695

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Well this is all a bunch of BS, may be some truth to it but the original email is not from a pipeline employee, thanks to hoston1765 for the heads up and a link to the Truth or Fiction site--
Tips on pumping gas from a pipeline employee-Fiction!
I knew I should have looked this up myself just to make sure:spank: but it does make for a good discussion:thumbup:

Jerry
 

Botch

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Agree with Chemiker, daily fluctuations of temperature can't change the temp of gas underground appreciably, it's too deep and an underground tank is too large a thermal mass.
I also claim bullsh*t on the "filling the tank slowly instead of fast" claim; yes, using the fast speed will splash more and cause more evaporation, but filling slowly also means the vapor return is sucking that much longer. Additionally, the air inside the tank is already saturated with evaporated gas, it may not even be able to take on more (hopefully a chemist will chime in). An experiment would have to be done to determine which loses more gas; my guess is they are very close if not even.
Interesting discussion, regardless... :thumbup:
 

The Dude

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How about a real tip...

Fill up before you put the bike away. That way it's always sitting with a full tank. This help to prevent oxidation (rust) in your tank if you leave it sitting for a long time. It also means you'll have a fully fueled vehicle waiting for you in the event of some kind of an emergency when you need to get the hell out of Dodge. A motorcycle's narrow profile gives it significant advantages over a car when it comes to navigating streets littered with broken down or gridlocked vehicles. You'll probably save more money with that tactic anyway. Since fuel prices seem to be continually increasing, you'll be paying a little less by making the purchase earlier (at the end of your ride) vs. the next day/week/month when you ride again.
 

JPH

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I would bet that as far as fuel savings go, the tips would yield real, but negligible amounts of savings (maybe $80 per year for a car and $30 for a motorcycle). If you factor in the amount of time that it takes to actually accomplish these tasks as outlined, it would take close to 10-15 extra hours per year at the pump. I like saving money, but there are many other easier methods with much better ROE! IMHO
:Sport:
 

CHEMIKER

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I think we should neglect the gas evaporation as a source of loss (splashing, filling half-full tanks, breather hoses, etc). The volume difference between gasses and liquids are several orders of magnitude. So one gallon of liquid gas will become many thousands of gallons of gas vapor, at constant pressure and temperature, which is true for us in the grand scheme of things. If enough vapor was lost due to evaporation to make a difference, I think we would literally hear vapor hissing out of our tank constantly.

The one instance I can think of where you would get a real loss, is if the vapor pressure in the tank rose and forced liquid gas out of the breather tube. Then of course you would see a loss.
 

malicious439

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Its old news that filling up when its cold, yes I'm sure it "helps" get you a very minuscule amount more of gas but in reality since we do not live in areas were subterranean tanks would have a temperature difference of 30-40 degrees it makes the change in temperature negligible.

For you to have any sort of monetary savings you would have to live in an area that is 100+ during the day and <30 over night. On top of that to make it worth it you would more than likely have to purchase 20-30 gallons.

The people that operate gas stations may not be smart but those who own them are, and if there was really a difference they would find a way to adjust it to reduce any benefit for the consumer.
 
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