Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Refueling your vehicle

We keep on reading about soaring petroleum prices but we need to keep filling our vehicles also. So spending on vehicle fuel is inevitable for us. In such a scenario, what we can do best is get most out of our spending. That includes, looking for a better mileage car OR choosing a road to our destination with minimum possible signal stops which again results in better mileage. But have you ever thought about the actual fuel we fill at the petrol/gas station?!! Most of us must not have…

So here are some facts which a layman may not come to know for his/her lifetime. These are invaluable & you will be astonished to know about them.

  • Early bird gets the worm

Fill up your car or bike only in the early morning when the ground temperature is quite low. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried under ground. The colder the ground, the more dense the fuel. When the ground gets warmer, petrol/diesel/any petroleum fuel expands. So while buying in or after the noon, your litre is not exactly a litre. In petroleum industry, the specific gravity & temperature of any petroleum product play an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a very big deal for this business. But the petrol/gas stations do not have temperature compensation mechanism at the pumps.

  • Slow is better

When you are filling up, use the slow mode. You will see that the fuel hose trigger has three stages: Low, Middle & High. You should always be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapours that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the petrol/gas station have a vapour return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the fuel that goes into your car/bike tank becomes vapour. Those vapours are being sucked back into the underground storage tank, so you are getting less worth of your money.

  • When to fill it

Fill your car/bike when your tank is half full. The more fuel you have in your tank, the less air occupying its empty space, lowering down the evaporation of the fuel while filling up. Fuel evaporates faster than you can imagine. Petroleum storage tanks have an internal roof floating on the fuel. This roof serves as zero clearance between the fuel and the atmosphere minimizing the evaporation.

  • When not to fill it

Never fill up when a fuel delivery truck is pumping into the storage tanks. When the fuel is being pumped into the storage tank, the fuel is being stirred up. That stirring mixes the dirt settled at the bottom of the tank into the fuel and you will get that dirt into your fuel tank!

Hope this was worthy information for you and will help you get most value for your money.

-Ambarish :)

4 comments:

Ranjit said...

Good One!!!

But I am confused with point 2.
Do we have to ask petrol pump boy to slow down the speed?

Anonymous said...

Mr.Ambarish, if I am remembering correctly then in the 1st blog of your's you have mentioned
"Since my blogs, here onwards, will be a collection of factual things, I will be giving due credit to related web-link/person from where/whom I might have collected the information"
but I could not see any one's name or or any site mentioned below ur blog?
Anyways nice try ;-)

Ambarish Karnik said...

Ranjit,

Yes, that is right!

At many foreign countries, people have to fill up the fuel themselves. But in India, we have a person at the pump to get that done for us. But the fuel hoses definitely have the mechanism of increasing/decreasing the flow. So, simply ask the person at the petrol station to pump the fuel slowly.

-Ambarish :)

Ambarish Karnik said...

Saurabh,

A perfect catch!

And the answer is: I received this information through a forwarded mail long time ago but I could not trace back the person who originally jotted down the tips. Hence the credit definitely goes to that anonymous person. :)

Since these are very interesting & useful tips, I decided to start my blogging effort using them.

-Ambarish :)