Petrol Not given out

Fol20

I went to my local garage at around 12pm last thursday night.At that time you have to go up to the counter and pay first before you can get petrol.i gave him 10e and filled up my tank to the amount of 10e(gauge went up to 10e).I started to drive off when i noticed my petrol tank didnt go up at all.I had no fuel at all in it before i filled it up so it was obvious no petrol went in.I went back to complain and low and behold another a taxi that got petrol had the same problem.The worker told us to call back tomorrow and talk to the manager.

I talked to the manager today and he said theres nothing he can do,the petrol tanks are working.I took his name and i want to take this further.What advice do you give and does anybody know the address i should send it to.
Its a maxol garage with a mace shop.

SeaSide

weights and measures department of the NSAI

http://www.nsai.ie/About-NSAI/Departments/LMS.aspx

dudara

Write a registered letter to the Manager, sending copies to both the Maxol Head Office and the NSAI.

The Maxol Group,
International Financial Services Centre
Dublin 1
Co. Dublin
Ireland

(Both Maxol Head Office and NSAI will take it quite seriously).

Fol20

What exactly do you think NSAI could do.Iv bought petrol there a number of times and have had no problems before,If they go out and test it now,it will probably work.

I need to act fast as they will probably delete the cctv footage soon.

Is there any chance someone could help me with phrasing a professional letter.It isnt one of my strong points:o

sandin

€10 is less than 7 litres and your guage may have dropped so low that a small amount such as this would not register.

Fol20

I just think its a bit of a coencidence that the time i go back enquiring about it,another guy has the same problem.

Clare Bear

Same thing happened to me twice before (both in Cashel actually, seperate garages, I'm never getting Diesel in that town again!)....got absolutely nowhere in the end despite trying hard with both of them. There was nothing I could do to prove it. Three people that used the pump after me in the first garage in Cashel came in complaining too and none of us got anywhere. We went higher up than the garage too and in the end we were told there was nothing they could do as we couldn't prove it?! The pump was working the next day :rolleyes:

Going on my own experience it's a case of say goodbye to your tenner unfortunately. I feel your pain though, I'm still annoyed by my own two experiences. So frustrating.

sandin

surely a lot more motorists would have had the problem too and there would be angry scenes at the station?

Do you have a "miles to empty" reading on the car?

My guess is both yourself & the taxi driver had almost empty tanks and both just filled up with small amounts at the same time rather than anything else. - But to check, you can have a look at the pump and see when it was last checked by weights & measures people. (usually a sticker on inside of the glass), or you could bring a 5l container and fill this up with €7.50 of fuel and see if its full.

bigjohnny80

How did it feel when you were trying to put the petrol in? do you think any went in at all? could you feel any pressure in the hose etc?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I know if I put only €10 into my tank when empty (being only 6 litres) it would not register. Took over €90 last week and was not empty. You'd certainly know if there was no flow through the hose when filling.

tallaghtoutlaws

I would have thought with todays modern pumps that it would be impossible for the counter to move without the flow of petrol going through the flow meter. And did you not ask for receipt to be printed. Hardly would have been many people around at night before or after you on the same pump. I worked in a garage 10 years ago and the registers back then even told you the exact amount of petrol. I doubt both pump and register would have registered anything if no petrol flowed into your tank. But I stand corrected if I am wrong.

Zab

You went back and there was a taxi that had also just put in €10 and hadn't noticed a change in the petrol gauge?

foggy_lad

I had a car once that took over £20 to move the needle when it was empty and this was when petrol was still sold in gallons:) Remember the gauge works via a float and when the float registers empty there may be a lot of fuel left in the tank so if almost out of petrol it may take a lot to move the gauge.

Fol20

Just to clarify i put in 10e worth of petrol.
taxi driver put in 10e worth of diesel.

I have a receipt with the signature of the employee who served me.
The manager told me that they sell thousands of litres of petrol a week and that everything is working on their side.

The taxi driver said he had a digital clock on his car.He said that this monitor remained at 22mpg even after he put in the petrol. I drive an astra which has no digital clock.

MASTER...of the bra

bigjohnny80 wrote: »

How did it feel when you were trying to put the petrol in? do you think any went in at all? could you feel any pressure in the hose etc?

This.

Fol20

I wasnt really paying attention when i was at the pump,i didnt really notice the pressure...

JimsAlterEgo

Fol20 wrote: »

I wasnt really paying attention when i was at the pump,i didnt really notice the pressure...

you feel the flow of fuel, next time note when you put it in not the force when theres nothing flowing and watch the difference when you push the button

cock robin

I at one stage had a company car and a fuel card which could be used in garages and remote sites ie: no forecourt just a fuel pump in an industrial estate. On one occasion with the tank in the car almost empty a Statoil garage refused the fuel card becuase the reg number had not been updated to reflect the new company car and I had to drive to a remote fuel site where you input a code and fill up. I put fuel nozzle in the car and pumped and in about 10 seconds the pump shut down as the limit was reached for that day, I think it was about 100ltrs. However no fuel had actually gone into the tank. I rang the company (can't remember who it was) and they sent out an engineer who then tried to tell me I had given (sold) the fuel to someone and then could not get any more. I actually got into bother in the job and set out to prove my innocence which I did thanks to CCTV footage from a company who's premises overlooked the site. Got apologies from everyone but never found out why it happened but it did and I presume it can still happen.

Ladybird99

Ring your local garda station and speak to them. It is likely to have happened to other people.

sandin

Ladybird99 wrote: »

Ring your local garda station and speak to them. It is likely to have happened to other people.

Why would you waste the gardai's time on a civil matter??????

We are talking about 6 litres. This will barely register on an empty tank's guage.

Ladybird99

sandin wrote: »

Why would you waste the gardai's time on a civil matter??????

We are talking about 6 litres. This will barely register on an empty tank's guage.

I am just suggesting a quick call. It may or may not be a civil matter.
It happened to a colleague of mine once and when she rang the guards it turned out they had received other complaints about the same petrol station. The owner was in financial trouble and was doing people out of petrol regularly. This was a good few years ago in Wicklow.

BTW €10 petrol registers clearly on my car even when on red and mine is 1.8L

sandin

Ladybird99 wrote: »

I am just suggesting a quick call. It may or may not be a civil matter.
It happened to a colleague of mine once and when she rang the guards it turned out they had received other complaints about the same petrol station. The owner was in financial trouble and was doing people out of petrol regularly. This was a good few years ago in Wicklow.

BTW €10 petrol registers clearly on my car even when on red and mine is 1.8L

The gardai cannot do anything about it.

If you drive on the reserve fuel (usually about 2 gallons) for any length of time, the guage will not register until the reserve amount has been topped up. If it has just hit the red line, it will register. Your car manual will normally give details of the reserve amount.

I can drive up to 60km after I hit the red line, sometime I'll just put a tenner in to get to a better priced station and whilst it won't register much on the guage, I'll see the km to empty reading increase back to 60/70.

Zab

Do taxi drivers really put just €10 of diesel into their cars?

slimjimmc

Fol20 wrote: »

Just to clarify i put in 10e worth of petrol.
taxi driver put in 10e worth of diesel.

I have a receipt with the signature of the employee who served me.
The manager told me that they sell thousands of litres of petrol a week and that everything is working on their side.

The taxi driver said he had a digital clock on his car.He said that this monitor remained at 22mpg even after he put in the petrol. I drive an astra which has no digital clock.

Diesel or petrol which did he get?
This digital gauge you refer to sounds like the trip computer not a fuel gauge. He was showing you his fuel economy not the amount of fuel he got for his tenner (which I find hard to believe is all he put in)

Fuel gauges measure the volume of fuel in your tank. They can't measure in mpg (miles-per-gallon) and the mpg reading won't change one iota as you put fuel into the tank. I think you've got things mixed up.

Archeron

OP, this actually happened to me a few months back in a Maxol with a mace as well. I hadnt hit the red warning yet, but I wanted to put in the €10 I had left on me as I knew I was driving the next day. I have my dash set to number of miles before next fuel needed, and it was at 54 when I went in, and 54 when I left.
I done nothing about it, because everybody told me the same things as in the thread here, and just passed it off, but interesting to note the same brand of station.

Fol20

slimjimmc wrote: »

Diesel or petrol which did he get?
This digital gauge you refer to sounds like the trip computer not a fuel gauge. He was showing you his fuel economy not the amount of fuel he got for his tenner (which I find hard to believe is all he put in)

Fuel gauges measure the volume of fuel in your tank. They can't measure in mpg (miles-per-gallon) and the mpg reading won't change one iota as you put fuel into the tank. I think you've got things mixed up.

Well ill be honest i dont know much about cars,the taxi driver said he had 22mpg before he went to fill up and it remained 22 after he "put" petrol in.

He said thats all he had on him and thats why he only topped up by 10e.

MissFlitworth

The price of petrol seems to have gone up a bonkers amount in the last while, I haven't been driving in ages and wasn't paying attention but saw it at 1.50e a litre in Dublin today, frightening Is it possible that you just got far less petrol than you're used to getting for the same amount of money & so, as the others are saying, it didn't register on your meter cos you put it into a nearly empty tank

The_Conductor

Fol20 wrote: »

Well ill be honest i dont know much about cars,the taxi driver said he had 22mpg before he went to fill up and it remained 22 after he "put" petrol in.

He said thats all he had on him and thats why he only topped up by 10e.

Sorry- whats the 22mpg got to do with anything (other than registering that the taxi driver has a singularly uneconomical car to drive- which in itself is unusual)?

My meter will show an identical reading before and after filling the tank- until I reset the meter (as I do every time I refill, as I like to know what sort of fuel economy I'm getting).

The 22mpg has nothing whatsoever to do with putting the fuel in the tank..........

Del2005

I've had similar happen a few times, counter running but no fuel coming out.

1st time I wasn't sure as it pumped air for the first €2 and then fuel. Noticed the difference in pressure when fuel actually came out.

Next time, a few weeks later, I was ready and tried the same pump a few times after going up to the cashier and the counter was running but no fuel coming out.

It's happened so much that now I always leave the nozzle slightly out when I start pumping, makes a bit of a mess sometimes but I usually remember to keep aside.

slimjimmc

smccarrick wrote: »

Sorry- whats the 22mpg got to do with anything (other than registering that the taxi driver has a singularly uneconomical car to drive- which in itself is unusual)?

My meter will show an identical reading before and after filling the tank- until I reset the meter (as I do every time I refill, as I like to know what sort of fuel economy I'm getting).

The 22mpg has nothing whatsoever to do with putting the fuel in the tank..........

That's my point. If the OP was using this as additional evidence he was ripped off then it is very very weak evidence indeed.
I wonder if the OP completely mis-understood the in-significance of miles-per-gallon (as perhaps the taxi driver did too).

However it is possible the taxi driver showed the OP a trip meter instead.
The 22mpg could in fact be 22miles which could refer to the range the car could drive based on the fuel in the tank. This indeed would change upwards if the fuel gauge registered another tenner's worth of fuel was added.

Seeing as the taxi driver also had the same complaint, there might be something in it.

slimjimmc

Del2005 wrote: »

I've had similar happen a few times, counter running but no fuel coming out.

1st time I wasn't sure as it pumped air for the first €2 and then fuel. Noticed the difference in pressure when fuel actually came out.

Next time, a few weeks later, I was ready and tried the same pump a few times after going up to the cashier and the counter was running but no fuel coming out.

It's happened so much that now I always leave the nozzle slightly out when I start pumping, makes a bit of a mess sometimes but I usually remember to keep aside.

But the meter is still running, so aren't you still paying for air?