Team-BHP - The Petrol Pump Story - How Petrol Pumps Operate

Aplang1, very good start and welcome.
It is a good write up in a right time and eye opener for all, still i feel it is sided towards the Petrol pump owners. Lots have been said on the additional income and the people wanting to start pumps, contradicting to your say.

From my view cheating the end customer in India is becoming very common. It is instead of cheating one person a lakh, cheat 1 Rupee from 1 lakh people.

With the above said,
1. it is our duty to be aware of good/trust pumps,
2. understand the technical aspects (being a team-bhpian) fuel the vehicles in the morning, and
3. monitor the "Zero" by getting out of the car from laziness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajman28 (Post 2798969)

The bottles usually have a very small hole and the petrol pumps nozzle very often do not fit into it. Most of the petrol stations have one or two pumps with small nozzles for customers who come with the bottle and they will direct you to those designated pumps. By the way, it is not recommended to carry fuel in disposable bottles. If you do need to carry fuel, then please ensure you use a jerry can..

There is small yet another dimension to it

Only few dispensers are accurately calibrated, if you are taking fuel in bottle it must be delivered from a well calibrated unit otherwise one will easily come to know in bottles.

please:But be very very careful or better to say do not use bottles, as we normally ignore STATIC ELECTRICITY but when we take fuel in bottle the fuel dispenser is comparatively safe as the nozzle (Via the armored hose) is properly earthed and static is earthed from a person or bottle, but same thing does not happen when we pour the fuel in our car tank & if in case the person carrying the bottle is highly charged with static or the car then there are high chances that the fuel in the bottle and the tank might catch fire. YES STATIC is capable of lighting the fuel (Petrol definitely) if creates arching.

After going through the entire discussion, just out of curiosity i have decided to conduct a small experiment with my ride Grande Punto Emotion Pack, to gets a hands on experience of how much fuel (diesel in my case) is actually being short filled by the petrol bunks.

My experiment is to
i. wait till the low fuel light, lightens up and then reset the trip meter
ii. then refill the tank completely and check the kms run, before the low fuel light lightens up again
iii. as per the average consumption reading in the vehicle, calculate the total liters consumed and then compare it with the actual filling
By this, we may get a fair idea of how much fuel is being short filled in the bunks

The basic assumption here is that the fuel gauge in the vehicle is properly calibrated.

The experiment started today, while I was coming back from office
i. @ 27,490 kms, the low fuel lighted up and I then reset the trip meter

The Petrol Pump Story - How Petrol Pumps Operate-img_0970.jpg

ii. @ 27,493 kms, I refilled the tank with 37.18 litres at devegowda petrol bunk (thats what the attendant at the bunk said) at Padmanabha Nagar Junction, B'lore

The Petrol Pump Story - How Petrol Pumps Operate-img_0972.jpg

Now its a wait and watch game for the all the fuel to be consumed and then compare the vehicle readings with the actuals

Considering my daily usage and that i get an economy of about 13.5 kmpl in B'lore traffic, it should not be more than 3 days that I get to know the difference .

Quote:

Originally Posted by tony05

devegowda petrol pump is notorious for selling adultrated fuel. I would suggest you to stay away from that pump

Note from Mod : Please do not quote long posts for one-line response. It inconveniences out mobile readers

Quote:

Originally Posted by Born 2 Be Wild (Post 2805768)

You are right. In my experience i never got correct fe through my mid, the best way to calculate Fe is topping the tank to the brim.

+1 to this.

This is how I would prefer to check FE, sorry this is a little off topic, but anyways, here it is.
a) Fill up to the brim. There will be some frothing (esp diesel), so allow it to settle and fill up slowly as it reaches the brim.
b) Reset the trip meter to zero.
c) Drive till it comes down to a reasonable level - maybe below half way mark
d) Fill up to the brim again, and calculate the FE based on trip meter reading and the fuel filled at this stage.

I guess this will be far more accurate rather than using empty to empty approach, where you are at the mercy of the fuel guage!

Quote:

Originally Posted by tony05 (Post 2805457)

Another aspect of this experiment could also be to check the amount of fuel that goes into the tank once the gauge hits red/reserve. Assuming reserve holds X liters and the total capacity of the tank is lets say 40 liters, you'd know how much should go and and compare it to how much actually does go in.

So if X liters is reserve, Y liters is total capacity of the tank, and you know Y-X is how much should go in. The difference between (Y-X) and the actual reading will give you the discrepancy which can then be converted to % to verify with the OP.

All the best! :thumbs up

Quote:

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki (Post 2805730)

devegowda petrol pump is notorious for selling adultrated fuel. I would suggest you to stay away from that pump

thank you sagarpadaki. i'm new to B'lore and yet to explore and learn the city. i'll always remember not to fill in that pump again

Quote:

Originally Posted by msdivy (Post 2805737)

You mean that the 'low fuel' light accurately comes on at the right quantity of fuel. Another assumption is fuel indication is updated accurately at real time. One more is car is always at a flat level to get accurate reading.
Based on my driving experience, none of these assumptions are valid for measuring FE.

msdivy, the objective of this exercise is not to check the FE of the vehicle, but to use the FE in MID to check the accuracy of the fuel dispensed

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macfreak7 (Post 2807857)

Macfreak7, i have already tried that and it fairly adds up to the same thing. But i think the differece or the short filling would be in some 100 mls and this is what i wanted to find out. 'how much ml for every litre?'

We have a diesel powered generator at home and we get diesel in 20 liter Jerry cans(capacity 20.5 Ltrs if filled to the brim)from the fuel station nearest to our house and every time the cans would easily hold Rs 1000/- worth of diesel each. Last month because this fuel station had run out of diesel i had to go to another and there i was surprised to see that the same Jerry cans topped out with Rs 950/- worth of Diesel. That means that for every 20 liters i fill at my regular fuel station i am actually getting only 19 Ltrs of diesel so if i fill the fuel tank of my XUV with 60 Ltrs i am being cheated by 3 Ltrs= Rs 140:Shockked:.
Edit- Just saw the above post 'how much ml for every litre?' That is about 50 ml per liter less

Thanks to this thread this is what i found out myself about the only pump i have been visiting for over a decade now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KSM-Vtec (Post 2808792)

Ex Shell now BP Pump in Bandra
Opposite Shoppers Stop on Linking Road

COMPLETELY UNTRUSTWORTHY...SHOCKING BUT 100% TRUE

After reading this very informative thread i decided to run a check on my trusted pump (BP in Bandra) to satisfy my self with firsthand confirmation. But unfortunately it was a huge shock:mad:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...s-operate.html

This is what i did - Took a 2.25L Coke bottle and asked for petrol. The guys refused immediately and told me to speak to the owner. I had no problems doing that as he knows me by face (i have been filling fuel in all my vehicles there for more than a decade now).

He refuses first but then i request him saying that i need it for another car of mine which is at the workshop and the mechanic needs the fuel urgently. He very reluctantly says that he can not give it in a transparent bottle and hence we will ask one of his guys to get a 4L engine oil can and then give me the fuel in that. I had no issues with that for obvious reasons.

Once i was ok with taking the fuel in a can provided by them the owner was comfortable and instructed one of the attendants to assist me and went back into his office. (lucky me..lol)

So i ask the attendant to dispense exactly 3 liters into the can, make the payment, take the auto generated bill for 3 liters and leave the pump.

Just to be sure that i measure the petrol quantity accurately i had decided to use a 500ml liquid measurement jug from my kitchen. Something like this....
Attachment 941134

THE RESULT WAS SHOCKING....THE CAN HAD ONLY 2.7 LITERS OF PETROL. A full 10% calibration overstatement at the dispenser.

I did a double check on the measurement crosschecking with another similar container but unfortunately no change.

So no matter how attentive you are when at the pump or even if you religiously check the "0" on the dispenser screen before they start you still loose 10% of what you are paying for.

Just to give you an example, this would translate into INR 10,000 approx per year for a person driving around 12,000 kms in a year @ FE between 9-10kmpl. That for sure is a huge loss for anyone. Its equal to free petrol for almost one and a half month in a year. Petrol rates are only increasing. Think about it!

BUT NEVER EVER GO TO THE BP PUMP ON LINKING ROAD OPPOSITE BANDRA SHOPPERS STOP

Quote:

Originally Posted by tony05 (Post 2805457)

On Tuesday morning, on my way to Mangalore the low fuel lights lightened up. the reading at that point was 27,986.

Initially, before the light had lightened at 27,490 kms mark and then i had refilled with 37.18 liters of Diesel.

I then travelled for 496 kms, with an average consumption of 13.4 kmpl

The Petrol Pump Story - How Petrol Pumps Operate-img_0976.jpg

This means that I have consumed 496 / 13.4 that is 37.02 litres, against the original filling of 37.18 litres. I have been short filled by 160 ml, which comes to 4.3 ml for every liter, which we think can be considerable amount. If the discussion going on is believed then it means that the petrol bunks are resorting to adding of addictives to cover their loses

At the end of the day it is the consumer which is loosing out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tony05 (Post 2815557)

You are joking right. how can you measure 160 ml of short fill just by doing tank full to tank full and the low fuel light? as such 4.3 ml per liter is not significant and impossible to measure unless you have high tech measuring equipment.