The hose steals 2 PSI

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There is a thing in UK called Customs and Excise, the Govt. Legal department who deal with Weights and Measures, (AKA Weight-Watchers...?...) and Police.

When it comes to measured Gallons, they are the only people legally allowed to "Investigate" Petrol stations for how much short they are selling....
The legal standpoint is you are allowed to over-dispense, but not under-dispense, same as Buses are allowed to run late but NEVER leave early from a timed stop, there are legal requirements, if you suspect breaking of the law, you MUST contact police.
If you start taking measures into your own hands, you become Vigilante, and in the case of Customs and Excise, thats breaking the law.
You MUST contact authorities who will be immediately on the case as they do not like vigilante action....

In Many pubs, if you ask for a glass of wine and the measure states 125cl, you will probably get 126 to 130 cl, as again, under dispensing is against the law.
The only legal under measure is the royal Pint.
The Pint is a measure of one pint including Head....
The foamy bit at the top is included in the measure of the pint, however, there are legal measures of how tall that can be, in the case of Guinness, its 11mm max.


Now, we have already on these boards discussed the probability of Temperature affecting the volume of gas, in that the myth was its better to draw Petrol in the morning rather than at night.... so, there is an already possible variance in the amount of petrol per 100ml dependant on weight....
I will come back to this at the end of my post.

So, Weights and Measures inspectors dispense a measured gallon of fuel and measure it right there and then.
(It then gets pored back into the tank...)
If you take a gallon dispensed into a petrol tank take it away 10 mile and measure it, if you transported it in a container that was hot/cold/in a hot/cold boot, ya think the volume may change?...

Plus what are you using to measure it with?...
Weights and Measures use a calibrated gallon.
Is your calibrated?... in the same way Weights and Measures calibrate?...

Its a legal minefield, and if you do catch a petrol station breaking the law by under dispensing, withholding that information is illegal, "Harbouring a criminal", you may be actually liable for charges if you do not report it immediately.

I am not expecting to be 100% accurate on all current legislation, I do not hold a Licence for any individual public house at this time, and I have let my ADR dangerous goods licence lapse, but above are a few pointers on law that were in place recently.(As in the time of posting?..)
(If you are watching this on the repeat on Dave, it may have changed, we may all be dead, or Dara O'Brien and Stephen Fry may run the country...)
(You may need to be a resident of UK and have that channel, and have watched QI, Mock the Week, and Have I got news for You to get that?...)



Right, I said I would return to pumping petrol in the morning.
If its a cold day, the pump will be cold, its a physical measure, by Metallic components, that will shrink when cold, and shrink to the same temp as the liquid...
So the colder it is, the "smaller" the aperture measuring your cc of petrol..... thus less volume.....
So I am suggesting that measuring Petrol on a COLD day will get you LESS petrol.....
I dont know how accurate that is, but it kinda makes sense thinking it through.

In Germany, most fuel stations offer air for free. Not that long ago, all fuel stations offered free air, now more and more automatic pumps with coin slot appear.

What's really annoying are the vacuum cleaners. You'll never know if they properly work before you insert at least 50 cents and then they often shut down before you have managed to clean a quarter of your car.

Also those car wash boxes tend to rip you off. Before you notice, you had dropped in more money than just buying a ticket for a fully automatic car wash. And the machine which changes your money gives you the correct coins for the car wash but not for the vacuum cleaner. Usually the car wash box takes €1 coins and the vacuum cleaner 50 cent coins. The vacuum cleaner also accepts €1 coins, too but won't give you more time nor your money back.

the only limitation in our wash is that the vacuums take quarters (25 cents) while the automatic wash gives dollar coins in change. all our other pay stations accept all bills, and the automatic accepts credit cards. - but none of the do it yourself bays give change. the change machine gives quarters, which are accepted at all machines. maybe if we ever have to replace the machine, I will push to get one that also changes dollar coins. (it doesn't do so right now)

we have all the taps locked. people were bringing buckets and filling them to wash their car from the bucket - and many were not using coin operated services at all. I forget the exact rate, but it is x dollars for x minutes, with, if I recall right, additional time added per additional coin. (which means if it is 4 minutes, and it is going to take you 5 minutes to wash your car, as long as you pay before the time runs out, you don't have to waste 3 minutes)

people who think car washes inherently make a lot of money, have not seen their utility bills - or the price tag on their equipment. I understand why so many car washes are in poor condition.

This doesn't really work with the gas station pumps anyway.

The classic portable tanks contain not much air, when someone else had used it, there often isn't enough pressure left to check all of your tires and you need to recharge it which takes about 5 minutes. A totally flat spare tire will also exhaust the portable tank and you need to recharge at least once.

And the fully automatic pumps won't give you any air if there is no pressure present. To inflate a flat tire, you need to connect the hose and then hold the buttons on the pump for a small rush of air to initialize pumping. If there is still no back pressure, it takes a while until the pump tries again when you keep pressing the buttons.

I like the portable tanks. Very convenient and reliable. The problem is that they became stolen too often.

Not even the pumps for trucks come even close. Usually the maximum pressure of a common pneumatic system is 8 bar, 250PSI is somewhere around 18 bar! Rule of thumb, a large scuba tank gives you roughly one good inhale per bar. So using a fuel station compressor will give you a minute or two of diving time at best.