I listened to a chap in Morrisons the other day saying the pump was wrong, he was insistent and wanted to speak to the manager, I was just a customer so I paid and left as you do.

MrsCC mentioned that our local Morrisons pumps were only giving around 16 ltrs for £20.00 worth of unleaded fuel so if my workings are right that's about 0.50p short for every £20.00 refill and then I see this post on FB tonight which might explain things. It was taken at a BP garage yesterday but who's to say it's not happening at other fuel stations, so from now on I'll be checking that first litre and the costs just be be sure I'm being charged the correct amount.



BP garage on Huntingdon road, Girton, Cambridgeshire.

I think you have to use caution around the price at 1ltr as there is a reason for the pumps all saying minimum vend of 2ltrs, I seem to remember it being something to do with the initial amounts not being fully correct, plus there are roundings involved in the figures. Better to check at 10ltrs and if wrong there then there is an issue.

That's a fair point, taking a reading at 10 ltrs might be a more accurate way to measure the fuel so I'll update and look forward to hearing other people's feedback on their fuel stations.

I'm more surprised at seeing it at 123.9 a litre

It's about 127.9/129.9 around here depending where you go.

Fuel pumps are calibrated every so often and possibly and randomely checked by Trading Standards (well, they were 25 years ago, as I used to work at a petrol station), so if found to be deliberately set wrong they would be fined huge sums, so I don't think any pumps would be set up to mislead and con people.

Its about £1.20 unleaded £1.24 Diesel in Kettering
no idea what super is i never check, just put it in, at about £30 a go!

Super is £1.25 here, £1.20 for Unleaded / £1.24 for the dark juice.

I thought all pumps were checked once a year by the "fair measure" brigade?

Couldn't the fuel pump above be explained by rounding? Not sure how they work but I would assume:

If 1.0049 litres were dispensed at 123.9p, then that would be £1.24507 and the pump would round to £1.25?

And it's well known that *all* petrol pumps have a little tweak in them so it's impossible to get an exact twenty quid!

It says £20 at the pump but by the time you reached the counter to pay it's clicked over to 20.01p

Well, you need to get to Sainsbury then. They have updated the petrol station near me and before you pick the nozzle up, you can specify how much money you want to spend and it will give you that much and not a penny more

Dear Sainsbury's,

I want the tank filling and I don't care how much it costs.

Love, Neil

Dear Neil,

As you dont care about fuel cost's, would you like to open an account with us?

It's very easy,just send a cheque (min £500) to us and you get a FREE fuel card to use at all our petrol stations.

If you have any further questions please dont hesitate to ask after we have cashed your first payment.

Regards Miss Sainsbury.

Each litre is £1.23 and the petrol is dispensed at 1/100 of a litre, each 100th is 1.23p

Therefore £1.25 could be more than 1litre but less than 1.01 litres.

I'm confused Mick

.01 litre would not round up 2 pence.

It'll be worse than that; the flow sensor almost certainly doesn't give an exact number of pulses per litre.

If the guy that wrote the software doesn't know his stuff and doesn't account for integer rounding and error distribution, you could easily see it a couple of pence out on any given litre (though I'd hope he gets within the half percent or so); if he *really* doesn't know his stuff then he used floating point maths and screwed it completely.

Tried this last night at the local Shell. 1 litre gave 1.21 (currently 120.9 p/l) so then put in 10 litres and this was 12.09 so there pumps are correct

I'll be checking at my local Morrison on the way home.

+1

Although I used our local Asda filling station.

I totally forgot to check at the Morrisons pumps the other night but this was my local independent this morning.
As you an see these are pretty spot on, They're not new pumps so you'd think the 1 litre reading would be off more in comparison to the newer electronic design.

Surely the pump is always going to charge you correctly for what it thinks has flowed. All it's doing is multiplying the quantity it has sensed flow by the cost - it can't get that wrong.

The question is how good are the flow sensors? The only way to measure that is if you know your tank capacity exactly, or you take the fuel out and weigh it or something. I suspect the pumps are pretty accurate though.

You can just fill up one if those green 5 litre cans and see how it compares.

I topped up the truck and held it at 100 litres. It was correct.

That's nothing. I topped up my cruise ship. Held it at 10000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. Once the bunkering was complete the gauge was only 1p out, which I thought was fair.

Toby, pics or it never happened

Did you confront the cashier about it. I'd have kicked off

This was doing the rounds at work on Wednesday, starting with a girl in HR who received it through Facebook, and it referred to the same petrol station in Girton. I did initially think it was somebody who has an axe to grind against that particular petrol station and is good with Photoshop but it seems it has more legs than. Not a bad practice for everytone to check such things when filling up - I did so yesterday at my local Shell and it was spot-on at 1 and 10 litres.

I can do better than that Joe.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yc2xsyTy-9k

Please excuse my accent. American isn't one of my better ones.

Let's hope the petrol station forecourt people don't take issue with you taking photos, aren't you supposed not to use mobile phones?

Morrisons this morning was 2p over on 10 litres, I've left my number for the manager to call me so I can go in and show him the receipt.

I didn't take a picture after having my knuckles smacked by Dave the other day