greendwarf said:
I understand the intellectual pleasure in the challenge to get more fuel into the car than designed - much like me wanting extract the maximum EV (and "free" coasting) miles. However, is all the time spent faffing about when stopped, to extend time between fill-ups, worth it? At least I'm still moving when indulging my perversion.
:lol:
So, think about the area between Gilroy, CA and Santa Clarita, CA as a sort of "no stop zone" where no gas stations exist. This isn't the case in reality, of course, but in practice, the gas prices there tend to be crappy compared to the prices in the urban areas, because the stations along I-5 know that there are a lot of travelers without a lot of options and that they don't have a lot of competition when people run low. The worst offenders are the stations in Grapevine, CA (right before the hill climb) and around the Nees Ave/Firebaugh exit, where there are only 1-2 stations. Prices there can be 50 cents to $1 above those in the urban areas. In Grapevine, it's the last place to fill up before climbing, and anyone who's low there really MUST fill up before going up the hill. But even in places like Kettleman City or Lost Hills, prices can be about 20-30 cents/gallon above those in the urban areas, which is why I simply do not patronize those stations, period.
In everyday driving, IF there were a station that was directly off my regular route AND had the best price, I would never top off. But, the best prices tend to be at stations that require at least a 5 mile roundtrip drive, which takes around 10-15 minutes total to make the round trip and fill up. Therefore, it's generally worth it for me to top off and get an extra 2.5-3.5 gallons in. The only time in the last few months when I did NOT top off was after arriving in Anaheim in late December, because I knew that after whatever minimal driving around Southern California I did, I'd have to top off again before leaving.
jaapv said:
I just tried the top-up-after-click method. I managed to squeeze an extra 2.9 litres in. And the car reeked of petrol for the next twenty km. Luckily I was not on solo-EV. Not advisable, nor very useful
I'm surprised that you only got an extra 2.9L in. You should be able to get at least an extra 7L in there, if not 8-10L. I think you probably didn't get to the point where the nozzle hole was sitting under the liquid level
and the liquid level was draining at less than 1cm/minute.
I've never had the
car smell like gas. I
have had my hands smell like gas, which in turn makes the car smell like gas, IF I screw up and the gas spills out, and there's nowhere to wash my hands before I get back in the car. When you do this often, you get better at it. It took about 3-4 tries on my old car before I got the hang of it, and now, I rarely ever spill gas when topping off. I used to spill a lot more often when I tried the squeeze handle, wait for it to click off, then remove the nozzle and look into the filler cap method of topping off, prior to my friend telling me that I could get it to dispense, AND watch it at the same time, by simply pulling back the vapor recovery nozzle with one hand while operating the lever with the other.
