£10 for 30 miles??

[patooties]

I’ve just put a tenner (bang on a tenner) worth of unleaded fuel into a 1.5l car. It was reading 55 miles left as I did it - after £10 of fuel it rose to 86miles.

does this sound like the petrol station is stealing - or is that really how many miles a tenner of fuel gets? I don’t have that setting visible on my cars dashboard.

WIBU to go back to them or report them or something?

The mpg immediately before you pulled into the petrol station may not be accurate. It depends how your computer is set up.

Starting a car from cold, driving short distances, accelerating up hills etc, slow speed manoevering etc use a far higher mpg than normal motoring and results in a low mpg calculation.

An example, I filled my car up to drive 180 miles to ds' university. At the start the display said I had 375 miles worth of fuel. After 3 hours at steady cruising speed and a more accurate mpg, on arrival it said 235. It had corrected inaccuracies by 40 miles

The miles left is not accurate. I had 70 miles left in my old car many moons ago. Drove 8 miles up the mountain to home. Left home the following morning and broke down 1/2 mile from home and on a bend- no fuel. Luckily the second car to go past me stopped, and towed me to the petrol garage.

Another time (about 15 years ago) I was on the red, put in £10 and my fuel gauge didn't move. I went in to query it and the came out and checked the pump- it was working fine. My car was just thirsty.

With diesel prices these days, I can fill up £10 and it barely moves, if I fill up £20 it will show as 100 odd mile increase but then corrects itself as I'm driving.,I.e I left home the other morning and got to my destination with more miles than I started with.

No one can tell you if it’s right, my last cars miles left would constantly go up and down based on the type of driving we did, could change from 30 miles, to 60miles and then down to 20 miles in a few mins.

My current car is much more accurate but still not an exact science.

TBH £10 fuel isn’t getting you far these days. I saw a meme the other day, guy in front of me at the petrol station put £10 in, where the fuck is he going, the next pump. It wasn’t far wrong.

We don’t do tonnes of miles, I’ve started putting an extra £10 a week in and still running out a day earlier than before.

Miles left is so inaccurate. I do a lot of town driving, when I then go onto a motorway, I can do 50 plus miles on the motorway and the miles left is higher than when I started the journey. Obvs because it’s a diff type of driving, but shows how inaccurate it is

The car's remaining miles calculator is not an accurate way to check.
If you have doubt about it, take a 5 litre empty canister to the station and fill it up.

How do you think they’ve swindled you exactly?

This comment might be relevant

https://www.reddit.com/r/LowStakesConspiracies/comments/1lv1f9i/uk_petrol_stations_make_a_fortune_by_calibrating/

untimelywombat
• 1y ago

They used to get inspected by Trading standards but that was massively reduced years ago. Filling stations self certify now. The modern pumps are very accurate and within the old legislation there are permitted tolerances. The modern pumps are set right up to this permitted tolerance which is well within their working parameters. Is this shafting customers 🤔 talk to your MP, unless the legislation is changed nope. In my 15 plus years at Trading standards there weren't any supported reports of short measures. There used to be in the 80s but not for ages.

You are, £10 is absolutely nothing nowadays. I have a 1.2l Peugeot 2008, only a little tank and it cost £80 to fill up the other day.

The pump will be accurate within a few millilitres. They're regularly calibrated and checked and subject to weights and measures regulations.

There's so many variables in your range indicator, that it's only a guide and likely be way out when you add a relatively small amount of fuel.

I've always just filled my car up each time the light comes on and even then, there's quite a variation in the number of miles I get from a tank (somewhere between 340 and 400) depending on the type of driving I've done on that tank (city, motorway or A roads where you can do quite a lot of driving at 50-60 MPH without much braking or stopping and starting, this is the most efficient).

Have you never driven a car where when you start off, the range is a certain mileage, and when you get to your destination, eg 50 miles later, the range is higher than when you set off, despite having less fuel in the tank, because it was calculating the range based on recent city driving and then you do a single journey? That shows how unreliable the range indicator is.

If your most recent driving is stop-starting to petrol stations and locally, that is heavy on the fuel. The car might be suggesting if you drove in that way e.g. drive a few hundred metres, turn the engine off, put it on again, you would only get 10 miles. If you drive smoothly at 40mph down an A road, you will get miles further.

I filled my car from quarter tank left. £52. A year or so back it would have cost about £35 for the same amount.

Yes mine can fluctuate by around 30 miles depending on whether I'm going up or down hill.

I don't think it is that far out to honest given that the miles left is highly indicative and not an accurate measure. How/where you drive has a massive impact

If I fill it up now it costs about £80 and I get 300 miles or £8 per 30 miles.

The government allow you to claim £7.5 in the fuel bit of the mileage allowance for 30 miles. So again it feels like it is within the right level of tolerance, plus plus the allowances haven't caught up with the recent increases in cost

Think it was the news this week that said average family car now costs £120 to fill. 🤷‍♀️

The money is a red herring. How many litres did you get for your £10 and how many litres does your car use for X miles. It's is the litres/gallons that will help you to figure it out not the money. £10 at a supermarket petrol station will get you further than £10 from a motorway petrol station

They will have weights and measures checks and all stuff calibrated but you think your rough estimate is accurate?

Fuel is expensive. Your ten pounds has bought you not much over a gallon. Depending on the car they do anything from 20 miles a gallon to 50 to a gallon.

I'm not surprised your display is showing so little. What else does it tell you?

Ffs. Literally every single response has told you that miles left is not an accurate gauge. But you still think you're right. What was the point of posting?

I use how many miles it goes up by. Whether correct or not. I put £20 in yesterday and it was on 10. When I got back in it went up to 101. The petrol was £1.72.9 pl.
My car is a tiny little 1.4 petrol corsa!! I think it’s more to do with the cost of fuel OP. We do have a local garage where when you use the pump you don’t feel the fuel or hear it for the first few pounds though, we all avoid that one!!!

This thread is a bonkers to me.
Why have you only put in £10?! Surely you’ll be back tomorrow to put more in. What am I missing??
Who on earth would you ‘report it’ to? And why? You think the pump is lying/rigged to give you a different amount than what was delivered?? why would they (?)/ someone do this? To cheat you of money? Even if you only put £10 in?
for some reason I feel like an alien from outer space reading this thread 😂

How do you do that?

I have a Volvo and I do not think I am using its efficiency correctly.

xc40 mild hybrid

I paid £100 recently and the car claimed it had an extra 300 miles of fuel so it sounds about right.

so just over a gallon, and 30 mpg is a fairly normal fuel consumption, not bad in an urban setting.

who will you report it to?

A guy on our local Facebook page will fill up slowly to a litre to check that it corresponds with the advertised price and then post about the ones that don't, could al ays try that tactic? Not the posting, just the filling to a litre first!

The car guesses the miles left based on your recent fuel usage.
I filled my car up last week, having done almost entirely inner city driving recently. It said 485 miles left. I have since driven about 45 miles, mostly dual carriageway/fast roads and the car says 495 miles left. You should only pay attention to the actual petrol gauge.