First thing I do every payday, is go to the gas station with the wife’s car.
She will let it run empty if I do not fill it.
Then I get mine out, and go fill it.
I try not to let mine get below 1/2 tank in the winter, but since the price of gas went up, I just fill it on payday. That reminds me, I need to take the gas can in for a fill up this week.
Most Walmart’s offer $0.03 off per gallon if you pay for your gas with a Walmart Gift Card - which is equivalent to cash for them. Plus, most Murphy’s Gas stations (Wal-Mart owned) tend to be the cheapest gas around us - so that’s an additional savings that you don’t always calculate.
My mom and I keep our gift cards in our purses, and then throw $20 - $50 on them every few weeks.
For me, it’s a nice thing because even when I’m cash poor, I always have the gift card on me for gas and incidentals.
I suppose if my budget were insanely tight I might feel compelled to do this, but I make enough money so that I can afford to pay for the privilege of not waiting in a line like that; I’ll gladly pay a dollar more somewhere else that doesn’t have a wait.
I fill up the tank if I think the price is at a local minimum (i.e. the price won’t go down in the near future). Otherwise I put in $15-$20 worth.
My car’s fuel sensor is busted, so the gauge isn’t accurate. I suppose I could put down the money to get it replaced, but for the last several years I’ve simply tracked gas by filling the tank every time I gas up and setting the trip meter to 0. When it hits about 300 miles, it’s time to fill up again.
I’m strange, I only put in enough gallons to get where I going. I know it takes about 8 a week to get to work and back, so I’ll put in 8 gallons at the beginning of the week. The only time I fill up is when I go on a trip that’s going to be more than 2 hours.
Bay Area. It is not universal. The Valero stations near me, which used to be almost as cheap as the one I mentioned do it. Even worse, the one closest to me built a car wash right before the recession, and offer a discount for using that - which makes their signs about the most complicated I’ve ever seen. (They started just giving the carwash/cash prices, but people complained when the price on the pump came up different from he price on the sign.)
They have
Car wash/credit
Carwash/casj
No carwash / credit
No carwash / cash
I more or less can figure it out when I walk my dog past it. It is on the corner of two busy streets, and there is no way of figuring out the prices without driving into the station without risking life and limb.
I get cashback on my Discover for using it, so for me using the card is cheaper then using cash - plus I don’t have to go inside to pay up front and then to get my change.
There was no option for “usually fill it”, but that would be me. If gas is $4 a gallon and I’m short on cash that month, I might not fill it.
Some stations in South Carolina too, aside from the Murphy stations at WalMart. Most that have the “Cash/Debit Discount” drop $0.06/gal.
I always fill up, on all my vehicles. I cart gas from the roadside station to the house every week to keep the boat and ski filled up. Considering the amount of gas I go through on the water, I am NOT paying the lakeside convenience fee of $0.50 to $1.00/gallon.
Fill it every time.
I don’t get the half-full in the winter thing. For me that would mean getting gas more often in the damn cold.
If I’m at the Costco, I’ll fill it up all the way. If I can’t make it out there, but I need some gas, I’ll just put in enough gas to tide me over until I can make it out to the Costco.
I fill it up, almost every time.
Somewhat humourous gas-related story - when we bought my husband’s car, we were driving around one evening and we ran out of gas. We sort of looked at each other, and discovered that:
We’re not running out of gas people - this is the only time in 10 years this has happened.
I fill er up as well.
Trying to get a handle on the mileage/range of my new car I actually ran out of gas a month or so back for the first time in a couple of decades. Fortunately it was only a mile or 2 from home, and my wife bailed me out. But from then on I figure it is just as easy to fill the top half as the bottom half!
Saw CW’s post. My new car did not have a low fuel light either. But I had done the math and was sure I had at least 50 miles left!
I generally pay cash for gas, so in order not to have to make a second trip into the station, I just make my purchase in whatever multiple of $10 that will get me closest to full without going over. Once in a while, I do fail in my estimate and have to go back in for change.
I always top it off, which typically runs about $3, for about 7-8 pints.
My car? A motorcycle, natch. A Prius is a gas-guzzler compared.
I’ve heard two reasons for not letting your tank get below half in the winter.
The first is that water can condense out in your mostly empty fuel tank, and then you have a greater chance of your fuel line freezing. Now that gas in Minnesota is 10% ethanol, that doesn’t seem so big a deal, but you can buy no-ethanol gas in North Dakota, so I guess that still applies there.
The second is that you want to have plenty of fuel so that you can run the engine to keep warm when you put your car in a ditch on the first day of a three-day blizzard. This is still valid, at least in my part of the country.
Anyway, I always fill up at half in the winter, quarter in the summer. That’s how Ispolkoms have been doing it for at least 60 years.
Being immersed does nothing. Fuel cools the pump by flowing through it. As long as there’s fuel in sender’s reservoir, the pump is being sufficiently cooled. Basically it’s the same as, if you’re car is running, it’s okay. Kind of the same goes for people that worry about water or sediment in their tanks. All of the sediment is already in the reservoir already; there’s no point in worrying about sediment on a low tank. Water, though, can be a problem. It usually concentrates and floats right to the reservoir, whether you have a full tank or empty tank. Sometimes it will mix with the gasoline ('cos gas ain’t 100% pure gas), and on a super low tank, you’ll get the water into the pump, and your car will run like crap. (Cite: ex-fuel tank engineer, but have decided that body-in-white is more interesting.)
It’s still relatively new in Michigan, and there are still some stations that don’t discriminate (I prefer those). However, I remember seeing it in Indiana all the time between Michigan and Illinois. I worried a lot more about my pennies back then, so always made it a point to fill up before I left Michigan!