Or not at all.
Three times in a reasonably long (~1.2M miles) driving career, I’ve driven away from the pump without my gas cap: Once in Oregon, twice in New Jersey.
To assuage your guilt, try giving the attendant a tip. Even just a dollar or two will be appreciated. Most drivers don’t tip, so you’ll stand out. If you or your car are at all distinctive, the attendant will start to remember you from your previous visits and you may get better service. Plus, besides having to work out in the rain/snow/whatever, they are breathing gas fumes all day. Not really all that healthy.
Personally, I hope it becomes automated in the future. This would maintain efficiency without having to get out.
Of course, if the cars are also automated, maybe they’d go fill up while I was elsewhere.
Although admittedly when it’s busy or really bad weather you have to wait a minute or two, I have very rarely waited an inordinate amount of time for an attendant to come and pump and then later come back to get paid. For the extra minute or minute and half every week or so that that I might save I would rather not be bothered to have to do it.
Yreaka, CA to Vancouver, WA is 331 miles. Surely your car can go that far on a tank? Mine can go over 500 at highway speed.
I’m personally a fan of full service and am glad to live in a more populated county where full service will remain the norm. Having lived in self serve states for much of my life, it’s been a delight to not have to fuss with it. I’m rarely in a hurry, so if I have to wait a little for the attendant now and again, no biggie.
I’m perfectly capable of pumping my own fuel. Did it for years. However, I’m ashamed to admit that after having lived here for awhile and then traveling to Washington State for a business conference, I was driving happily down the road after refueling, as someone passed me on the left-hand and gave a frantic wave, gesturing for me to check my fuel door. Yes, it was wide open with the gas cap tucked into its little holder affixed to the door. :eek: :o :smack:
The downside of full service: A friend of mine recently stopped to have his truck fueled up before heading home after an evening at the pub. Part way home, the truck conked out and he was stuck by the side of the road. He’s a mechanic, so it didn’t take him long to work out that the full-serve attendant had filled his gas-fueled truck with diesel.
The last time I filled up in Oregon, they didn’t fill it up… like at all. The guy took my card, I opened the gas door, etc. Then I wandered off to take a piss, and when I returned the gas door was closed and the attendant was elsewhere, so I left. A mile down the road I realize they didn’t put a single drop in.
And Green Stamps, which you then licked and stuck in a little booklet so when you got 43 little booklets full, you could get a thermos.
This does not seem to be nearly as true as it used to be. I always used to try to fill up in NJ as I traveled along 84 from my home in NY state to Scranton and (usually) points west. Exit 1 in NY on that road is essentially right on the NY-NJ state line, and there are about seven gas stations on the Jersey side waiting to capture the $$ of NY residents and others. In the last couple of years, though, the price differential has just about disappeared. Most recent trip the NJ prices were indistinguishable from those in NEPA and just about exactly the same as in my home county in NY.
Now if you are in NYC or Rockland or Westchester there are extra taxes that make NJ gas a relative bargain even now, thus the long lines on the Palisades (last time I drove that, which was probably last summer, the difference was noticeable and the lines lengthy). But that’s just the difference between NJ and the immediate metro for NYC and doesn’t seem to pertain to the rest of the region. End of an era perhaps?
I don’t get you Americans sometimes. You guys have drive-through restaurants, drive-through coffee shops, drive-through banks, drive-through massage parlors for all I know, and yet for the one thing where it actually makes sense for it to be drive-through, you hail it as a great moral victory when you can’t do it. Like, do you want to stay in your cars, or do you want to get out? Make up your minds!
Here on the West Coast of Asia, our gas stations have at least one island with self-service, and another island with full service. Price is the same for both, by law. You don’t want to get out, someone will pump your gas; you don’t want to wait, you pump your own. Everyone’s happy.
The difference is that those are (except the bank) things that almost always involve waiting for another person to serve you, whatever option you choose. The gas station is a choice between getting out and doing it yourself or staying in your car and waiting for someone else to get around to doing it.
It would be like if there was a bank with a drive-through teller window but only a walk-up ATM. Lots of people would prefer the ATM even though it meant getting out. It’s not that they wouldn’t like a drive-through ATM, it’s just not there at that bank. And suburban banks aimed at car-based customers do have drive-up ATMs, but the equivalent for a gas station would be really complicated and expensive.
A lot of modern cars have small gas tanks.
My '75 Chevy and my '96 Buick can both go right about 200 miles of city driving on a tank, despite the fact that the Chevy gets 12mpg and the Buick gets 21.
Well, we should have automated drive-through gas stations, that work something like those robotic trash collection trucks we have now.
The owner of a chain of gas stations I worked for was in the habit of demonstrating to the attendants how customers should be served. A customer he chose to serve wanted a full tank … when the tank was full the flow of gas stopped automatically. He took the payment from the customer and wished him a pleasant journey and the customer drove off … the problem was that the nozzle was still attached to the car. The hose stretched and the nozzle snapped off.
Whenever my check engine light comes on it’s always a few days after I’ve been in NJ. I’ve learned not to sweat a big repair bill, not to even get out the code scanner, but when I stop I open the fuel door & tighten the cap, & you know what, the sensor resets itself & no more problem. I’ve never had a problem tightening my fuel cap.
I’ve also noticed that the attendants in NJ don’t like to deal with change. Invariably this means that the auto shutoff clicks off at $x.05 or $x.10, which means they try & round it up to the next dollar, which means that at least 25¢ of gas isn’t going into my tank but down the quarter panel. It’s not the 25¢ so much as I’m paying you to spill caustic stuff on my paint, & at most, all you’ll do is [del]wipe it off[/del] smear it around with one of those scratchy blue paper towels? :mad:
OTOH, the Wawa in Flemington, NJ was washing rear windows of the cars getting gas, w/o being asked. When I asked the guy about it & how they were keeping the water water (it was 9°), he stated that they were using the (anti-freeze) windshield washer fluid. I was shocked to see anything close to real, genuine, old-fashioned full service.
I understand why some people would prefer full service. But to have a state law which imposes civil and/or criminal punishment for pumping your own gas seems silly to me.
So, does OR or NJ not have travel plazas like Flying J or Pilot?
Oregon has them. With attendants.
Ditto NJ. Have filled up in such many times. Big travel plazas, over a dozen pumps, two attendants.
Think about how bad it was in the days when gasoline contained lead. 
That was why I asked. These places have about 20 pumps, most of which are occupied at most hours of the day. In NJ or OR, do you just have to wait until a live person is available?