Yesterday my coworkers (we’re in Washington State) were talking about people from Oregon who don’t know how to pump their own gas. (In Oregon, it is against the law to pump your own gas–you must have an attendant do it for you.) That reminded me that it’s been a decade since I’ve seen a full service gas station. Are there any left around you? Do you miss full service? And if you’re in a state where self service is not allowed, do you wish it was?
I hate full service gas stations. You spend too much time at them to get gas pumped and nobody is messing with my vehicle that pumps gas. This was covered within the last two months in another thread about this.
Over here, the full service stations cost the same as the self service stations. So if it’s too busy, you can just start pumping your own gas and when the attendant comes over they can take over and it doesn’t cost you any more.
It doesn’t really matter to me - if it was back in the day when the pumps didn’t automatically shut off when your gas tank was full I’d go to full serve, but they’ve made it pretty idiotproof.
I don’t like self serve where you can’t pay at the pump.
I absolutely love it. It’s rainy and drizzly most of the time here, and I just love not even having to get out of the car to get gas. It does get annoying at larger stations when the lines can get long because there’s not enough attendants, I figure life isn’t perfect.
I don’t really have a use for it. I lived in Oregon for about 6-7 years, but never owned a car there, so…not sure if I’d appreciate it or not. I suspect it would just slow me down.
I visited Oregon once with a rental car, & had to gas up. It was weird. I had to get out of the damn car anyway to put in my credit card, so it’s not like it saved me much effort to have someone else pump the gas.
I haven’t seen a full service station since the 80s, aside from one odd station that didn’t even really look like a gas station somewhere in rural Maryland in 2005. I was just telling people at work, imagine trying to explain full service gas stations to someone that’s maybe college age.
Full-service pumps are for when you are too hung over to do it yourself.
I can live with it, but I prefer to pump my own fuel.
This was more of a problem with a previous vehicle I owned, where the filler must have been poorly designed, and the automatic cut-off would keep cut offing after only a little fuel had been pumped in if the nozzle wasn’t positioned just so. I usually had to get out of the vehicle and reposition it myself so I could get a full tank, so in that case the full-service was pretty pointless.
Actually full-serve stations are, while not particularly common, not unknown on Long Island (NY) - they are often located in clusters, so maybe it’s some sort of ‘service competition’ thing.
Here in NJ it’s all we have, full service.
It’s a good thing. I’d hate to see people in their seventies-plus out there pumping gas.
I refuse to buy gas in Oregon. I’ll fuel up just before the border and make a speed-run to either Washington or California. I hate full-service!
Oregon drivers suck donkey balls, too. They drive worse than those from Jersey, fer Og’s sake!
Tell them that it’s like a MacDonald’s drive-thru, only for gas.
They barely exist around the Cincinnati area, and I haven’t used one since I’ve been driving (about 25 years now, in Texas, Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky). I remember them from way back when riding along with my old man though.
I wouldn’t want anyone to pump my gas for me. I enjoy the process.
Absolutely. I lived in California my whole life until six years ago, when I moved to Oregon. I would much rather be able to do it myself and be on my way, rather than having to wait around for the attendant when I arrive, and again when the pump shuts off. It’s usually not that bad time-wise, only a couple of minutes are added onto the gas-buying experience; but it’s still annoying sometimes.
I remember stopping at a gas station in Oregon years ago. When I went inside to pay, the designated pump jockey was apparently attending to other business, so the guy at the counter told me I could go ahead and do it myself. I remember being kind of amused because his tone of voice suggested that I was getting a real treat!
I worked as one in the 80’s.
To this day, there’s a ton of stuff people should be doing that they don’t do:
Air pressure in tires
Oil level
Transmission fluid level
Brake fluid level
Radiator water overflow bottle level
Wiper washer water
And there’s some little things that improve their driving experience that they don’t know how to do:
Cleaning windows/mirrors
Changing wiper blades
Nowadays, if you want these things checked, it’s part of a $20-40 service visit.
I grew up and learned to drive in South Africa, where it is all full service. I kind of prefer to do it myself, so I like the United States (with the exception of those few states) better. On the other hand, the attendants would pretty regularly check your oil and wash your windows while pumping gas, so I used to have a much cleaner windshield 
I miss true full service, as described by Driver8. Tires filled, oil checked, fluids topped off, windshields cleaned, ashtrays and wastebaskets emptied, free maps offered, hubcaps wiped, running boards dusted…
When was that sort of full service station last common? When I lived on the MA/RI border from 1995-1997, almost all the stations were full service (I had to relearn how to pump gas when we moved back to NH…hey, I’d only had my license eighteen months before we moved there) but “full” simply meant that you weren’t allowed to pump your own gas. They didn’t check oil or anything else.