Checking the oil level is pointless if the car hasn’t been standing still long enough for it all to drain back into the sump. Likewise checking tyre pressures - meaningless if you’ve driven more than a short distance.
Ditto to all of the above who join me in loving having someone else pump the gas. Jeez, doesn’t it make more sense to have a few employees who are already dressed appropriately for the task than to need every individual motorist to deal with it? I hate having to do it myself when I’m out of state. Plus when there’s no pay-at-the pump option, or you want to pay cash, you have to either leave the car at the pump or go park elsewhere so you can walk into someplace to complete the transaction.
There’s one full service station around here and it’s fine, I know those guys and enjoy visiting with them. I don’t mind pumping my own fuel though.
I hate going to Oregon though. As others have said, the Oregon treatment isn’t some special full service, it just means that some scuzzy, scary motherfucker gets to touch my credit card and my car - yippie skippy.
It wouldn’t be more than an annoyance but try getting gas late at night. It’s been a few years but the last few times I drove through Oregon I had to hunt all over for a station that still had attendants at night. Seems like they’d let folks self-serve after a certain time if they weren’t willing to keep staff 24hrs.
Like Nametag says, that’s probably due to the the difference in taxation.
Essentially the gas stations have to pay the attendants to pump the gas, and you can guarantee that they don’t eat that cost. They almost certainly pass it on to the consumers.
So what you likely see in New Jersey is lower overall prices due to tax differences, but those low prices would be even lower if you weren’t paying for someone else to pump your gas for you.
And the gas station I stopped at wasn’t the Vince Lombardi one, it was one closer to Newark Airport than that, and on the other side of the turnpike.
And yes, the goons that ran it only had like half the pumps running, so there was a huge line.
So what? It is still cheaper. Your complaints seem silly
I’m in central Illinois, and to be honest I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest full-service gas station even is.
When I was in college (in Missouri) there was a full-service station. They sold gas; that was it. They didn’t even have a soda vending machine. I never went there.
There are a couple of gas stations near my house (both of them BP stations) which have one island specifically for “full service”. I’m not sure how much actual service they offer there (other than pumping the gas for you), but both of those stations also have actual garages, offering repair and maintenance services (a rarity for gas stations these days), so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d check the fluids, etc., for you if asked.
What I frequently see at those stations is that someone pulls up to those islands, and then attempts to pump the gas themselves, because (a) they don’t see the Full Service signs, and (b) full service is so outside the norm today here.
I’ll also note that both stations are in areas with a fairly large number of older residents; I imagine that the vast majority of those who take advantage of the full service pumps are senior citizens.
I appreciate the full-serve we get in NJ. I lived in Miami for 10 years, so I’ve got some personal experience on both sides of the full/self serve divide.
The biggest full-serve perk that hasn’t been mentioned is the efficiency. When I lived in Florida, I could count on the following annoyances to happen:
[ul]
[li]poorly maintained pumps (stay-on clips broken, auto-shutoff broken, dead pump)[/li][li]someone left their car to pay inside and/or shop[/li][li]People not “pulling up” at multi-pump spots[/li][li]Line competition (slightly more orderly when attendents control pump availability)[/li][/ul]
In less densely populated areas, I think I’d prefer self-serve.
My sister lives in PA. On the occasions where she needs to travel through NJ, she LOVES it. Anytime she goes into New Jersey she must get gas.
She really likes full service.
Legally-required full service is so dopey. The gas is more expensive because they have to pay all those attendants. Indeed, that’s the point of the law – it’s a stealth tax on motorists to subsidize the state unemployment rate. The fact that the state charges less gas tax so the sticker price of the gas is cheaper is irrelevant – the gas costs more than it would were self-service available.
Moreover, you get all these adults who move away from Jersey who don’t know how to pump their own gas and, because their dad never taught them when they were 13, they’re intimidated to learn. So they end up going to full-service stations when they move somewhere else and completely wasting money on them.
–Cliffy
No, really no. Learning how to pump gas takes exactly one time. It is easy. I and every other resident of the state that travels out of the state do not have a problem learning to do this. We just like the way it is now.
In Oregon, the rule applies to aviation gas also. In Washington, you just taxi to the pump, jump out, swipe your card, and pump gas into your plane yourself.
It was a bit of a surprise the first time I puttered in a Cessna down to Oregon on a night flight. I had to have the evening tower controller ring up the gas truck guy at home, and wait around for him to wake up, come to the airport, bring the gas truck out, and pump the gas for me.
That’s really not true, you know. Gas is generally cheaper in NJ than elsewhere, and that’s with someone pumping it for you. I like that we can’t pump our own gas. It gives me an excuse to be lazy and waited on. 
I live on the New Jersey side of the NJ/PA border and find it humorous when I pass a gas station with higher prices on Route 13 in PA than in my town in NJ right over the bridge, and that I’d have to pay more for the privilege to pump my own gas.
“Dressed appropriately”? You aren’t supposed to point the nozzle at yourself! What do they wear, rubber aprons?
Here’s a thought experiment for you. Let’s say the law changed (there actually was rumblings of this a few years ago) and suddenly NJ had both full and self serve. Do you really think the gas stations would lower the price of self service and just charge what they have been all long on full service (or in fact lower it because they would then be able to pay less people).
Of course not. They will charge for self serve what we currently pay for full service and then put a premium on what we currently get for free.
ETA: to all those people saying we are already paying a premium for the full service. If that were true, then why is our full service price comparable to everyone else’s self service price? Taxation alone can’t account for that.
There used to be one service station right down the street from my house when I was a kid - 20 years ago, bit less, and they would pump your gas. This is in St Louis suburbs. I remember because my mom “doesn’t pump her own gas” and would always go there, the the guys that worked there had those oh so cool change machines on their belts that dispensed all the coins etc. I don’t remember if they did any other services or not though, because the station also had a garage there where they actually worked on cars. They changed to only one service island, then none, then sold to new owners, who failed and it closed recently. My dad and then later I had to start pumping my mom’s gas after that place stopped having service :rolleyes:
I hate getting out when it’s cold and gross or really hot - and both happen here - but I don’t mind doing it myself otherwise. I’ve never had anyone but the bf pump it for me and even he won’t always do it without me asking/begging (and I usually don’t bother unless I have a reason), he’s a baby when it’s cold too! I would not pay much extra for the service and would not drive out of the way for it either, unless there were extenuating circumstances (oh shit forgot to get gas, wearing very nice dress, it’s raining).
First of all, dressed appropriately for working outdoors in the weather. Secondly, wearing something that it won’t matter if it gets dirty.
Coming from a SoCal rattus urbanis (the rat race) where driving resembles an extreme sport and the second-most incompetent, second-rudest drivers* congregate that’s pretty funny. Just because we drive semi-sanely, even politely at times and you’re not used to that doesn’t mean we’re doing it wrong.
SS
*Boston, MA drivers are still in 1st place
There were some “independent” petrol stations advertising “Driveway service” until a couple of years ago in some areas, but ultimately the almost non-existent mark-up on petrol (at least as far as the individual petrol station’s budget is concerned) made it uneconomical to have someone employed to cater to the handful of oldies or disabled folks who couldn’t (or didn’t want to) pump their own fuel, according to a friend of mine who used to work in the petrol business.
Full-service petrol stations were still reasonably common in Christchurch when I left in 2000, but only during normal working hours- you wanted petrol at 7pm at night, you were filling the tank yourself.
I know of one station that offered full service (and I mean the real full service) up until the recession hit. And they did so for free. Since it was a gas and service station, there were always enough guys around that someone could stop every so often and attend to the others. Heck, sometimes, they didn’t even have anyone in the store, as there was an open window where they could watch and see if anyone did anything.
The recession got the gas station part shut down. I’m not even sure the garage is still open.