[This is an old thread, just in case anyone hadn’t noticed ]
It’s not quite true that all current European cars have the fuel cap on the same side. I think it’s usually on the right, but here’s a counterexample: Peugeot 208.
How short are the hoses you talk about?
I work at a full service gas station and many people will drive up to the pump so their car window lines up with the pump display (I guess so they can see the liters and amount of gas). The problem is that if the gas cap is on the other side there’s no way the hose can reach.
Of course if you let the car roll a couple of extra meters so the pump lines up with the gas cap, the hose is long enough to reach to the other side.
So unless the gas station has very very short hoses, some people are simply parking at the wrong spot.
Cars I’ve owned:
1994 Ford Tempo: gas cap on right
1999 Honda Civic (my current car): gas cap on left
1980’s Chevy Pickup: Dual tanks-had a gas cap on both sides. (and a stupid design if you ask me.)
2000 Chevy Express Van (my work truck): gas cap on left (all vans are like this)
My friend’s Pontiac Grand Am has the gas cap on the right.
It’s only gay if there’s eye contact.
Today’s cars have no style when it comes to gas cap location. They used to be hidden in cool places- behind a fold-out tail light ('56 Chevy), under tail fin chrome ('57 Chevy, Studebaker Hawk), in the trunk which had an interior release (VW to '66), or under a piece of C-pillar trim (Toyota). There were others, of course, going unnoticed- because they were hidden.
I haven’t read through all the replies and I bet someone has already mentioned that it would be difficult to standardize the gas cap placement due to many cars being built for left and right hand drive. Take a Japanese built car. They would need different body panels and gas tank piping depending on where the car is to be sold. Things like brake lines may also need to be moved.
I’ve owned cars that had the filler cap hidden behind the rear license plate. I also pumped gas back in the '60s and was confused by cars that had the filler hidden behind the tail light assembly!
This isn’t true in every case. I drive a 2006 Mazda 3 that has a lever release on the floor by the driver door. The filler door is on the passenger side.
I was always told that the filler door was opposite the exhaust.
My Subaru Impreza (2002) was another counterexample. The cap was on the passenger side and its remote-released door would easily freeze in winter. This made for some pleasant moments at the fuel station on cold days: pull the lever, get out (and lock the car, out of habit), walk around, find a frozen fuel door, hit it a few times to try to remove the obstruction, go back to the driver’s side, unlock the car, pull the lever, go back to see it if worked… After a few iterations I would be banging on it like a madman. And you couldn’t really see the door’s status through the rear-view mirror, or course.
Yeah, but there aren’t a whole lot of zombie jokes to be made about gas caps.
zombies don’t need much gas.