matlow

Just wondered how many people have had to read the manual to get the petrol in?

i had to read the manual to find the petrol cap on a merc sprinter work hired for me to move some servers about.

felt like a right **** after walking around the van for 5 minutes

David_Wallis

opening the bonnet on a focus / fiesta?

angrynorth

Think yourself lucky...

Pulled up at a petrol station a while back in a beautiful navy blue Delta Integrale LHD. All eyes in the station on the car.

Filled up, paid, got back in the passenger seat thinking it was the drivers side

I even laughed at myself, felt a right plonker. Tried to hide my shame by pretending I was looking for something on the floor. I could see a couple of people who were aware of my stupidity killing themselves laughing.

farmer1

PMSL

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

ROFLMAO Never did that one in my 'grale.

On my old puma I'd been driving a hire car and forgotten that the fuel filler was on the wrong side on the puma and made myself look silly I was too far away to stretch it across and look cool

matlow

ahh the bliss of knowing i'm not alone!

farmer1

My mate had the best one of thinking his scooter was running low, he filled it up with a grand total of 70ps worth of fuel.

Brendan Hughes

Worked in a computer company in 91 as a boxshifter in the warehouse, so came in in scrappy jeans (age 21). Borrowed a salesman's new MR2 for the lunch hour as he was nice to me, but then found that fuel gauge was in the red. Pulled up at the petrol station, took almost 10 mins to find the little button under the seat to open the flap. Must have looked like I'd stolen it.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Classic!

RichWalk

Once(yrs ago) hired a car off my bro to pick up a major client from OZ, filled the car up at heathrow, couldnt start it, checked bleedin everything, huge que behind me-10 mins on the phone to the dealership................ yep immobiliser.......... bit of a techy step up for a guy driving a 65' Beetle

Apparition

My ex once owned a Saab. It had the silly habit of locking itself if you wandered off away from it .... we were at a petrol station once with a Pizza Hut incorporated and were ordering pizzas, he wandered in to see how long we'd be and ....yes the stupid car locked itself, keys inside.
Whilst we were busily trying to gain entry with the help of a coat hanger a sporty looking car sped into the forecourt and 4 guys in baseball caps got out. 'Boy racers' I thought. How wrong can you be? They were special cops and wandered over to us, asked if we were having problems, and hey presto...... the car was opened in seconds, they paid for their petrol and away they sped into the night! I'm a bit careful around boy racers in understated high powered cars these days.

Brit_in_Japan

I remember my first trip to the US with a couple of mates. We hired a car and set out on our big road trip from New York up towards Boston and across to Niagra. When the low fuel light came on we pulling into a self service "gas" station. I popped the filler car, lifted the nozzle, stuck it in the filler and squeezed the hose trigger. Nothing happened. Looked on the pump for some button to push but there was nothing. Tried again but still no fuel. A garbled american voice provided no clues.

So now my mates get out of the car and start having a go at me for being useless, "how difficult can it be?". So I let the first have a go. Lift nozzle, put in filler, squeeze, nothing! Of course my other mate insists on trying too as if 2 grown men don't know how to use a petrol pump! Of course he fails miserably too. So all three of us, (two of whom are engineers) are scratching our heads and wondering what on earth the problem is. Eventually this spotty kid comes out and simply lifts the "latch" on the petrol pump (in the US the mechanical interlocks are not all spring loaded like in the UK). The kid must have thought we were right simpletons.

2000 sport

iTrader: (1)

took me a good 10 mins to figure out the bonnet on the RS focus.. (on the forecourt too.. people looking at me like i had nicked it)

StickyMicky

my mate took his bird to the chippy, she ran in for his tea and came out and got in the wrong car, she then kicked off because she said " whats the matter, why havent you pulled away you fool" and looked over to see sum strange man looking a bit dumbfounded

druddle

i have done exactly the same thing looking for the fuel filler on a sprinter.

NotoriousREV

I've had the same exact experience, the young girl in the gas station had to come over and show us

Brendan Hughes

Tried to tell my wife about this thread, and she said "what, America?" I'd forgotten the time when we'd hired supposedly a small car, but when we arrived they only had a brand new Toyota 4Runner jeep, in white with blacked out windows (and Baaad-*** **** in graphics down the side??), so they let us have that for the price of the compact. Said they'd only had it a week, and it was their absolute pride and joy of the fleet. After a few hours on the motorway, we pulled in to refuel - and then I realised I didn't know if it was petrol or diesel. All I knew was I was in the middle of nowhere and Things Would Go Horribly Wrong if I picked the wrong one. There were no clues. Nothing on the dash, nothing in the manual, no badge on the back, nothing on the filler cap, and even when I tried to open the bonnet to look for spark plugs (there were none), some helpful Buck came over and said "oh yeah, they usually have the spark plugs underneath." I must have asked 10 different passers-by for their opinions. EVENTUALLY we got it right - I think it was the filler neck diameter that gave it away - but it took AGES to work out.

Brought it back to the Hicksville family-owned hire co., and decided to tell them about the confusion to save some future customer. Started to recount the story, you should have seen their faces as they waited to hear if I'd screwed the engine on their new baby...

FrenchBoy

Yep, me too!
That and the fact that they make you pay for your 'gas' before letting you have any - so cue standing at the pump for ages 'glaring' at the cashier only to be told this over the main tannoys! - doh!

Dream Weaver

The Focus thing got me even after we'd bought it, and I had been told by the dealer how to open it.

ajm

LOL! I would have shoved my nose in the filler neck and had a good sniff! Still embarrassing if anyone sees, but less so than having the tank pumped out!

ian_sadler

That's the one that got me in L.A. lol

47 NAT

Mine has to be when I was working for Nissan. I decided one day after work to take a Cherokee Jeep that came in p/x back to see what it was like. I got to the petrol station by the John Nike centre in Bracknell and spent ages looking for the fuel filler realease ...only to find it didnt have one and it was a manual pull out one. My daughter almost wet herslef laughing as well as the staff that were in there .....

I dont think anything could top the Intergrale one, that is funny as ****

Nath

Chip

Me too

Chip.

mo,s scoobymonster

mine must have to be got my bros new vw passat took it for a drive pulled up in the filling station looking everywhere down by the seat as to where release cap was even got out tugging at the flap thought may be manual even went searching on the passenger side like a merc. then after 10 mins looked it was besides the handbrake what a stupiid place to put it dont you think

yoza

Yes, I look stupid on a forecourt.

Harry_Boy

And me.....

NotoriousREV

Oh and there was the one time I high-sided myself off my moped after locking up the back brake and another time when I dropped my GSXR600 next to the pump, I'd forgotten about those

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Put me down for the Sprinter van posse too

Also I have brimmed the scoob twice with Optimax to find my wallet is at home Luckily both times this has happenned at the local one down the road, at least the staff know me personally now and they didn't use my mobile to make dodgy calls either whislt I was away

philc

had to think hard about this one; driving one of the company runabouts, a Holden Barina (about the size of a Ford Fiesta) and had to get petrol and had no idea about how to release the filler cap; got the manual out of the glove box and read the relevant pages.
Basically the filler cap will only open if the car is unlocked. I'm sitting in the car and the car's unlocked, so why I am unable to open the filler cap?
Fiddled around, several times, with the remote locking key getting nowhere.
Luckily the petrol station was also a Holden dealership, so went in to the showroom to sort out the problem (had already asked the forecourt staff).
Apparently the keyless entry / remote locking had 2 settings; one to lock the car (when it's still drive-able) and one to immobilise the car.
Both settings have to be 'off' to open the filler cap.
All very sensible, but totally non-intuitive .... (and still don't think I could repeat the necessary sequence)

angrynorth

May I point you in the direction of this thread.

DOH