A storm/gasoline pet peeve. All out of regular.

[Bonhomme Richard]

I was just watching the coverage here and they were talking to a guy filling up his tank. He said all that was left was high test gasoline. Are we supposed to believe that there are separate tanks below ground for the different grade gasolines? The tank trucks make deliveries with different grade fuels to fill those tanks? I don't think so.
Maybe I am wrong and someone will enlighten me here but I think it is absurd to say you are out of regular gas. It strikes me as nothing more than gouging.
Am I nuts or mis-informed.

[Mika]

1. Misinformed. eom

[LiberalLoner]

2. Ummm...yeah, tank trucks do in fact make deliveries with different grades of fuels to fill separate

tanks. And the industry is quite tightly regulated. It's not just the same exact gasoline with three different prices.

Former QM Officer here who worked with Class III (Petroleum Products).

[Speck Tater]

3. Separate grades of gas in separate tanks filled by separate trucks. nt

[Tigress DEM]

4. At some gas stations you can even see the different "caps" on the ground above the tanks.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/gas-pump1.htm

[WooWooWoo]

5. wow

just....wow.

[virgogal]

12. What a mean post,oh perfect one.

[onenote]

13. Seriously? You think this is mean?

Have you been reading posts here lately?

But for the record, do you think that for the past several decades there has been a conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to hide the fact that there really is only one grade of gas being pumped into one big tank under gas stations?

[Logical]

15. Yes, I also thought your post was a little mean.

[mythology]

16. I wouldn't call it mean

but you could have been nicer.

However the original post is rather silly.

[ToxMarz]

20. ^^^^^This one^^^^^

[VMA131Marine]

7. Typically

There are two tanks, one for 87 octane and one for 93 octane, or whatever is the the max on the pump. The pump will draw from one tank or the other exclusively if you select the lowest or highest octane rating on the pump. If you select a mid-grade, the pump will blend fuel from the two tanks in the correct proportions to get the intermediate octane rating. So, if the low octane tank is out, the only grade available will be the high octane grade because there won't be anything to blend to get a lower octane fuel out of the pump.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. I appreciate the clarity and politeness of your reply

and admit to not knowing about the mixing of the mid-grade blend.
( I use regular in my old 4 banger)

[liberal N proud]

9. Regular sells faster than premium and they have to be seperate tanks.

Else there would be no difference between reg. and pem. it just wouldn't make sense to have two grades if they were mixed.

[oldhippie]

10. Low information consumer?

Just ..... wow.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Yes, and yes

Different tanks, different trucks.

[Bonhomme Richard]

14. My bad. I learned something new. n/t

[treestar]

17. Me too

Don't know why some of the posters on the thread seemed to think it's an easy thing to know about. And thanks to the ones who explained it without snark.

[Bonhomme Richard]

18. I just figured that they mixed in different amounts of additives.....

to make the different grades but then I really never thought about the gas station business. Obviously. I guess I am just dumber than a box of rocks.
I too was surprised by the nastiness in some of the replies.

[LiberalLoner]

25. Not dumb at all. My reply was just, "yeah, you ARE supposed to believe that, because that is

actually what happens!" Looking at my post now I realize it might have come across as snarky and I didn't mean it that way. I just meant, yeah, they really do have different tanks, filled by different trucks. If we would have been speaking together you would have seen from my face I wasn't trying to be snarky. Anyway you aren't dumb, people wouldn't necessarily know that unless they'd looked closely or else worked with petroleum the way I did once. So I was saying, "no, really, there ARE separate tanks!" Maybe some of the other people didn't mean to come across snarky either.

Anyway I can understand being skeptical about everything we buy. These days it seems like we're always getting lied to or ripped off in one way or another.

[ChazII]

40. Your reply was not

snarky in my opinion. It was clear and to the point.

[Bonhomme Richard]

44. I didn't take your reply as snarky. It was useful info. n/t

[Ellipsis]

37. ...roll with it.

They don't know you.

[dixiegrrrrl]

30. There are no dumb questions, Richard.

Pls do not let those who missed their lessons on civility keep you from asking more questions.

[MineralMan]

19. I managed a gas station for a couple of years.

It had three separate tanks, three separate filling points, and three different grades of gasoline. The gasoline wholesaler brought what we needed, and put it in the correct tank. We had a long stick marked with numbers, which we used each morning and evening to check how much gas was in each of the three tanks. When it got to a certain level, we called the wholesaler, who brought the specific grades of gasoline we ordered.

It was a fairly busy multiple-island station. We sold around 70,000 gallons of gas a month, so it seemed like there was always a truck dumping gas there.

[FSogol]

21. Nowadays, they use a Veder-Root monitoring system which gives a very accurate accounting of the fuel

in each tank and watches for leaks in the double-wall piping, the sumps, or the interstitial space between the walls of the tank. I design those systems occasionally.

[LiberalLoner]

27. Wow, that is so cool! :)

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. I have a question for ya, then, if you don't mind.

Sadly, because of the economy that no one will call a Depression, our local family owned for 60 years
gas station went out of business, closed down.
They took the pumps away last week. Very sad.
But what happens to the tanks underground?
and how do gas station operators know if there is any leakage, however small, from those tanks?

[FSogol]

34. In the past, nothing happened and the tanks and sludge stayed in the ground leaking.

Since 1997, there are Federal procedures to close down and abandon tanks. The tanks were pumped out before being abandoned and a certificate of closure had to be filed. If someone wants to reuse the tanks in the future, all fittings (fill lines, vents, monitoring probes, etc) will need to be replaced and the tank will need to be pressure tested before it can go back into service. Depending on the time involved, it might be easier to just replace the tanks at a future date.

edited to add: sorry to her about your family losing their business. My grandparents lost a brewery because of prohibition and it bothered them for the rest of their lives.

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. I was unclear..neighbor's family.

Amazing thing was...the old man, now 85, put 4 children thru college on the income from a service station that had been here since the 40's.
and he said to me.." I was planning on retiring in a few years, but guess this darn economy is making me do it early".
At 85!!!!

[MineralMan]

48. Yah. It was in the mid-60s when I managed that station.

We were still using the sticks, supplemented with sales records from the pumps. As long as they matched closely, we didn't have a major leak.

[ileus]

22. Maybe they inject octane boost at the point of the pump

Then they could have one tank and small injector tanks for each grade of petrol.

[LiberalLoner]

26. No way because fuel has to be inspected before it is sold. You can't add anything to it and then

sell it, I don't think that would be legal.

I mean at least with the military, you have to test that stuff with flashpoint testers and all kinds of gadgets to make sure the fuel met every federal standard out there. Most especially for aviation fuel. But even for gasoline.

[DollarBillHines]

23. If there is a run on the pumps, regular goes first.

Fortunately, very few cars (unfortunately, several of mine) require the higher octane blend.

[dixiegrrrrl]

32. And you can guarantee a run on the pumps in hurricane season.

Down here, we keep our cars topped off.
we know from experience that if a bad one is heading our way, we have to leave as early as possible.
And sitting in line to get local gas is NOT on the agenda at that time.

[DollarBillHines]

36. I am from the Gulf Coast

We used to keep 4-5 jerry cans full of gas during the season.

Chuck 'em in one of the trucks if we had to leave.

We've had roofs torn off, cattle killed, levees broke, you name it.

Those NorthEasterners are in for a hell of a time.

[dixiegrrrrl]

43. Yeah, and they will also be COLD!

I do not "do" cold, ever since I realize I had a choice in the matter.
At least down here, post storm, it is not freezing cold*.

*=any temps below 50, to a southerner.

[madokie]

24. Misinformed

Yes they do have different tanks for different grades of gasoline. An engine that is designed to run on premium will self destruct in a short time if it is fed regular gasoline. Some engines computer will reset the timing to where it won't self destruct but at a big cut in performance. An engine that is designed for regular grade of gasoline will do fine on premium but it would be a waste of money buying the premium gas as it won't be utilized by the engine.
The grade of gasoline is pretty much determined by the compression ratio of the engine. The higher the compression ratio the higher the octane in the fuel has to be. High octane being premium.

Oh and the trucks that deliver the fuel has more than one chamber to put the different grades of gasoline in and if you'll watch them when the fill the inground tank you will see at some point that the driver of the truck will move the filler hose to another outlet on the truck as he switches to a different in ground tank for the premium grade of fuel.

[PavePusher]

28. It's really too bad that they don't actually teach practicle stuff like this in schools.

Or actual chemistry, come to think....

[dixiegrrrrl]

33. Thank god for DU, eh?

and of course there is always one's favorite search engine on the Inter Web thingy.

[Major Nikon]

42. ...or spelling

I'm not sure how practical it would be to teach people how many tanks a gas station has.

[PavePusher]

49. Heh, mea culpa.

But seriously, the OP borders on CT.

Thank Ghu we live in the information age where it takes longer to think up silly posts like that than to actually look up the subject on teh majik bocks.

[Ikonoklast]

38. A. Yes.

[Honeycombe8]

39. I was raised in Louisiana. You learn not to wait long after you learn of an approaching storm...

to fill 'er up and get supplies. Things start to sell out FAST.

If the hurricane hits your area and you have to evacuate...not only will there be no regular gas. There will be many gas stations with NO gas at all. No ice. No bottled water. Etc.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

41. stores were also cleaned out of flashlights and candles

[Motown_Johnny]

45. of course there are different tanks underground, and the tankers carry more than one type

of fuel at a time.


Look on the ground the next time you are at a station. There should be three different colored covers on the ground that lead to the three different tanks (assuming your station sells three different grades of gasoline).

The tankers also have more than one valve from which they remove the fuel.


There is no doubt at all about this.

[TexasBushwhacker]

46. Different tanks, but far more demand for regular n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

47. You're misinformed, there are separate tanks

I had a job at a gas station as a teenager, one of the things I had to do was use a dipstick to check the level of gasoline in the storage tanks. Regular, mid-grade, high-test, and diesel. (There were actually TWO tanks for regular and only one for the other grades.)