Fuel: fill it up, or a tenner? Twenty?
 

I'm curious what people do.

Do you fill the car to the brim each time? Or do you put a tenner's worth in? Or maybe a twenty these days?

I usually get multiples of five litres, usually 15. And a few millilitres either side, I don't care.

Never did understand this thing about putting in an exact monetary amount to the exact penny. Wierd.

Gets filled..... pointless not doing so, costs more having to keep going to fill up with small amounts.

Fuel stations are miserable smelly places and to avoid them I let the tank get to reserve and then fill to the brim and only need to fill up approximately every 3 weeks :thumbs_up: This is also better for my waist line as the temptation of a Ginsters and a Snickers is often too much to withstand!

Ever since the fuel shortages of the 1980s ? ( It was a long time ago) I have kept my cars full of fuel and treat half a tank as empty and refill.
I also live in a rural area where fuel is more expensive than urban often by 4p a litre so whenever I visit the grandkids in Cardiff the tank gets topped off. It is only recently we have had 24 hour fuel available via pay at pump facilities in supermarkets but even that is 17 miles away which is another reason I keep the cars full.
The works van needs filling 3 times a week, great for the nectar points but a pain in the bum as there are only 2 garages in the county that take the supplied BP fuel card and it can mean a 50 mile drive just to fuel up so every last drop is squeezed in.

Paul.

Full to empty every time. The miles I do in the V50 it uses over a tank a week so it’s the only thing that makes sense, otherwise I’d be filling it every day. I do the same for the Merc because even a 66 litre tank doesn’t get you very far at 20 MPG!!

£40 for me, does me for a weeks driving. I don't actually mind petrol stations.

I never ever let it go below 1/4 full and then fill it to the brim.

I cannot see the point of putting dribs and drabs in on a regular basis as it is just a waste of time and fuel doing so.

Fill to the brim every time, as I like (sad I know!) to do a brim to brim mpg check.

Rant... I filled up in Herts last week at 126.9 a litre, then again a few days later on the Isle of Wight at 109:8!

Also, my local Esso station put up the diesel price by 2p at midnight BEFORE the budget........

Rants over

Purely because of the mileage I do, it's a full tank every time. My local Shell garage is literally only just round the corner from my house so it would cost me nothing to fuel up daily.

Were I not doing the mileage, in Autumn/Winter/Spring I would be tempted to keep the car brimmed as much as possible to reduce the amount of condensation inside the tank. I know modern cars all have plastic tanks unlike older cars with there steel tanks, so rust is not an issue, but the D5's do have a catch in the diesel filter for water. I wouldn't want this to overflow and water to pulled into the engine. In Summer I may be tempted to only put in what was needed, although the economy benefits for doing so would probably be negligible on a car weighing nearly 2 tons!

I need to fill it or I could be doing it again, same day!

£50 a time. Nowadays, I normally only need to fill up each car once a month, twice at the most. This takes me from around 1/4 full to almost full, which avoids the problems associated with a low fuel level whilst maintaining an adequate reserve.

In the past, I often needed to fill up several times a week, and then I would brim the tank to the nearest £. I appreciate that 'brim to brim' also yields an accurate consumption check, but entering my purchases onto a spreadsheet enables me to calculate my MPG even more accurately. :thumbs_up:

I find that the round number of £££ makes life easier when it comes to reconciling credit card statements and preparing accounts.

Regards, John.

Fill up when down to a quarter or less. This way I can wait until at a cheaper station and also check the mpg. Started doing this when the old 740's fuel gauge went wrong and I knew that at a certain mileage on the trip I needed to start looking around again for a garage.

Did once have someone say that the extra weight of a full tank reduces the mpg so any savings are wiped out but at up to 6 pence a litre (27 pence a gallon) saving or nearly £5 a tankful I doubt it.

Anyway buying fuel is like buying tyres, a distress purchase so the fewer times I do it the better I feel.

Light comes on, fill up next time I am near Tesco, sorted.

The light comes on in my V70 with about 2 gallons still in the tank so plenty of time to find a petrol station, but then I fill it to the top, queuing at a petrol station for less than a tank makes no sense for me, but I suppose if I did very little mileage I might be inclined not to fill it right up.

On my regular weekly round, when I get down to ¼ full on the gauge, I fill up to the brim at the Shell on the way home at the end of that day. Actually to the nearest full litre that I think I can get in, it's easier to remember for the real MPG figure calculation when I get home, plus I get the maximum loyalty points for my money over time :)

Fill up for me. Not quite into two months ownership of my V60 T4 and I'm keen to measure mpg with my phone app.

Taking 450 miles per tankful, 12000 miles per year, 10 minutes out of your way to fill and a 40 year driving career that adds up to .............................. nearly 180 hours in forecourts.
Putting in a tenner and it's starting to look like a full time job for the best part of a year.

Interesting responses. I didn't think it was going to be so clear cut!

For ref, I'm of the fill-it-up persuasion, as that allows me to calculate tank-to-tank figures. I have the data for EVERY tank of fuel I've put into every single car I've ever owned.

Depends on what I'm up to..
If I go long way, there's no question- fuul and then some more.
But typically I'll put only enough to last me few days. So sometimes a tenner, sometimes 50..
There are weeks that Welma is in use daily, there are weeks that she goes out only on Sunday.
A lot depends on where do I work on given day/week.

I always keep the car full of fuel, you never know when you need to hit the trail a bit sharpish

Exactly, who knows when you are going to need to break out the fake passports and make a fast get away........

Having a full tank of gas is as close I get to having an emergency plan like that.

I fill up when the light comes on and as above, always record it in a book.
I have recorded every fill up in every car owned dating back to 1972 when I bought my first car.
Because I have recorded all this data it seems a shame to stop now.

When it gets below half full then I fill it up

I always worry about filling the tank. It's a lot of money to lose if someone nicks it!

Indeed.

Although I'm not bothering with the new car.

Partly because it records data for me, partly because trying to keep track of how much electricity goes in is impossible and partly because it won't tell you how much actually went in on a charge anyway!

Edit: turns out that I can download the data in csv format anyway. Yay.

I tend to do £29 something, mainly as the hybrid only has a 40l or so tank, so that nearly fills it, and I get 1% cashback with NatWest credit card for contactless payments..

I was quite gutted the other week when I last filled up and the drink I bought pushed it up to £30.04

We used to joke that filling up the 745 doubled it's value. When the local breaker offered £30 for it, that became the truth!

Regards. John.

I fill my old Saab every time it's about quarter of a tank. Quite a small tank for a v6 motor, only takes around 60 quid so I'm at the garage at least once a week, but hey, it's an indulgence.

We live quite a way from the nearest gas station so putting in small amounts would make no sense - anyway who puts £10 or £20 in these days ?

We used to run a military vehicle, a Dodge WC51 Weapons Carrier, consumption...measured in gallons per mile !

Jon.

I usually put £30-40 ish in mine just before the light comes on if I can. £40 takes is to just over 1/2 tank, I do little mileage in the car these days, so pointless it sitting around with a full tank. If we're off on hols, then it gets brimmed. The works van on the other hand, gets brimmed every time!

Doing very small amounts of mileage nowadays so I tend to only put in about half a tank. Someone once told me that Shell V-Power (now Nitro+) used to settle and some of the additives fell out of solution, reducing the octane rating. No idea if it's true or not but seemed like a good idea not to have a full tank in there for weeks on end. And yeah, might be close to doubling it's value these days too :)

I usually fill my tank up when I get the low fuel warning come on. It happens a lot more frequently since changing to petrol.
I'm also one of those sad people that record my costs, mileage and mpg.

That sounds like a hoot! Would love something like that for a toy...

I only do about 80 miles a week, I've never brimmed my S40 tank in the last 9 years, why carry nearly 60Kg's of weight around?

I put in around £35.00 which lasts about 10 days for me and if it gets too near pay day I put less in, I'd hate to have £60.00's worth of fuel in the tank when there's more pressing bills to pay like food.

Also why do people worry about the tank getting low? the fuel pump sits in the lowest part anyway. Fuel tanks with a load of 'bits' in the bottom are long gone.

I put in exactly 45.45 litres or about £55.

http://s18.postimg.org/m6fa740nd/petrolfillup.jpg

I don't like to keep track of how much I spend on petrol, as I quickly realise it quickly exceeds the value of the car, which doesn't seem right!

Me neither, just for fun if you had a car and covered 100,000 miles at 32MPG, at today's prices it'll cost you £17,000.00 !!!

Right.

I spent £7929 on petrol for my Honda Accord. Over almost the same mileage my V70 has cost "only" about £6400 of diesel (average prices have been lower, as well as about 5mpg better average fuel economy).

I have a car. I have done over 100,000 miles. I reckon I've averaged about 38 MPG. I don't want to know what that equates to!