With record gas prices you may be concerned if you’re getting every last red cent worth of gas you pay for. I just went to Speedway this afternoon and dropped $75 into my big-ass redneck gas guzzling Ford F250, and I received just shy of 3/4 of a tank. Recently I spotted the Fort Wayne Weights and Measures at a local BP station, so I stopped and chatted with them.

I spoke with the technicians and they were more than happy to explain how it all works. They do what is called a five gallon fast draw, and a five gallon slow draw pumping it into the containers on the back of their truck, (they do return the gas when the testing is completed). 

The results are recorded and checked for tolerance to the allowable legal limit that the pumps can be off, whether to the vendors advantage or yours. In Indiana, the allowable tolerance is plus or minus six cubic inches, or approximately 2.5% of a gallon. That would work out to 10 cents per gallon at today’s prices. A cubic inch is not quite a teaspoon of liquid, but at 10 cents a gallon it that’s about $2.00 per fill-up. If a pump has been tested this year it will have the green 2008 permit show below. If a pump is incorrect and needs re-calibration, they’re give a week to take care of the problem. Most of them have it done within 24 hours.

The Weights and Measures department can only work in nice weather testing gas pumps, i.e. no rain. When it’s a rainy day, they go to meat markets, fruit stands and laundry establishments to name a few. At the latter, they make sure that if the dryer says 30 minutes for 25 cents, you actually get 30 minutes. What a fun job that would be, watching a bunch of empty dryers go round and round.

AWB

Photo Credit | Dan Turkette

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 3:55 pm and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.