Fuel
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Posts
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Just a question about something that may have an obvious answer and concerns anywhere in the country, not just Wrexham.
If a litre of fuel costs 105.9, that is £1.05 and .9 of a penny, and I fill a fuel can with exactly 1 litre of petrol, how much do I pay?
If I have to hand over £1.06 then Her Majesty is making an undeserved profit of a tenth of a penny. However, if I’m asked to pay just £1.05, then Her Maj is losing nine tenths of a penny.
As I said at the start, there’s probably an obvious answer here, but I’m not seeing it.Interesting point — how can a business sell something at a price which is not legal tender unless you buy 10 of them — in this case 10 litres x 0.9p = 9p
No fuel pumps can reconcile in tenths of a penny so if the price was 99.9p then a single litre would reconcile as £1. There are other allowable tolerances (again very small) regarding the amounts pumps are allowed to under/over dispense. Then there this the temperature issue (some pumps sell fuel at 15C) which means if the fuel in the ground is lower (or higher) than this then the meters will compensate. These allowable differences are all very small, overall the system is fair.
So it’s a bit of a waste of time being so precise with the pricing. Just get rid of the decimal point value.
To help settle this and avoid a huge debate, petrol pumps only allow a ‘minimum’ purchase to be dispensed. It can vary and will be on a sign on the pump, have a look next time you’re filling up!
@Danielkg 19090 wrote:
To help settle this and avoid a huge debate, petrol pumps only allow a ‘minimum’ purchase to be dispensed. It can vary and will be on a sign on the pump, have a look next time you’re filling up!
Most of them are 2 litres. He has a point though. When filling with fuel I would assume most if not all look at the price not the amount being dispensed. In theory if you looked at the dispensing total it should be impossible to put in 2 litres as this would be 8 tenths of fuel. The pumps must dispense to a round number on the price not amount of fuel.
Not sure what the ‘Minimum 2 litres delivery’ thing is all about TBH, if you dispense 1p worth of fuel and hang the gun up that amount will register on a sales terminal. As far as I’m aware it’s not a legal requirement to display this notice (not in the UK anyway) although most pump manufacturers seem to have it on their equipment as standard and have done so for years.
I was told many years ago it was because, below 2 litres, it was difficult to get an accurate reading, but I think technology has improved over the years. In fact I was in a garage last year when they had a problem with a pump that cut-off just as it started to dispense fuel and they charged me just 12p for what I got from it.
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