Gas tanker truck at station when you go...

[TimeFlies]

There is no such thing as a low volume gas station in my area. Even the highest priced stations have lines to get gas

Exactly.
A low volume station is still getting a load a week.
It's not like the gas has been sitting there for months or years.
Also fuel truck drivers, at least in my province, must dip the tank before dumping, to ensure that their is room for it to all fit, and not exceed 90% of the tank volume. We wipe a paste on the bottom of the wooden stick, lets say the first 3 to 5 cms, that reacts to water by changing color. If the driver pulls up the dipstick and it shows water in the tank, we refuse to deliver. On the end of the stick is a magnet, and we also put on a sticky substance, so it will show if there is debris in the bottom, as the stick we use goes to the bottom of the tank. We wipe it off with a paper towel and look for anything that is stuck to the end. If there's any debris at all, we may still dump, but we tell the manager to have a service company, of which there are many all over BC, to use there suction truck, and vacuum the bottom of the tank. If at the next delivery, we find debris again, we refuse delivery.
Modern pumps have fuel filters in them, which will also catch any debris, before its pumped into your vehicle.
I also personally climb up onto my fuel trucks occasionally, and open the hatches, and look for debris inside the trucks tanks. Once, and only once, did I see some, and I had the trailer insides washed, before it went back to the refinery for another load.

 

[TimeFlies]

I drove fuel truck a lot this week, and 3 days I filled up the trucks fuel tanks, while I was actually dropping a load of fuel.
Other trucks also pulled in and got fuel.
I asked them if they ever in their lifetime at any station, encountered issues fueling up, while a truck was dumping, all said no.
It must be a super ghetto station if you have problems, and they removed the pumps filters to, and somehow replumbed it to wotk without a filter.

 

[Chris142]

I asked a Costco attendant how often they change the pump filters. He said whenever the pump flow slows to 8 gpm. Normal flow is between 9-10 gpm. He also said there are regular maintenance check ups where they also change the filters. I've been in Murphy stations where the fuel hardly flows. What does that tell you?

That tells me that the filters are so plugged up that nothing can pass through it.

 

[cookand]

Agree with TimeFlies above. My Dad owned a gas station in a town with a population of ~250. He had weekly deliveries. No small station can afford to sit on fuel for a week, much less months.

Also, he had regular inspections of his tanks. To the point he thought someone was out to get him.

I drive a diesel and had one weird experience at a very high volume circle K truck stop. They have big rig lanes but also have a couple of diesel pumps on the passenger car side. Stopped there one day and started filling up and it seriously was pumping at maybe a gallon a minute. Obviously a neglected filter and haven’t been back since. There was clearly no issue on the big rig side

 

[Fishstyx]

This is a total myth. The pump is at the bottom of the tank about two inches off the bottom so it doesn’t matter if they’re dumping fuel into it or it’s been sitting still for a while. You get whatever is on the bottom first.

 

[y_p_w]

This is a total myth. The pump is at the bottom of the tank about two inches off the bottom so it doesn’t matter if they’re dumping fuel into it or it’s been sitting still for a while. You get whatever is on the bottom first.

The contents of the whole tank are going to be agitated though.

 

[BobsArmory]

Before GM I worked with an environmental company that did a lot of tank removals & installs. EVERY tank that I removed and cut open had junk in the bottom of the tank. It varied a bit from a few 5 gallon buckets to multiple 55 gallon drums of dirt, lighters, flashlights, stones, rust etc. I think a some of it depended on where the fill was placed and if the concrete was poured to drain away from the fill cover or not. So yea I stay away if I see a tanker onsite.

 

[Fishstyx]

The contents of the whole tank are going to be agitated though.

Valid point

 

[hank2]

Some of the lore about not buying fuel during a delivery may have come from an old filling station practice. Only at the unscrupulous ones. When tanks were very low and they couldn't yet spring for a fill up, a garden hose went in with some water. Supposedly to float the little bit of fuel up off the bottom. Of course, the water would remain there. I personally witnessed it a couple of times, very long ago. 1960's and '70's. Some friends who had worked as pump jockeys or wrenches at old school gas stations had told me about the practice as well.

 

[Dave Hess]

The fuel filter on the pump at the fuel island are the size of a Motorcraft FLA1 filter.

I fill up if fuel tanker is offloading gasoline.

 

[Sumboodie]

The slower Costco's go thru 3-6 tankers a day. The busier ones 10-15 tankers a day. 8k gallions per tanker. THAT's a lot of gas fresh from the distribution.

No idea where that is, but it's 1-2 a week here.

 

[TimeFlies]

Some of the lore about not buying fuel during a delivery may have come from an old filling station practice. Only at the unscrupulous ones. When tanks were very low and they couldn't yet spring for a fill up, a garden hose went in with some water. Supposedly to float the little bit of fuel up off the bottom. Of course, the water would remain there. I personally witnessed it a couple of times, very long ago. 1960's and '70's. Some friends who had worked as pump jockeys or wrenches at old school gas stations had told me about the practice as well.

Wow, that is a risky thing to try.
Pull that now, and watch how quickly your cut off fuel deliveries, reported, and business license pulled.
2 weeks ago there was a trace of water in the tank of one of my cardlocks. I put an out of order sign on the pump, and had a service truck there 19 hours later. They vacuumed the tank out, where it went through a water seperator, and debris filters, before the clean diesel was put back into the tank. The tank is an 84,500 liter tank, which had approximately 16,700 liters of diesel in it. Tanks were installed in 1996, are fiberglass, and haven't been vacuumed since 2012. They removed all the fuel and cleaned it. Found 0.3 liters of water, and the debris would have barely covered the bottom of a drinking glass, at the most. I drained the pumps water seperator, and replaced the filter. The reason I knew that water was in it, was because while doing routine maintenance on the pump, the water seperator had 4 or 5 drops of water in it. Unsure how water got into that tank, but the pumps water seperator is now being checked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Not a drop of water in it since.
The clear bowl of the water seperator makes it very easy to see any water in it, even if just drops.

 

[TimeFlies]

No idea where that is, but it's 1-2 a week here.

The costco nearest to me averages 3 truck loads a week.
The gas station nearest to my home, basically a country gas station well outside city limits, gets a load typically ever 5 to 7 days, and is what I would consider a low volume station. Let's say that when a truck arrives at it, their tanks on average are down to 15%, and they get a 3 way split load of premium, regular, and diesel, bringing their tanks now up to 50% full. About the oldest fuel you can get there would be 2 weeks old, when that 2 week old fuel mixes with the new stuff.
Let's go extremely conservative, and say that fuel has a 3 month shelf life, that means if you drive infrequently so it's in your vehicle for 2 months, it still hasn't reached the end of its useful life.

 

[Patman]

If I avoided filling up every time I saw the tanker truck there I would have to skip filling up quite often. The Costco station that I use for my Civic has a tanker truck there probably 1 out of every 4 times I go there. They are a very busy location that probably gets 3-4 tankers a day (my girlfriend lives two minutes away from there and we have often seen the tanker truck there more than once in the same day)

 

[dubber09]

How long would it take for sediment to fall out to the bottom of the tank if it's so fine that filter doesn't screen it? Hours? How do you know if tanks were not filled in few past hours? If anything, it's a gamble.

 

[burbguy82]

I wouldn't worry at Costco, but low volume stations.......no thanks, I'll go to the next one.

agreed. I have had a few instances where bad gas has created a CEl and power loss on my RV. Last time was a premium pump in the middle of Kentucky..........I really did not even think on it, but it is likely that in that area, no one got premium, and therefore the gas might be old and rancid and watered up.

 

[TimeFlies]

How long would it take for sediment to fall out to the bottom of the tank if it's so fine that filter doesn't screen it? Hours? How do you know if tanks were not filled in few past hours? If anything, it's a gamble.

Typically several hours.

 

[dubber09]

Yeah, it was a rhetorical question, you never know.

 

[Sumboodie]

The costco nearest to me averages 3 truck loads a week.
The gas station nearest to my home, basically a country gas station well outside city limits, gets a load typically ever 5 to 7 days, and is what I would consider a low volume station. Let's say that when a truck arrives at it, their tanks on average are down to 15%, and they get a 3 way split load of premium, regular, and diesel, bringing their tanks now up to 50% full. About the oldest fuel you can get there would be 2 weeks old, when that 2 week old fuel mixes with the new stuff.
Let's go extremely conservative, and say that fuel has a 3 month shelf life, that means if you drive infrequently so it's in your vehicle for 2 months, it still hasn't reached the end of its useful life.

Fuel is fine Wayyyyy beyond 3 months.

Properly stored it's fine for several years.

 

[TimeFlies]

Fuel is fine Wayyyyy beyond 3 months.

Properly stored it's fine for several years.

Yes, you and I know that, but I've actually heard some people say that it goes bad in 3 months. So for the purpose of my example, I said let's use 3 months.
Why, because some people are very concerned with how old the gas is, at gas stations. I've yet to experience a gas station myself, where the gas is old. The buried tanks are also not exposing gas to sunlight, or wild temperature swings, they tend to be pretty temp stable, so very little condensation builds up. In the region where I live, even on a -30 C day, the fuel in tanks at a gas station is not below freezing temperatures. On a hot summer day 35 C, the fuel in the tanks is much cooler. Generally when I take the fuels temperature, it is between 4 C and 11 C despite being a winter cold weather stretch, or summer heat wave.