Car-Owners Be Warned: Many Petrol Tanks Are Actually Inaccurate

With the price of petrol as high as it is, and our purses being emptied every time we hit the pump to fill up, this news will not go down well…

According to a seven-county study by the AA, about 16% of fuel pumps are inaccurate.

The company checked 176 pumps at a total of 12 garages in counties Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Kilkenny, Meath, Westmeath and Limerick.

In our favour, the study found that most of the errors were made in favour of the customer, but there were also a substantial number of pumps where the driver got less fuel than what was paid for.

Petrol pumps are the bane of our life. Our hearts drop when we see the tank ticker hitting ‘Empty’, or in my own case, with a broken ticker, when I see my mileage hitting its calculated tank content.

Many of us have stood at a pump aiming for a zero-ending number on the clock, only to fail and complain about being charged the extra few cent. Even more of us have been distracted on the forecourt and missed our desired fuel amount, cursing ourselves for breaking our budget limit...

On top of these experiences, we now have to be aware that the contents of our tank may not be what we think they are.

"A driver doing any sort of higher mileage is likely to be using 3,000 litres of fuel a year, and paying over €5,000 for it, (and) wants to be sure that they are getting a fair deal," said business services manager David Murphy.

Director of policy with the AA Conor Faughnan said: "There's no indication that customers are being ripped off by garages, but we were quite shocked that in 16% of the cases in our study, the nozzle was inaccurate."

This survey comes as news during the week reported that Irish petrol prices are among the most expensive in the world. Ireland ranked 17^th of 60 countries when it came to the cost of petrol at the pumps, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Irish price was lower than Britain and Germany but higher than the US, New Zealand and Japan.

Have the rising fuel prices changed your everyday life?

One thing's for sure, we’ll have to keep an extra eye on the fuel clock ladies.