CHAS Burnett is the friend of a friend and lives in Australia.
He is a member of a blues band which made me think of him in connection with the story just left of this column.
He also works for Shell Petroleum.
Chas was passing around some advice late last year as petrol prices hit $1.50 a litre in his home city of Melbourne.
Given that he’s 8,000 miles away and in a rather different climate, I think he still has some important things to say about buying petrol.
He has, after all, worked in the business for 31 years and if that doesn’t give you the blues, I don’t know what will.
The keys to petrol economy, according to Chas, are:
Fill up your vehicle in the early morning when the ground is at its coldest. Cold fuel occupies less volume than warm. Therefore you get more cold fuel for your money than you do with warm.
When you’re filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. A pump trigger has three stages: low, middle, and high. If you pump on (s)low mode you create less vapour.
Pumps have a vapour return. So if you rush, you pay for petrol which is reclaimed by the pump.
Fill up when your tank is half full. The more petrol you have in your tank the less air is occupying its empty space and the less evaporation there is.
Stay well clear of any garage where a petrol delivery is in progress. The storage tanks are stirred up and your car might pick up some of the dirt that has gone to the bottom of the storage tank.
Petrol prices are all too quick to rise and all too slow to fall when crude oil prices drop.
Taking Chas’ advice might not save you a personal fortune, but it will stop unnecessary millions going to the already rich fuel suppliers.
I wonder if Chas originally came from Yorkshire? He certainly has the right attitude.
