An old thread, but our expectations have been met. A tendency to under fill / overcharge for product delivered, coupled with some token fines made opaque by a few prosecutions. None of the ‘guilty’ need be identified I presume, since none are called out.
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Yes, the fines relative to the benefit to the retailers are insignificant. I did note per the ABC report four repeat offenders have not been fined. Instead they have been referred to the Commonwealth DPP. Hopefully that will lift the veil of secrecy on who they might be and result in more than token penalties. A small admission of a major failure within the industry.
It’s worth asking whether the under delivery is by the hand of the fuel bowser manufacturers service agent tweaking the settings? I’d expect like many such components they are locked or sealed in some way by the service personnel to prevent tampering. Or do select service station staff have access and knowledge to adjust a pump at will?
It was reported the error was biased towards under delivery. The law does not accept short measurement.
P.s.
Short measure is unacceptable regardless of some measurement devices over delivering. Personal experience trading goods to the public from a family owned business says so! The smaller the business the greater the penalty, might be one lesson to note.
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I took a 5L petrol container to a local Coles Express service centre, and as Iitwas near full, I looked at the bowser readout at 6.75L. I complained to the staff but they insisted I had to pay for 6.75L and seek redress from Cokes Express Customer Care. I phoned them when I got home and the company person agreed that it was probably a calibration problem and asked if I would accept a $10 gift card to settle the issue. I accepted as I thought I had wasted enough time already on the issue, but thought afterwards about how I would have known of the problem if I had filled up my car. No doubt more people have been overcharged without realising it.
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Welcome back @9.phillip
I have moved your post into this existing topic about fuel browser delivery accuracy.
You may note that this topic has been around for a few years now, and still the problem of accuracy continues to rear it’s head. I doubt that many, if any, browsers deliver more fuel than indicated. Yet it it is observed that browsers continue to have over-reporting of the fuel dispensed. This is obviously in favour of the companies/businesses selling the fuel, but I do not know how to get the problem rectified other than reporting the discrepancy to the Government organisation (National Measurement Institute) responsible for ensuring the accuracy of measurement devices.
“
Complaints and enquiries about Australia’s measurement laws
To make a complaint or enquiry call or email:
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[1300 686 664](tel:1300 686 664)
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We will acknowledge your complaint or enquiry within 5 business days.
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We aim to resolve enquiries within 3 weeks.
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The complaint response time will vary depending upon our risk assessment process.
NMI investigates all complaints that meet the following criteria. The complaint must:
- be an expression of dissatisfaction or concern that falls within the scope of Australia’s measurement laws
- be a direct statement against another party
- include enough information to enable investigation.
The purpose of the NMI investigating a complaint is to check if the criminal provisions of Australia’s measurement laws have been breached. If necessary, NMI will take action in accordance with our compliance policy.”
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Many years ago I worked at a petrol station and it was not uncommon for some people to stop the pump by pressing the lever on the nozzle return position, but then let whatever petrol was left in the hose to drain out into the tank. You could spot them because they had to lift up the hose whilst holding the nozzle open.
The next person to use the pump got charged for petrol needed to refill the hose before getting any petrol into the tank, which could be easily a few liters.
I have thought about what could happen these days if one used a preset dollar amount on a pump, and then once the pump automatically shut off, kept the nozzle open. Would the petrol drain out of the hose giving me some freebee fuel. For the next user to pay for. That would require a raised hose, like has to happen when a driver pulls up with their fill point on the opposite side to the pump.
Or, petrol stations can calibrate the metering on just one pump out of many to cheat customers, know the chances of being caught out are low, and if so caught out can claim an innoccent mistake. Since the other pumps pass testing if investigated.
You decide.
Most pumps have a return system to meet environmental laws and to enable the auto-cutoff feature, this feature helps minimise vapour emissions while filling the tank. Some are even proud to advertise the fact they have the vapour capture systems. This feature has a valve that stops the flow of fuel once the fuel reaches the Venturi effect return line. Once a pump has stopped pumping (in the case of the pump reaching the pre-paid value as an example) the same valve is closed due to the change in pressure from the pump no longer pushing fuel through the line. What you might get is the fuel that remains in the Venturi line of the handle (maybe 100 ml or so), if the pump had stopped due to the tank being full.
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Our own 10L petrol containers can hold just under 12L.
The nominated volume of the container isn’t based on the container being full to the point at no more fuel can be added without it spilling over. It is based on the maximum filling level recommended by the container’s manufacturer. The maximum filling level is less than the actual container volume for a number of reasons. One being safety to allow an air pocket within the container for safe expansion when the container heats up on a warm day (no air pocket could mean release of fuel or the container/seals fail), safety when decanting (overfilling increases the likelihood of spilling and fire if spilled fuel goes onto a hot engine) and safety when lifting heavy objects.
AS1940 states that the design maximum fill level of a container isn’t to exceed 95% of the container’s total volume. Most manufacturers of domestic type fuel containers are more conservative and allow significantly more buffer.
Your container will have a volume greater than 5L. Coles will know this and you won’t succeed complaining to them or the NMI.
The concern I have is you exposed yourself to unnecessary safety risk by overfilling your container. One should have stopped filling when 5L was reached on the brower to mitigate such risks and ensure the container was filled to the maximum recommended level by the manufacturer.
You are lucky the service station decided to give you a $10 voucher to appease your complaint. This won’t admit liability or a problem , but to ensure the complaint is addressed promptly. Whether there is a fault with the bowser will be unknown, but a service station can quickly test if measurements are off and close the offending bowser. Any device can go of calibration at any time, sometimes for no apparent reason.
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I certainly agree a 10 litre container does have some room for expansion and it is with some liquid in it that some deformation occurs so 12 litres is it’s overfilled capacity, also noting it is double the container capacity that @9.phillip was filling. For a 5 litre container 1.67 litres would be an extreme amount of extra capacity. It is very unlikely to be an error of overfilling it that much and more likely a pump error. This likelihood of pump error was accepted by the company and a compensation was paid in acknowledgment of that error, i.e. Coles gave a $10 dollar gift card.
If @9.phillip feels strongly enough about the issue, they can make their complaint to the NMI. NMI will determine for themselves if investigations are needed. If an error is discovered, then the Company will be subject to what NMI determines is the appropriate outcome e.g. warning and a 6 month recheck. Errors do occur for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, inadequate maintenance, an unexpected malfunction, and sometimes it is caused by an unscrupulous operator of a business.
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We regularly fill multiple 5l and 10l fuel containers with ULP. All AS compliant plastic fuel containers. There’s a max fill marker line on the side for the rated capacity. The 5l containers are filled to exactly 5l as they are used for 2 stroke. I use two. The guide line is a reasonable approximation by our observation.
I’ve missed the 5l on the pump meter once or twice. Even with bulging sides the containers are difficult to fill above 5.5-5.7l. Around 10% extra. Agree the 1.67l extra noted in the previous posts equivalent to 33% or one third extra volume would be exceptional.
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Doesn’t work that way. The nozzle shuts off if liquid gets sucked into the sensor tube. It doesn’t stop the pump.
I quite often fill up the car tank until the nozzle shuts off, then proceed to continue on and fill my gerry can. Once the nozzle is replaced in the holder and the switch there is activated, then the pump stops.
You are in the example quoted are continuing the fill, if you fill one tank and the flow shuts because the Venturi tube system has closed the valve that doesn’t mean the pump cannot re-pressurise if you empty the Venturi tube and move to another container. Moving the nozzle out of the liquid is enough to drain the Venturi tube and the trigger has to be released and depressed again to get the flow again if that valve activation occurs. The pump remains active (able to run) until there is either no credit left or the pump nozzle is hung up.
The pump senses when the valve is opened by monitoring the pressure in the hose, so if for example you stop filling one tank before it is full and move to another tank the trigger only has to be depressed again for the pump to sense that it needs to start pumping again. In the case of the credit running out the pump stops, flow stops, and the valve shuts regardless of whether you have the trigger depressed or not, this is designed to stop fuel spills when the pump has stopped and the nozzle is removed from the vessel it was filling with the trigger still depressed (like the draining the hose situation you described). What may have happened in past years has largely been stopped by having these safety features.
I remember having to hand pump the fuel into a reservoir and then drain that reservoir to fill the fuel tank. Then with newer bowsers that had pumps you could lock the trigger and walk away. The result was that because it did not have the safety system, fuel contained to flow unabated until the trigger was released and/or a switch was used to stop the pump. By slow degrees of change these situations were removed as possibilities until we now have the features I have described. Thankfully we have moved on from those more unsafe times.
It depends on the container. Some can be tilted to fill up above the outlet and to fill voids in the handle. If we did this with ours, it would exceed 20% of stated capacity. While possible, something I don’t plan to do as it would increase the risks of leaks or spillage.
Irrespective of how much one can squeeze into a fuel container, they are only designed to safely carry the nominated capacity. In an ideal world, one should only fill to this capacity and not until the nozzle doesn’t allow any more to flow into the container.
I used to have the misconception that 5L container had a maximum 5L capacity. I was corrected by someone working in the industry and the safety concerns outlined above was that which was communicated to me, as why it isn’t the case.
Regardless of the total capacity of any fuel can (and we can argue the volumetric capacity of a hypothetical can and how someone fills it all day long) Coles did accept that it was most likely a pump fault and gave @9.phillip a $10 gift card as compensation.
If @9.phillip wishes to complain to NMI, it does not cost them anything to complain except a bit of their time to write and send the complaint or to phone and complain to NMI. NMI will make their decision to investigate or not, we are not privy to that decision making and so any view we have on that is just our opinion of what we feel may occur.
If @9.phillip does complain and does get some feedback about what happened and decides to inform us on the Community then we will be able to know the facts.
I suggest self policing by the police or any business or organisation has demonstrated there are very few problems. Very few. Trust them. Very very few.
Allowing any so-called regulatory agency to be self managing as to whether to investigate at all or investigate 100% internally is not reassuring.
A bit of evidence on record is required to keep them honest, not just lodging a complaint that is anecdotal sans hard evidence.
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It would be great if every investigation by NMI, ACCC, ASIC, APRA and so on and the outcomes, were published for all to read/see. I don’t think it will ever happen, and I am of the opinion that deals are done that soften the blow on some businesses in what might be termed mates deals. These mostly hidden processes and sometimes hidden results are couched in terms of privacy or harm it could cause. Honestly if a business was complained about and investigations revealed no fault, that should/would bolster community confidence in that business. If found to be at fault, then people are warned and can be extra vigilant if they decide to conduct their dealings with such businesses. A win for the consumers, a win for the ethical businesses, and hopefully the death of poor business behaviour in large.
Recent fines for some fairly horrendous behaviour seem inadequate in my opinion for the harm done. Honestly $250,000 for criminal behaviour by QANTAS seems paltry in comparison to the damage caused particularly in light of the benefits they received at the time to maintain the employment of the employees. In my opinion and I stress this is my opinion…Optus, Telstra, and a litany of others seem to often be given the soft treatment with what appears to me that some are given lighter punishments because they are considered “too big to fail” and/or it seems because they are friends of the political apparatus.
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