Help please! Need advise. Thank you ahead of time.

[RcoM]

Question for you others;

I had something very strange happen recently. I went to fill up my tank. I then drove about 50 miles. My minivan gets 20 mpg, and it holds 20 gallons in the gas station. My 20 gallon tank had dropped down almost 8 gallons when I had only gone about 50 miles. It shouldn't have dropped that much. Basically the gas guage dropped enormously fast.

I work from home most the time also; so this means that I'm driving very little. This makes me think that I had gas stolen; like someone siphoned gas from my car.

...But after I thought that I went to a different gas station, and filled up. Then did my drive for the week, which was like 24 miles. I came home and my gas meter in the car had barely changed. It was noticeably much less gas used, where the gas from before dropped a lot but all came from a different gas station. It looks like it didn't have the problem from the gas from the second gas station.

Because I don't commute to work, my mileage used per month is usually literally less than 140 miles; this is why I noticed it so fast on the original problem of the gas gauge moving so much.

...This makes me think that maybe that 1 gas station might be selling gas that's diluted with water? How often does this happen? In theory it could happen.

But I want to ask also how do you tell and identify an event of someone siphoning your gas compared with a gas station selling dilluted water? And if it was gas sold with water diluted in it, wouldn't the symptom of that look like the gas guage dropping faster than it should?

Thanks for any insight on this.

It's also possible the gas station have rigged their pump to look like they deliver x litres/gallons- but don't. Avoid that station on suspicion.

 

[Smokerbill]

Sometime a gas pump nozzle is extremely sensitive and shuts off the gas before the tank is actually full, but full enough to make the needle on the car's gas gauge read at "Full". It's a possibility.