Is it true, as many now claim, that the more you pay for a litre of gasoline the faster it burns?
Contrary to this widespread belief, I have always given the benefit of the doubt to those who fill our carburettor bowls and not to motorists battling with an illusion that makes it appear that instead of the additives to improve engine performance, subtractives are getting into the mix somewhere between the pump and the tank.
The concern is supported by the fact that for the first time in — I don’t know how many years — I am seeing, almost on a daily basis, cars pulled up on the side of the road with their drivers, some in various states of embarrassment, with containers in hand replenishing dry tanks.
Way back in poor days when this was also a common sight, it was more often a case of a driver trying to squeeze an extra mile with empty pockets. It, therefore, was not rare to walk or beg for a lift to a station and wait around for a familiar face to come by in order to “hold a pound” – borrow five dollars to buy gas.
These days, the consensus is that tanks are running dry because drivers are no longer able to gauge by the closeness, before or after, of their gas needles to the E mark, how far they can reach while driving from point A to point B.
Many contend convincingly that when gas was much cheaper, they instinctively sought a petrol station when the needle reached a certain spot because they knew how far the vehicle would or would not go before stuttering to a dead stop.
Until a few days ago, I dismissed such claims and preferred to see it as an illusion where people are not recognising that $20 of gas at $3 per litre will not last as long as $20 at $2 a litre. In other words, it’s the money and not the gas that’s running out faster.
Today, however, I am not so sure again having had to call a friend to fetch me a gallon of gas after running out at the bottom of University Hill while driving to the station a few hundred feet away.
I have always known how far I could drive with my needle near or on the E mark. I have even won bets with relatives and friends that I could drive from town to Checker Hall in St Lucy or to the airport without having to look for a gas station.
As a result, when on that recent Saturday morning I left home at the back of Queen’s College headed for the station at the bottom of the hill, I had no reason to doubt the vehicle’s ability to get there for two reasons. One was that I gauged from the position of the needle on my fuel gauge that I had enough gas left to reach the station in Paynes Bay if I wanted, far less the one just at the bottom of the hill. The second was that 90 per cent of the distance I had to travel was downhill, the majority being University Hill, which called for little or no acceleration.
Yet, five minutes later, I was sitting stalled between the bus stop and the coconut vendor, waiting for Freddie to bring me a gallon. I was close enough for a push to the station but that would have been easier said than done with a 4×4 around the roundabout without the power steering working.
Al Gilkes is head of a public relations firm.