Having drained the wrong fuel from thousands of cars I have spent more time on petrol station forecourts than most.
Every wrong fuel removal involves putting a flexitube into a fuel tank and letting a pump do its thing, on a corsa with 5 litres this may take 5 minutes, a rangerover with 100 litres of wrong fuel in it, or an Iveco van may take an hour, there’s not much to do in this time other than monitor the fuel system and chat with the customers, in between daydreaming I find myself playing the “how much game”, thats where I watch cars coming into the petrol station and try and guess how much they will fuel they will buy before they pump, different stations have different clientele, BP M&S for example tends to have a higher spending customer who will often fill the tanks up, it surprises me still how many people fill up with fivers and tenners – which must be a daily fill up.
I cant stand filling up, so when I do its always to the top from empty, but next time your in a petrol station look at the pumps and see what the last sale was, it would give you a fairly good idea of the clientele of the petrol station and the area your in
There’s also a loyalty to specific stations, some people turn up at the same time and place every week for the top up, and often misfuel when they go off the beaten track and try somewhere new. ive done the same car 3 times in two months in the same station that had been misfuelld, always on a friday night after she had done her weekly shop, I didnt have the heart to charge for the 2nd and 3rd drains but it still cost her 2 full tanks of wasted fuel, I havent seen here for a while and fingers crossed she has learnt her lesson