I don't know what you guys are paying for gasoline.... My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money's worth for every gallon:
Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose , CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.
✅ Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.
A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.
✅ When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.
✅ One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.
✅ Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.
A few points seem odd to me. I thought I read somewhere that once you go down a certain depth in the ground the soil temperature is pretty constant. That would seem to indicate it doesn't matter what time of day you fill up. Secondly, I heard about the last point previously but ignored it as it seems pretty unlikely there isn't a filter between the buried gas station tank and the nozzle you're putting into your car's tank. The "only fill up on half tank" doesn't sound right either. You would have to fill up twice as often and thus two times the volume of a 1/2 tank is equal to a whole tank. This all sounds like nonsense to me.
Edit:
Just did a search on filters in gas station tanks. As I suspected, there are multiple places where the gas is filtered. From one post is says it's filtered before filling up the gas tanker truck, filtered when gas tanker truck fills gas station tank, filtered from the tank to the pump. And then it's filtered again from your car's gas tank before it enters the carburetor.
when was the last time you heard of someone getting bad gas from a station which clearly has filters at every pump to filter out micro-sediment???
I know for a fact, that Arco gas is cheaper gas than any other gas. I fill my tank with Arco gas I drive to California, and halfway through I have to stop and fill my tank again. If I use any other gas, any other gas… I can get there on one tank. Fact! This is happened numerous times because I was too stupid to figure it out the first time. Once I figured it out, I have never put Arco gas in my vehicle ever again. I refuse to shop at Arco gas.
I live in Arizona. And I guarantee you the temperature in the ground in the heat of the day here, it’s not the same as it would be somewhere else. It was 116° yesterday.
I doubt that. I think if you go down, maybe around 2'?, the temperature is supposed to be somewhat constant, somewhere in the 60's I believe. As someone mentioned in this post, caves are pretty chilly. I assume a cave in AZ is probably about the same temperature as a cave in AK, assuming the same cave depth. Soil, I guess, is s pretty good insulator. I'm pretty sure geothermal energy makes use of the fact that the ground temperature is pretty constant a few (several?) feet down.