Fuel Thieves

[Toolman]

Heard a warning on local news today. Locking fuel caps won't always work. If you own a vehicle with high ground clearance (pickups, Vans, etc) . Crooks are using pointed chisels to poke holes in fuel tanks and draining fuel into fuel cans.
Some cases have been reported where cordless drills used on diesel tanks. Alot of newer cars with plastic tanks are also being drilled. One guy had a 38 gal. tank that was full. Someone appeared to fill five gallon can and let the rest drain out onto the ground. It was a diesel pickup. If you see anyone walking around with cordless drill, hammer and chisel and fuel can, be suspicious.  Geez, what's next.

[ely]

i hope they have the toughtfulness to have quality tools with them. i do not really want any cheep cordless drills. as i intend to confiscate them on site.

[flip]

I have been working dad to put in some security cams at work to catch lot damage on customer cars.  Now that fuel is so high it becomes more of a necessity.  We have a couple hundred cars, trucks and big trucks on our lot that are easy prey for these scuz ball petro. thieves.  Easy to do several hundred or even thousands of dollars of damage in just a few minutes. 

[zopi]

Shoot 'em on sight...with a nail gun.

[Tom]

High fuel prices have brought on another "business" venture to the filling stations too.

Almost every time I fill up now, there is at least one person that will confront me and ask for money or gasoline to get their poor sick mother home.  Example:  They live in Daytona and had to go to Pa. to pick her up from an abusing situation.  They got this far back and don't have enough gasoline to get any further. She is an invalid.  Her parking tag is hanging from the mirror. They haven't had anything to eat in three days.

I hate to turn people like that away, but why are there so many of them hanging around the pumps now?  Where is their car?

One girl was out of gas and wanted enough (about $20) to get to a nearby community because she was worried about her Daddy.  She'd been calling him on the cell phone and it keeps going to "message".

One guy drove up and asked for money to get to the Navy Base on the other side of town.  He obviously wasn't military.  If he was, he needed to be sent back to Boot.  All the time he was delivering his spiel, his engine was running. The inside of the car reeked of "mary-jo-anna". He should have at least taken down the roach clip from his mirror.

This is beginning to remind me of the fellow holding the sign at the Expressway exit, "will work for food".

It's not like you can flip the guy a quarter for a hamburger anymore.  Being a good Samaritan costs a lot of money today.

[Dave Shepard]

As tough as it is too buy fuel, I don't see too many people changing their habits. Tom, I would have told that guy to see if his car would run on that reefer and to budget his money better.


Dave

[zopi]

a good panhandler, can make upwards of sixty bucks an hour.....FWIW.

[Don_Papenburg]

Someone tried to steal gas outof my diesel tank a while back.  I got to thinking that I should set up a gas barrel just for the unjust . Fill the hose with gas and the fill set up with a pipe pluged at the bottom and put gas in that .  a flimsy lock on the valve so that they can enjoy the act of thivery and tell their friends  how dumb I was to put such a flimsy lock on the gas tank.  Then I was thinking that I would fill the tank with use antifreeze.   Think it will work?

[ely]

i have a friend that keeps losing gas out of her suburban, i think i am going to put a five gallon can of gas out by the lawnmower in the yard to save them the trouble of siphoning it out of her truck. i figgure if i put 4 pounds of sugar in that jug it should fix the problem of whomever is using the gas.

[flip]

One of our sales ladys has a truck that her husband drives and it was mysteriously losing gas.  They knew becuase hubby used a gas card and filled up when he was empty montly bill was around $300.  Come to find out in the end the little delinquents that drove the 4 wheelers and motor bikes around at night were making pit stops with a suction hose.  She never caught them but after putting locking gas caps on monthly fuel bill went to $150.  I told her to put out a can of "gas" that was easy to get to and put in 3lb of sugar and the first guy she saw pushing a 4 wheeler home was her guy.  Way the laws are she probably would have been sued

[ely]

i will take my chances in the court flip. i would almost bet money it will be someones dad who gets the ruined engine in my case. and i would like to have some alone time time with them to discuss parenting skills amoung other things.

[flip]

Society is so messed up that I could easily see the dad blaming the victim and at least trying to sue in open court.  You know, little Johnny is an angel and would never do anything like that

[ely]

i know exactly what you mean, you see that sort of frivoluos lawsuit all the time. mostely from the fine folks that draw their nickel from state checks and the sort. seems there is always a lawyer that is more than ready to pursue that trek for them. no offense to our lawyers here, i'm just sayin........................

[Modat22]

This might be awful but lately when I'm approached by a needy person at the pump I pretend to be deaf and dumb.

[Toolman]

Was approached last night across the street from a gas station while walking into Tractor Supply. You should have heard the line of crap some creep layed on me as to why he needed $10.00 for gas. His car out of gas 2 blocks away, his mother is in jail and needs to bail her out.....it went on and on. I finally chuckled and told him he needs practice on the art of Bulls....in. This guy must of thought I rolled off of a turnip truck. I call it cheap entertainment.

[Timburr]

In the UK, a large proportion of our cars have diesel engines and fuel theft from central heating tanks seems to be the new trend.

Whilst we were having lunch today, a fuel theft discussion came up on the radio.   Some bloke emailed into the station to report an attempted fuel syphoning out of his motorhome.  He was asleep and was disturbed by them fumbling.  Not confronting them, because he was an elderly gentleman, he stayed put until the coast was clear.  He then investigated the damage and discovered they had only dropped their syphon pipe into the motorhome's toilet tank....         

[StorminN]

Timburr,

That sounds awful! Talk about instant karma!

Just curious... how much have fuel prices gone up there in the UK in the past six months?

-N.

[Furby]

Mythbusters proved that sugar in the gas tank doesn't do anything, so don't waste your sugar/$.

[Cedarman]

Now just what would happen if you put a couple handfuls of fine sawdust in that gas jug?  Would it hurt the fuel pump or just clog the filter?  Anyone ever have their sawmill engine sputter trying to suck gas through a clogged filter?

[Toolman]

I'll bet sand will do the job. Those injectors don't like that.

[timberfaller390]

High fuel prices have brought on another "business" venture to the filling stations too.

Almost every time I fill up now, there is at least one person that will confront me and ask for money or gasoline to get their poor sick mother home.  Example:  They live in Daytona and had to go to Pa. to pick her up from an abusing situation.  They got this far back and don't have enough gasoline to get any further. She is an invalid.  Her parking tag is hanging from the mirror. They haven't had anything to eat in three days.

I hate to turn people like that away, but why are there so many of them hanging around the pumps now?  Where is their car?

One girl was out of gas and wanted enough (about $20) to get to a nearby community because she was worried about her Daddy.  She'd been calling him on the cell phone and it keeps going to "message".

One guy drove up and asked for money to get to the Navy Base on the other side of town.  He obviously wasn't military.  If he was, he needed to be sent back to Boot.  All the time he was delivering his spiel, his engine was running. The inside of the car reeked of "mary-jo-anna". He should have at least taken down the roach clip from his mirror.

This is beginning to remind me of the fellow holding the sign at the Expressway exit, "will work for food".

It's not like you can flip the guy a quarter for a hamburger anymore.  Being a good Samaritan costs a lot of money today.

We had been to Chattanooga one summer in the middle of baling hay to pick up a part for the baler and it looked like we might get some rain before we got finished so we asked a peferectly healthy looking guy holding a "will work for food" sign and told him we would pay him 8 bucks an hour feed him supper and put him up for the night and that low down scoundrel said "oh no I couldn't do that but I take donations" we drove off after giving him a right fair cussing. A good friend of mine who retired from the Chattanooga police force once asked a panhandler how much he made in a day and the responce was "on a bad day about a hundred bucks on a good day close to five hundred" Don't that blow your mind?

[Don_Papenburg]

The filters will plug and the sand will not makeit to the injectors

  Years ago an older farmer  had a set of farm buildings across the road from his house .  That is where his fuel was stored . He had a lot of help emptying his tank.  His hired man told him to go to the house one evening and stay there nomatter what till he got there in the morning.  Well over night there rose such a clatter he wondered what was amatter.  He stayed in the house till the hired man showed up .  The hired man was unhooking the 120volt wire from the gas nossle as he got across the road .  never had a problem with there gas helper again.

[Timburr]

Timburr,
....Just curious... how much have fuel prices gone up there in the UK in the past six months?

-N.

Since July 07 our petrol (gas) prices have risen by 16+% and road diesel is up 26%.   
Off-road diesel has gone up 92% and will be way over 100% in July 08 

[Lurcherman]

Timburr,
....Just curious... how much have fuel prices gone up there in the UK in the past six months?

-N.

Since July 07 our petrol (gas) prices have risen by 16+% and road diesel is up 26%.   
Off-road diesel has gone up 92% and will be way over 100% in July 08 

How much does it cost? Someone reported earlier in this post (I think) that fuel costs a lot less over on that side of the pond. I dunno though; I was in Austria at the end of February, and diesel was 1.29 Euro/liter, which I think at the time worked out to be double my cost in USD/gallon.

[flip]

Sugar or salt is good enough.  I can assure you that if you put 3-5 lb of either in a fuel tank within a few hundred miles (depending on size of tank, how much fuel is in the tank and what kind of vehicle it is) it will develop a fuel system problem.  It may or may not make it to the injectors but it will, 1: plug up the pick-up sock attached to the in tank fuel pump 2: plug up the in line fuel filter 3: gum up a carb on a 2 stroke or small 4 stroke vehicle.  I can personally attest to this because when I was a technician I worked on several cars and trucks that were vandalized in this manner 2 were neighbor disputes.

[sawdust]

Fella in town with a tow truck was loosing the gas out of jerry cans on the back of his truck, the cans were always returned. 

He told me that he put 25 styrofoam cups into the gasoline in one of the jugs, they instantly dissolve. Two days later he got a tow job 40 miles away to go and rescue his neighbours 1/2 ton. No idea what kind of damage this would cause and his stories tend to be pretty stretchy.

sawdust

[Timburr]

...How much does it cost?....

Petrol is £1.13/ litre, road diesel £1.26 and ind./ag. diesel is £0.65 a litre.
I'll even convert it to American fo you!!   Respectively 8.47, 9.44 and 4.87 USD / US gallon.

[Toolman]

  Holy Cow!!!

[ronwood]

Timburr,

How much of the price is taxes added on by the government?

Thanks
Ron

[Lurcherman]

...How much does it cost?....

Petrol is £1.13/ litre, road diesel £1.26 and ind./ag. diesel is £0.65 a litre.
I'll even convert it to American fo you!!   Respectively 8.47, 9.44 and 4.87 USD / US gallon.

I guess the UK fuel cops have a way for making sure nobody is using Ag diesel in their road cars, right?

[Timburr]

Ron,
Using road diesel at £1.26 per litre ($9.44/US gallon) as an example, 56.94pence goes to the government coffers in the form of fuel duty.   18.9 pence they take as VAT (similar, I think, to your sales tax?).  A total tax of 75.84 pence per litre.  The duty on petrol is 3 or 4 pennies less.

Lurcherman,
No!!  I've driven a diesel car for many years and have never been, or seen other cars stopped at a fuel trap.  I suppose it does happen though.  Now, a commercial vehicle is diffewrent matter.....