Filling car with petrol

[freak_unique]

Yesterday I was filling the car up with petrol and was aiming to put about �25 in to fill it up...anyways it got to a point the petrol nozzle would click and the petrol would stop flowing..so i released the handle and pushed the handle in again and it continued to flow then stopped again - it did this about 4/5 times. Why does this happen is it just trapped air in the tank or was the tank full and should i have stopped pumping the first time it happened? as im worried about over filling the tank!
Cheers

[Dagman]

A friend of mine who services petrol pumps said, sometimes the end of the pump nozzle gets knocked (people dropping them) and this closes up the hole on the feedback tube. The end of a nozzle has this small tube running to the end and when it closes up slightly it acts like petrol is covering it up and stops the pump. Dunno how it works tho! I have noticed some nozzles have been bashed a bit.

[gsr600]

Hi f -unique
it may be a restrictive feed tube ie,anti syphon device,
which usually makes this happen on a car,
however you don't have one of these on motorcycle tanks & you still get the same symptoms so its just one of those flow characteristics thingies.
i try not to fill tanks to the top, as in hot weather it may cause fuel to expand & vent out of overflow tube (waste money)
hope this helps
GSR 600

[saxo_boi]

the petrol shut off because your tank was near to filling up, i asked a similar question on here once and i was told that there is a small tube at the end of the pump, now obviously when you pour the petrol your tank will fill at somepoint, and what happens is when the pump is in, if it gets covered in petrol (indicating that your tank is full) it means that the small tube at the end gets filled with petrol instead of air, the pump recognises this and shuts off the petrol supply as a safey feature. but im not sure how you can then keep pumping petrol anyway because surely you could just keep going until petrol came pouring out!

[sarah_louise]

I know that this happens all the time on a Rover. They do this because they can't cope with the rate of flow due to the design of the pipe between the tank and the filler cap.
The pipe just can't empty fast enough with the high speed pumps. It is really annoying.
Did you manage to stop exactly on �25 ? This also is nearly impossible with high speed pumps.
If you want it to be nice and slow and lethargic fill up in Norfolk !

[freak_unique]

Yep it let me carry on pumping and i got it to exactly �25 :D though it wasnt a digital pump but i can do it on those too!sometimes i go slightly out of course! This was on a 1997 ford fiesta - it started shutting off at about �23 but i carried it on to �25 but it did keep stopping! oopsy!
Cheers for your answers im guessing it was nearly full then!
Oh and Sarah-Louise you have the same name as me :D

[chazza]

It was probably airlocked, my car does this when it is completely empty of petrol. There's 2 ways to get round it:
1. pull the nozzle out a bit so that just the tip is in the hole, until it fills up a bit
2. don't pull the handle up as far as it goes, just pull it up slightly

[tam8687]

I work in a petrol station and quite a few people have this problem. We always find if you pull the nozzle out a little bit it stops it, not so petrol is going all over the floor. Just pull it out a centimetre or two and if it does get full it will still automatically shut off. Our pumps are fitted with and automatic fume defuser or something, apparently is sucks the fumes back into the underground tanks, stops the smell of petrol so much and its safer, but this causes problems because that can shut off the pumps too

[gsr600]

TO tam8687
I think you mean- vapour recovery system!
I don't work in a petrol station.
thanks

[Paul87]

Just a safety feature.

Like everyone says it stops the pump when the fuel reaches the nozzle. It stops it overflowing onto the ground, which we all know is a safety hazard. Petrol vapour is easily ignited which can be very bad for a petrol station so the fuel must be stopped from coming out the tank.

Its really good for filling petrol cans up as i do regularly for my smaller petrol engines used in various things.