way to fill up without spillage or constant attendance

way to fill up without spillage or constant attendance

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teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
eureka! i've been using a handmade wedge to hold the trigger locked when filling the fuel tank, which made for slow progress and lost product due to fume recovery systems on the dispenser. well i've switched to getting the car up at and angle by driving up onto bits of plywood placed on a front and back wheel. takes seconds to position, and makes it possible to use the lowest notch on the auto trigger without spilling. i get out quickly and also avoid donating 1-2 gallons to the staion owner via fumes. the plywood weighs nothing and fits neatly on each side of the boot. wish the car would lean itself over with hydraulics.

bojangles

464 posts

249 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
My S4s has no problems to fill.. not sure what the probles with so many car is, but I suggest that the problem is fixable. I know this has been talked about for ages.. but I just jamm the nozzel in there ( either side ) and squeeze it till it is full..

teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
problem is the air in the tank hindering anything new coming in. there are relief outlets, but not near enough on my car. glad to hear some people don't have the problem. it loses style points at filling stations when you have to stand there and manually squeeze the nozzle breathing carcinogens.

GKP

15,099 posts

246 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
But driving onto bits of old plywood that you carry in the car is your idea of classy?

Why don't you just fix the issue with the car instead of manufacturing second rate skateboard ramps?

cnh1990

3,035 posts

268 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
Really? A home made trigger lock for nozzle.

All our stations have clips on the dispenser. The few places that don't I just put the gas cap under the handle to keep it flowing.

Gas usually does not spill out unless ones does something like invert the nozzle or it is not in an upright orientation as on some the auto cutoff does not work when it is upside down.

teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
all the stations do have the clips, but there is not a setting low enough to avoid spillage. that's why i made my own device that adds another setting. looking at the service notes, the first owner complained about the fill up problem to the lotus dealer and was told time and again it was normal.

wedg1e

26,839 posts

270 months

Monday 17th July 2006
quotequote all
I believe that the locks are now verboten in the UK, so we're stuck with having to hold the trigger...

bojangles

464 posts

249 months

Wednesday 19th July 2006
quotequote all
all pumps dont pump at the same rate... i suspect that some cars.. at some service stations had difficulty taking fuel at the wide open setting....that would be normal..

BUT

All cars should accept fuel at the lowest setting.. if your car does not accept fuel at the lowest setting the dealer is a jackass for not dealing with it.

I mean what part of reason runs through peoples minds when they experience ridiculous stuff like this? do they really think that the engineers never gassed up the cars? I mean in developement of the same car for 28 years.. they must have used more than one tank of gas??



Paul93Lotus

23 posts

221 months

Wednesday 19th July 2006
quotequote all
Have you tried opening the opposite side gas cap when you fill up? I have heard people have had success with that method.

teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Wednesday 19th July 2006
quotequote all
opposite side opening does work, but there is a metal spring door you have to push a cardboard tube through to get results. i do it when i have a spent paper towel roll handy. i once used a toblerone tube and had to fish it out after it fell in. everyone is right saying it's ridiculous for any production car not to be handle something as basic as refueling. however, i am not making this stuff up for your entertainment, and lotus can't be depended upon to engineer to even yugo standards.

GKP

15,099 posts

246 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
Whereas your plywood ramp is state of the art?

Fix the car properly. There wasn't a refueling problem when the car left the factory.

teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
why are you absolutely certain the car did not have the same problem when it left the factory? i've yet to leave an owner's meet without hearing about fuel spillage or slow fueling enroute. it's just another part of the car that was engineered poorly, and i'm being too kind to call them engineers.

bojangles

464 posts

249 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
I dont like the criticism of the engineering. I think that engineers do a good job, and it is not the calculations that are ususaly wrong when things dont work. Forces, loads and material properties all need ot be in balance for things to work well. In a lightweight supercar, there is no allowance for people doing dumb thing with excess force. The good engineering in a supercar is finding the precise forces and material properties to keep things on the verge of working. Not like BIG Fat overengineered American cars that you can kick and slam forever. I am sure that the loads needed to make the Esprit function as a Car are perfectly well engineered.


Hamfisted people find ways to apply loads that were never imagined by engineers. For your problem here, I suspect that there is some part somewhere that was loaded beyond its design level that is at the root of the problem.

Imagine that some vent hose is kinked somewhere.... and not as a result of driving.

I think you will never sort out your issues with your car if you dont try to give credit to the engineers and understand what engineering is all about.

teigan

Original Poster:

866 posts

239 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
your car may be a supercar, but mine is clark kent with broken glasses. i worked as an american engineer for 12 years. i wouldn't have lasted 12 months making the kind of mistakes they do at lotus.

GKP

15,099 posts

246 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
I hear Honda Civics are easy to refuel.

fflyingdog

621 posts

244 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
GKP said:
I hear Honda Civics are easy to refuel.


And Yugos..........

green_meanie

34 posts

242 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
teigan said:
your car may be a supercar, but mine is clark kent with broken glasses. i worked as an american engineer for 12 years. i wouldn't have lasted 12 months making the kind of mistakes they do at lotus.


Please, please, please..........

We're ALL begging you...........

Sell your car to someone who'll appreciate it. I never had a problem refuelling my S2.2 in the 5 years that I had it, I don't have a problem with my S4s.
As for carrying bits of wood in the boot to drive on to when your in a gas station, are you some kind of tit?

jk1

469 posts

259 months

Thursday 20th July 2006
quotequote all
green_meanie said:
teigan said:
your car may be a supercar, but mine is clark kent with broken glasses. i worked as an american engineer for 12 years. i wouldn't have lasted 12 months making the kind of mistakes they do at lotus.


Please, please, please..........We're ALL begging you...........

Sell your car to someone who'll appreciate it.





x a bazillion


lotusse89

314 posts

285 months

Friday 21st July 2006
quotequote all
Those fuel vapor recovery gas pumps caused me problems when I was out east with my Esprit (some states have them, mine doesn't).

The pump wouldn't pump faster than a thimble full per minute. It was going to take me forever to fill. I finally figured out that those pump handles have to seal around the filler neck on the car. I had never seen or heard of that type of gas pump before! Once I figured it out I moved the pump nozzle shroud around until it sealed well enough to allow the pump to turn on.

Of course that isn't the car's fault. Those pumps weren't invented back when our cars were made (most of us here).

Normally my car fills fine, but I do open the othet cap to vent. A bunch of people ask me why I do that... I'm sure it looks funny or cool depending on who you ask.

cnh1990

3,035 posts

268 months

Friday 21st July 2006
quotequote all
I've not had this problem. Must be the gas pumps here. They just have the regular nozzles without a boot and it seats way down the filler neck and dispesnes at high rate of speed. no kick back or fuel flying out the opposite tank when venting. I did see a G car shoot gas outside of the opposite tank once.
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