Petrol thieving scum bags

[King SuPah]

came down to my mini the other morning and found the fuel filler cap lying on the floor next to the car....... yep you guessed it someone had very nicely stolen my half a tank of petrol leaving me with nothing but fumes!!!

filler cap is broken so i've replaced it with a universal screw off plastic job and decided to only leave about £5 worth of petrol in the car at any point - obviously meaning i'm running close to the bottom of the tank the whole time something i would never normally do

any suggestions apart from wire the whole chassis to an electric supply to teach the chavs a lesson?

[FWDRacer]

Take it you had a locking one fitted?

[GTRMikie]

FWDRacer said:

Take it you had a locking one fitted?

That makes no difference. I had two locking caps levered off. In the end I devised a method of safely connecting the fuel cap to the car alarm, and it worked a treat!
All it needed was a boot light switch and a length of "inner and outer" cable. This foiled thieves on a couple of occasions. All I had to do was recover the fuel filler cap from where they dropped it as they ran off!

[Cooperman]

What a great bit of innovative design. One might think Mini Spares might like to add it to their range of accessories. Ask Richie (guru1071) what he thinks!

[Mini1275]

I remember when I was young going out in my mum and dads John cooper works mini for a day out only to run out of petrol due to thieving idiots syphoning most of it out.

Edited by Mini1275 on Saturday 27th November 13:18

[King SuPah]

genius idea - i've been toying with something a little more drastic.

is it possible to find a slightly larger petrol tank that is filable from inside the boot?? ie open the boot when you want to fill up

Edited by King SuPah on Monday 29th November 16:46

[GTRMikie]

King SuPah said:

is it possible to find a slightly larger petrol tank that is filable from inside the boot?? ie open the boot when you want to fill up

Edited by King SuPah on Monday 29th November 16:46

Probably not, but it would be possible for an experienced welder to remove your existing filler, plug the hole and reposition the filler in the boot. Obviously the tank would have to be completely free of petrol and fumes before starting!

[King SuPah]

also found a fabrication company that could offer a brand new tank.... hhmmmm

[DanGT]

You could fit a race type tank (fuel cell). Would be very safe (thay are fome filled and tend not to split when bent). But they take up the bottom part of the boot and a good one is not cheep.

I dont know but are the locking flip cap type better than the turn type?

[GTRMikie]

DanGT said:

I dont know but are the locking flip cap type better than the turn type?

The problem with the Mini is that the filler cap protrudes from the car body, making it easy to prise off. If you are lucky the scumbags will not damage the body work when doing this. At least with the twist on caps the body will not be damaged (assuming the thief is intelligent enough to realise that it does just twist off!) also the twist off caps are cheaper to replace. I had two locking caps destroyed before changing to twist type. Incidentally on one of the occasions when my fuel was stolen, not only did they ruin the filler cap and take a full tank of fuel, but they also destroyed the fuel gauge sender unit with their syphon, it cost me almost £100 pounds in total!

[4rephill]

King SuPah said:

genius idea - i've been toying with something a little more drastic.

is it possible to find a slightly larger petrol tank that is filable from inside the boot?? ie open the boot when you want to fill up

Edited by King SuPah on Monday 29th November 16:46

Would it be possible to mount the mini twin tanks in the boot on the opposite side to the way they're supposed to fit so the fillers are inside the boot? (i.e, the left tank mounted on the right hand side and the right tank mounted on the left).

Possible problems I suspect would be:

1)Having enough clearance for the pump nozzle to enter the filler neck.
2)The risk of fuel spilling into the boot and possibly around the battery.
3)petrol fumes leaking into the cabin.


Sorry if this seems like an unworkable solution, it's been a few years since I've owned a mini (or should I say a couple of decades!). Sadly life's commitments meant that it was no longer feasible to have a mini in My life as I had to be practical ( sometimes growing up just sucks!).

They still remain the only cars I ever owned that made Me smile,laugh and giggle every time I drove anywhere!.

[King SuPah]

thats the kind of solution i was thinking of but due to the shape of them i assumed having a tank fabricated may be a better option......

apart from the fact i then have to make th bodywork good afterwards