Gas-up gone wrong
 

I filled my car up w/ gas over the weekend. @ this station, they didnt have the levers that you can click so it stays pumping w/out anyone holding it.
So i was holding the handle pumping, watching how much it was going to be, when all of the sudden gas just shot right out of my tank and continued to pour out for a little while.
I probably had about $1 extra that came out!
I took the sqeege and "cleaned" up my car, while others looked @ my and laughed.
So I was standing in a little "puddle" of gas for a bit, and now my shoes stink!!!!!!
I was with my mom @ the time, and she went in and told an attendant about the situation, so he came out and poured kitty litter over the area
I've had my shoes outside since, and they still have a smell to them!

Does anyone know why the gas wouldnt have clicked off automatically like they normally do?
Could/should I write a letter to this station, and ask/demand reimbursment on my shoes?

will my shoes lose the smell over time?
is there anything I should do to get rid of the smell?

it didn't click off because their autoshutoff failed. That's a safety hazard, and they're not supposed to have equipment that's faulty like that. I'd contact the parent company and ask for a new pair of shoes.

In the future when this happens, you should also demand a car wash immediately. Gasoline is HELL on car paint.

Yeah, i guess I should of asked for a carwash. That is why I took the squeege to my car (not the best thing to use)

I agree with shakran and would take it a step further. If they are amicable regarding replacement shoes, and possibly a reimbursement for your fuel up, I'd let them off with a warning, as long as they fix it (is the station near you?).

If they don't fix it, or try to hassle you, go to your state's Board of Weight and Measures (or equivalent) as they tend to be responisible for fuel pump functionality and accuracy. The station could be investigated and possibly fined for failure to close that pump and repair the problem.

Good luck!

This happened to me once. I had on my black wingtips. I took them to a shoe repair place, told them what happened. 20 minutes and $15 later my shoes were good as new. I don't know what they did to them.

"...little bit of this, dab of that, now add fire and boom, shiney new shoes, here ya go..."

Have a bitch at them, that kind of stuff shouldn't happen, what with all the explosion hazards and whatnot :hmm:

The smell will go away after awhile.

Things like this happen everyday, I hardly see any reason to start drama over a silly pair of shoes..

Good luck on getting your shoes replaced or fixed at the company expense. All of the stations were I live have notices posted that states the customer is responsible for spills. That includes both the cost of the spilled gas and any damage to your belongings.

Usually those notices specify that the customer is responsible if he isn't monitoring the pump - i.e. if you run into the store and the pump starts spilling, you're responsible.

But the OP was doing everything right, their equipment failed. Even if they post signs saying they're not responsible, that doesn't change the fact that they are. After all, I can't get away with theft just by posting a sign saying I am allowed to steal ;)

All the TFPers in Oregon are reading this thread with smug expressions on their faces, confident in the knowledge that the Great State of Oregon is protecting them from tragedies such as this.

I've had that happen to me once as well. Sometimes shit happens. You could have had the nozzle in there at just the right angle for the back pressure sensor (or however the hell those things work) to not register the tank being full.

If they are just tennis shoes and not nice dress shoes I'd just put them through a wash and dry cycle in your washer and dryer at home, should get rid of the smell.

Actually it's not a good idea to put gas soaked things in electrical appliances that have a heating element ;)

Well they are nice dress shoes. ALDO (I dont know if that is only a canadian brand or not) they're black leather, with of course rubber on the bottom. It makes me angry because they are my only black leather shoes, so I have to adjust my wardrobe a bit to fit brown everyday.

I don't know where you bought your gas, but in Canada (unlike in the states it seems), gas hoses come with that big rubber disc in front of the handle to prevent that happening. If I pull into a gas station and the pumps don't have that extra feature, I pull back out on the road and keep going.

It was a mistake on your part... thats why they say, never leave pump unattended and theres also signs saying that the customer is responsible for any spilled fuel.

And anyways it was a DOLLAR... and some shoes... You are going to take the time to write a lengthly letter to a company, mail it, and wait 6 months for a letter saying we are sorry, heres 5 bucks in coupons for your next fill up?

Every time I've gotten service I thought was below par, or recieved a product I thought didn't hold up to standards, I wrote the company, and every single time I've done this I got an apology and some free stuff out of it.

If you're annoyed, write the company. It's up to you whether it's "worth it" or not- the worst they can do is say "sorry, not our fault."

But I think, if you were standing there, doing your part right, and gas just shot out of the tank, their auto-shutoff needs to be investigated.

and those in the great state of New Jersey as well.. :)

Isn't it grammaticaly incorrect to use "great state" and "New Jersey" in the same sentence?

Hey! Don't look at me like that. I live in Nebraska, for cryin' out loud. That fact alone entitles me to poke a little fun as compensation. ;)

And just so as not to threadjack...yes there is a auto-shutoff mechanism, that obviously failed. This has nothing to do with "the levers that you can click so it stays pumping". However, I have to wonder, realizing that gas ain't exactly cheap, how you managed to physically hold the handle "open", long enough for a $1.00s worth to spill over, and not notice.
Not saying that it wasn't equipment failure...but how could you not notice after the first second and a half of spillage?

Has anyone here researched how they work? I remember learning about it a few years back when I was curious how something that was pumping could know when its container was full. It's really hard to do, if you think about it. If you just let it flow until the fluid backed-up on itself, you'd have spills like this one. However, the device that makes this all work? Pretty neat -- its completely mechanical..

There's a neat picture too!!

http://www.wonderquest.com/sleeping-...-hospitals.htm

Indeed. I don't even have to get out of the car when it's cold, wet, windy, or all three. AND my gas is cheaper than the gas in the nearly-as-great state of Washington.

And yes, even though I'm an Oregonian, I do know how to pump my own gas.

Um...care to explain the deal with gas pumping in Oregon for us Canadian?

I think in Canada it's a federal law to ensure that all gas pump are fitted with auto-shutdown when the tank is full.

We don't have gas pumping problems in Oregon. The pack mules are content with the vegetation found alongside our narrow trails.

People can't pump their own gas in Oregon. It costs us some percentage but guarantees whatever number of attendant jobs.

Yes, the feds require automatic cutoffs here too, but they don't always work perfectly.

well. I think it is worth it for me to write a letter to the main company. so I am going to do that.
Im going to go back to the station, get the address, pump # and tell them the date and approx time of incident.

Oh and barenakedladies... I dont know the exact amount that came out. As course as soon as it started to come out, I took the nozzle out of the tank and sort of jumped back so it didnt get my clothes.
It seemed to come out pretty hard, so there was a bit of money wasted. that is not my conern though. my shoes are.
I am in Canada aswell. so my gas in in liters. I pay around 80cents per liter right now.

I once had the fun experience of having to run into the station, tell them three times that a woman just drove off with the nozzle in her car, and that it didn't shut off and was spraying gallon after gallon of gas in a ten-foot-radius cone from the overhead hookup for the hose. They eventually went into the back room and turned the pump off, but I'd guess that close to 20 gallons had sprayed out by then. My mom and I blocked off the area with garbage cans from near the pumps since they apparently didn't care enough to go out and do it themselves.

I probably should've called the fire department about the hazardous spill, but I was dizzy from the gas fumes.

It is mandatory for them to use vapor-recovery systems, but that's a completely different mechanism from what's being discussed here.