gas pump quit on me

[midnight911]

After accumulating 350 miles (pretty good gas mileage, eh?), time for gas station. Here in Oregon, they pump gas in for you, so the guy shoves the gas nozzle into the inlet and he squeezes the handle.

Gas rushes out and within a second, it stops like when it does when you reach full. Not even a gallon went in so the guy wiggles the nozzle and tries again. The same, won't hold even for a second. Repeats several times, and he says my gas tank is full and he won't do it any more. I think ok the gas pump might be broken and even if my car had any problem I'd drive around and time may solve the problem.

I go to the next gas station...then the same thing. This time the guy who seemed to be more willing to sell me that expensive gasoline, he wiggles, tries different angles, does nice piston action like he does in bed, after ten or so times later, finally it starts to pump normally.

The weather was nice and it was around 75F. The tank was indeed quite empty sucking 18 gallons or so after all.

My question: given that it pretty much tells something was going on with my car, rather than the pump side, is this an indication of something really bad? Not that I'm super worried about it for now but wanted to see if someone had experienced the same thing.


PS... and I gave up on lowering project today as the 21mm shock-to-trailing arm did not want to move.

[MBAtarga]

Do a search - this is a common problem. The solution is to rotate the gas dispensor nozzle almost 180 degrees from the "normal". Almost like you're filling up from the other side of the car. It's proposed it has something to do with the sharp bend the gas hose takes just under the fill nozzle.

[Paulporsche]

You can also try pulling the nozzle out a little, maybe an inch or so. That works too. Stop the fillup when it stops automatically to make sure you do not overfill when you do this.

[midnight911]

awesome. thanks.
did search but my lack of vocabulary yielded only 10mil irrelevant articles... again, thanks.

[Joe Bob]

Turn nozzle 180 degrees.....

[porsche930dude]

yea i pull it out till the nossle is almost out and point it twords the front of the car and dont fill it at full speed. Spinning it 180 works too