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26Jan

Better than flipping a coin: figure out which side the gas tank is on from inside the car - UPDATED: Not really.

6 comments so far

UPDATED: As it turns out, this just flat-out isn’t accurate. Even Snopes has debunked it (although I admit it would never have occurred to me to check Snopes for something so trivial). Who’da thought my mother in-law could have been so wrong when her daughter turned out so right? :) Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

This is a quickie, and in the overall scheme of things fairly insignificant, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

You know that little gas pump icon on your fuel gauge? As it turns out if the hose and handle in the little icon on on the right side (as pictured above) the gas tank is on the right side of the car. If the hose and handle are on the left side of the pump (not pictured above) the gas tank is on the left side of the car.

So the next time you’re driving someone else’s car (whether it be a friend’s or a rental), or if you’re on an awkward date and there’s nothing good on the radio, keep this in mind. Maybe it’ll save you from either embarrassing yourself by walking around your car only to pull away from the pump without filling up, or from saying something stupid like, “So…did you ever wear head gear?”

LivSimpl



The image for this light-hearted post, as well as the original idea came from my in-laws.

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Categories: Transportation

Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Better than flipping a coin: figure out which side the gas tank is on from inside the car - UPDATED: Not really.”

  1. Posted by Kevin 27th January, 2008 at 1:18 am

    I didn’t know about the hose & handle icons, but I do know that some cars have a little arrow next to the fuel pump icon that points to the side where your fuel door is. I keep on forgetting about that, though…

  2. Posted by Ash Haque 27th January, 2008 at 1:27 am

    Nope, not always, at least not on my Honda Accord 1993, fuel gauge shows right side, gas tank is on the left.

  3. Posted by Margi 28th January, 2008 at 9:52 am

    Lol! Thanks. This is funny. Thank goodness for the little arrow that some cars have, which is always correct :-) Of course, when I rent a car, I COULD just walk around before I drive it off the lot, but that just takes too much time. :-)

  4. Posted by LivSimpl 28th January, 2008 at 4:17 pm

    Margi - seriously. And this is all about simplicity, right? :)

  5. Posted by Peter 28th January, 2008 at 9:11 pm

    Okay, so this little trick isn’t true. But the real question is, why don’t more cars have an indicator or depict the nozzle on the same side the gas cap is on? It’s not hard to do; must we leave all such well-engineered concepts to the Germans?

  6. Posted by LivSimpl 29th January, 2008 at 9:43 pm

    Peter - Like BMWs? ;)

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