Now if I have spent 35 quid on fuel mid week at the local filling station I have no problem popping in at the weekend to do the tyres even though I don't always make a purchase at the same time. However I know that others think it is a real cheek to pull up on to a forecourt to use the free air machine without making a purchase.
Any thoughts?
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Who cares what other customers may or may not think, its hardly got anything to do with them.
As for the filling station, then they'll mention it if they have a problem and then you'll make a decision.
For myself, I use water/airlines anywhere/time I want, irrespective of whether or not I am buying fuel that day or any day from that establishment.
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Who cares what other customers may or may not think, its hardly got anything to do with them.
I dont give a toss for what other customers think, a couple of mates took the line that you shouldn't use the services without making a purchase, made me wonder if I am the norm in this regard.
If the staff questioned me I would point out that I am a regular, I would probably be recogised as such anyway, I suppose worst case scenario is having to buy a packet of fruit pastilles so as to be able to use the airline, no great hardship there then!
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I never ever use them myself but, from what I've seen whilst buying petrol, quite a few of the "Free Air" machines on forecourts are no longer free.
You have to put money in!
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I stop & put air in where I need to. I stop & put petrol in where I need to. What they win on the swings they lose on the roundabouts. Do you think that the bored 18 year old picking his nose behind the counter cares? Do you think there is a moral issue?
Anyway, you have to put a few shillings in quite often. (I thought most garages had stopped charging for air lines for fear of being sued if the pressure gauge was wrong, but obviously I'm wrong.)
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My local station has a free air machine which i will be avoiding from now on. It is one of the digital machines, which pumped my tyres up at the front to the required pressure, but when i tried to check the rear, it let them down. I started getting suspicious as i don't overinflate tyres and had checked the pressures 2 weeks previously. Went to another garage to discover that the pressures in the back were now 22 Psi instead of 28.
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I don't think there's any law requiring you to buy anything!! How terribly British and starchy to be bothered about such things! I live opposite a petrol station attached to a large Morrison's: I use it as a car park, as a corner shop, for free air and buy my petrol there. They all know me, and greet me with friendliness and I've never had a problem.... they even know my favourite paper and ciggie brand. Where do you live Cheddar?!
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How terribly British to be putting air in your tyres.
I was contemplating doing this before I drive Warsaw to Manchester tomorrow but thought better of it. The old man will do it, wash it and change the oil while I?m sleeping on Sunday afternoon. He can?t help himself.
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It is almost inconceivable that anyone in a petrol station would question or even notice someone using the airline without buying petrol, pies etc. If they did, and I was the user, I would not feel obliged to be especially polite.
I think of myself as an innocent, old-fashioned, courteous and fair-minded sort of person, but it would never occur to me to think using an airline was out of order. Evidently some people are more innocent than I am.
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When I used to work on a petrol forecourt - in the 1960s (before self service), customers would come in and expect me to check their tyres - and their oil, etc. sometimes they'd buy petrol and sometimes not. I never refused to check anything - it was my job.
I've used airlines in garages without buying anything and no-one's ever complained.
If a disabled driver wanted their tyres checked I'd expect the cashier to do so, all without necessarily buying something - though this wouldn't work if there was only one in attendance (but then how does a disabled driver buy petrol - not at night obviously).
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I worked on a forecourt in the 70's and the garage owner instructed me to stop people taking free air & water.
I said 'there'll be trouble'!
First person I stopped went absolutely ballistic in front of several other customers. He marched off to see the owner and claimed he was the garages best customer and was never going to use our garage again.
I was told to let it go n future :-)
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Interesting sign of the times that this question has to be asked. My Dad, among other things more agricultural, owned a rural filling station through the 1970s and 1980s and had a couple of 'customers' who only ever came in for their tyres to be checked and topped up. They regularly did this at the start or end of the 40-mile commute to Aberdeen where presumably they bought their cheaper petrol from a filling station with no air pump. My Dad who had to operate the air compressor and check the tyres himself never refused since he saw it as a safety service to customers, potential or regular. He obviously gritted his teeth a bit since he checked now and again with any of us who had been helping out whether Mr X or Mr Y had ever bought anything.
And before the jokes start about Aberdonians unable to pass by anything free, one of the 'customers' was an expatriate from South of the Border!
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My nearest Asda has a completely unstaffed petrol station. You pay at the pump or go elsewhere. There's no embarrassment there about using the air, even if you're a certain driver of a silver Focus, who blocks everyone else's access and insists on finishing her lengthy phone call before getting out to fill all her tyres. Grrr...
On a related matter, is there any obligation for petrol stations to provide air at all? I can hardly recall a time when there wasn't an out of order sign on the airline at another local supermarket. In fact, the staff don't even bother replacing the scrap of paper when it blows away.
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I like to think I'm fairly polite but I honestly never saw (and still don't really) a problem with driving to the garage to top the tyres up.
I don't think I've ever topped the tyres up having filled up with juice - they've always been special trips.
If I ever got told off for using the "free air" I'd make damn sure I never used that garage again.
It's the little things...
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I suppose there's a difference between a petrol station of the modern sort and a small independent garage that does a bit of everything... but I still can't see one of these being dog-in-the-mangerish about air.
Airlines which can't make much profit if any must be a bit of a nuisance to garages. Customers damage them, leave the nozzles and hoses lying about to be run over, bend the nozzles, unscrew bits and steal them...
The accuracy of the built-in gauges seems to vary a lot. That can be a bit of a nuisance if you go very fast and/or your car has expensive and fragile tyres. Probably the electronic ones, in which you set the pressure with buttons on the machine, which then rings a bell when the pressure is the one you have set, would remain accurate longer than a nozzle gauge subject to punter abuse. But has it been properly calibrated in the first place, we wonder?
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All the stations near me charge for air and I use all of them at one point or another for petrol. I went to my nearest one the other day (Texaco) just to top up my tyres and was stunned to find it was 20p for 2 minutes! - that's obviously 30 seconds per tyre with no time for the spare under the boot floor. Must remember to remove fiddly valve caps before inserting coin! It was a digital airline, which was 100% accurate according to my ITC gauge. If the machine had cut out before I was finished I would have gone in and complained.
These places aren't "service stations", they're businesses there to make money and there's no money in free air so I'm hardly surprised at the way things are.
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> a coupleof 'customers' who only ever came in for their tyres to be checked and topped up. They regularly did this at the start or end of the 40-mile commute to Aberdeen where presumably they bought their cheaper petrol from a filling station with no air pump.
Wow. And people think Hitler and Stalin were evil!
:-)
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The words "stunned" and "20p" never appear in the same sentence in the PU household. This thread illustrates how petty and mundane life can be in the UK.
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That off side left rear tyre is getting a bit flat, better get it sorted, what shall we have this time, another 535 or perhaps a 7 Series?
Only joking PU ;-)
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2nd attempt at posting...
It wasn't the 20p that irked, as I said most stations seem to charge these days - only the tightfisted restriction to two minutes of air supply.
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The easyest thing is to do your own at home. Most of the supermarkets eg tesco and sainsbry are free.
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>>The easyest thing is to do your own at home. Most of the supermarkets eg tesco and sainsbry are free.
Thats when they work,my local supermarket very often has out of order on it,And on looking around all but one garage had a pump working.
the electric to supply these pumps does not cost much compared to profits made so dont have a problem in topping my tyres up at any garage..Not often I do mind as normally keep pump in boot
--
Steve
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Why not buy your own footpump or compressor and keep it in the car?
Or am I missing something here?
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