gas station runouts

That's why I don't worry about it. The boss does the dispatch and he decides when and where I go. So, if a station runs out, its on him for not getting me or one of the other guys there soon enough.

I just left a station that had been out of diesel for about 12 hours. The manager was worried about it, but I told her it wasn't a big deal or the boss would have sent someone out last night. The station is in a hotel/motel district so it mostly goes through unleaded in all the rental cars that are in the area. If they sell 1000gal of diesel in a week it would be an outlier number. I dropped about 3000gal. there. It might last until Hallowe'en

BTW, I saw someone talking about sticking the tanks a few pages back. Do you guys still do that out in CA? I thought everyone had meters now. We don't even carry sticks on our trucks or at the stations.

 

I've been retired for some time now but I know the former ARCO drivers still stick the tanks. If I was driving now I would stick the tanks because it's much more accurate for me. Of course you need to know the make of the tank in the ground and carry the right gauging chart to do any good. I don't like to slam against the overflow valves at full speed. A while back we only stuck the tank to start then they made us stick the tank at the end of the drop. I always thought it was a waste of time to do the after readings because the product is still moving up and down and most times it will for awhile.

 

Yeah, we just use meter readings for gal. and for inches. I write them up on the invoice and staple one of the printout strips with all the numbers on it to that invoice and turn it in to the boss's wife who does the station billing. If something is fishy or the numbers are way off for some reason, I just let her know and she takes care of it. We have at least one tank where the meter is off, but she seems to know how much it is off by. That tank has like 20,000gal. cap. and never, ever gets filled all the way.

I doubt she treats the whole thing as an exact science, so I don't worry about anything other than cross-loads or overfills.

The meter will also tell us how many inches of water is in the bottom of the tank, and how much ullage we have, so if you pay attention to what you are doing and what the numbers on the tape say, you won't have an overfill. And the water is something out tech guy pays attention to and takes care of when needed.

 

Yes we still stick before and after that meter could be off by just enough to hit the overflow so that's why. We also paste are sticks to check for water, I've personally been saved a time or two because meter was way off. And if we go past 90% and its an ATG Phillips66 gets sent a message and we have to answer as to why.

 

Most mega stores (QT, Costco, etc..) won't even let you put a stick in the tank. Too many guys drop the stick from the top ant punch it through bottom of the plastic tank. I always thought it would be easy to epoxy a piece of 1/8 steel a foot square where the stick lands, but what do I know... Im just a truck driver.

 

Makes sense to me. If the meter is off send someone out to calibrate it.

 

But do you want to be the guy that finds out the hard way lol...plus this is socal stuff doesn't happen overnight.

 

I dunno, but like I said, we never get close to filling our tanks, with two exceptions, and I watch those like a hawk. And when I look at the volume numbers, if something doesn't look right I just pick up the phone.I know a quick check of sales at the register will tell me how much fuel should be in the tank, mas o menos.

If the sales number doesn't jibe with the meter, then we know there's a problem. Hasn't come up yet though. And I only went over 90% ullage once, by about 50gal. or so, IIRC.

 

We never had it that easy. We had 70 some stations, some we owned by the company, some we leases, and some we outright owned by the dealer. We sold the most gasoline in the city and most of the time a station would need a load every day. That's 12,450 gallons. We had a station that was new so the dealer had a special and while that was going on the station took 3 loads a day. That's 37,350 gallons of gasoline. And most of all our sales were reg unlead. Midgrade didn't sell that well , but what a genius move to take two products and add then together to make its own product. We had 4 trucks at the terminal that ran around the clock. We moved a million gallons every 2 days. We did have a retain problem for awhile but that was out of our hands.

 

Yes we just don't have the time out here in southern california for all that it's much simpler to stick it. And like gas hauler, our company, and stations to huge volumes some get more than one delivery a day . It is mind boggling when you think about total loads delivered in a 24hr period.