I have never turned my vehicle off while pumping gas in my life and have yet to have an issue. Especially coming from a Northern state where it gets pretty cold you see a lot of people doing the same thing. What is the potential risk or is it all just a myth?
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I’m seeing **no solid answers** in this thread justifying this as an actual risk/probability and explaining a technical cause.
Everything I see either:
1. References static electricity between the person and the car (which comes from entering/exiting the vehicle and is unrelated to the car engine state), or
2. Falls back on “why not just be safe?”, or “you could LITERALLY DIE if it catches fire” types of pleas
I sense this could be a myth and just another instance of overzealous safety culture.
There are two parts to evaluating risk.
1. The likelihood that something will happen.
2. The consequences if that thing does happen.
In the case of pumping gas with your car turned on, the likelihood that something will happen is very low. However, the consequences if something *does* happen are significant.
Gasoline fires at gas stations are very dangerous because you are pumping a very flammable liquid. If your car catches fire, the whole gas station can burn down and people can die as a result.
Based on these facts, the small increase in likelihood associated with pumping gas with the engine turned on is not worth risking the consequence of a gasoline fire.
Interestingly, many states do not have laws specifically prohibiting pumping gas while your vehicle is running. Instead, they rely on laws that prohibit leaving your vehicle running while unoccupied by a driver. In other words, if there’s no one in the driver’s seat, the vehicle must be off. This introduces an interesting loophole where it wouldn’t explicitly be illegal to pump gas with the car running, so long as the passenger is doing the pumping.
However, most gas stations have a set of rules posted that require all vehicles to be off while pumping. We get gas at our local Sam’s Club because it has the lowest price around, and there are a couple of really strict attendants there that will instruct you to turn off your car, and if you don’t immediately comply, they shut the pumps down. Then literally everyone at the station is pissed off at you because you’re the guy who got everyone’s gas shut off, and most people have no problem with the “turn your car off while pumping” rule.
Fuel and ignition source have to be the obvious answer. However, if you’ve ever been standing under a moving rotor while hot fueling a helicopter, you seem to feel hot gassing a car is not that dangerous.
Because gas fumes are flammable and your running engine’s spark plugs or even just built up static can ignite them. Half of all fires at gas stations start this way. It’s not a myth. Turn off your car. You endanger everyone there just to keep your heat running for an extra five minutes.
Don’t see anyone mentioning it, so I’ll chime in.
The car does produce static electricity and does pose an extremely small (albeit real) chance of causing an explosion. But the static electricity doesn’t just disappear just because the car has been shut off. The threat remains until the electricity is discharged.
But the greater concern is actually dozens of cars idling in a covered area, filling it with carbon monoxide.
Your car will stay warm in the 3 min it takes to pump gas I promise.
You risk an explosion of the fuel/air mix by the nozzle gets set off by the static electricity in the dry cold air as you pull the nozzle out of the filer tube.
Also your fuels system is meant to be a vacuum so you have a higher chance of your check engine light coming on in error thinking there is a leak somewhere.
I feel like this is one of those “Typical American things” posts.
Of course you turn of your vehicle. Why wouldn’t you??
There’s two reasons to not do this… one is because you need proper pressure which you don’t achieve with the gas cap off… two is because in the invent of a loose wire or collection of random electrons you will create a static spark if you’re engine is off this one time spark should not do anything… however in the event that you’re car is on it will create constant sparks likely causing a fire or massive explosion.
Why do you need to keep it running?
Low risk of disaster, but if there is an ignition of the gas then you are likely to be seriously injured/killed, with others getting harmed too. So why risk it just because you’re a little cold? I’ve lived in cold climates and never, ever left my car running while pumping gas. Put on some gloves and a hat.
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