Don’t Top Off That Tank

Even if you and I are totally different in literally every way, we might still have one similarity: topping off the gas tank when it’s time to fill up. A lot of people do it! It’s okay to admit it! I just like seeing that round dollar amount on the pump. But I found out recently that it’s actually pretty bad for your engine to do this. Here’s why.

First of all, you can totally burn out your engine in so many ways. The most important is that you can overwhelm your vehicle’s evaporative system. We all learned in science class once upon a time that heat makes pressure, and when your gasoline heats up from your driving, it expands from the heat and creates that pressure. So, when you overfill your tank, there’s nowhere for that pressure to go and it ends up in your evaporative system. This is not its intended purpose, so if you do this a lot then you can totally kill that system.

The other thing is that you’re honestly just wasting money. Pumps these days can sense if there’s excess gas, i.e. if it starts backing up into the filler pipe, and it just takes that gas and sends it right back into the station’s tank. So, the dollars and cents will start adding up but you won’t actually be getting the gas you pay for.

Basically, don’t top off. That’s just a bad habit. We’ll break it together, now that we have so much in common!