How: Which side of your car is the gas tank on? This simple trick will tell you every time
Have you ever driven a friend's car? Maybe a rental? Then you probably found yourself in a very unpleasant situation when you realized that you needed some gas. Heck, it probably even happens to you sometimes in your own car.
Which side is the gas tank on?!?
Before you pull into the station, you strain your neck, checking your mirrors and sticking your head out the window to see if you spot the tank cap. You think you see it, then you pull up to a gas station, park, and realize you made a mistake.
Ugh.
Worse, it's very busy and now you can't even get to the right side of the pump. Sometimes you can run the hose all the way to the other side of the car, but not always.
And who wants to be that guy anyway?
The gas tank is on the wrong side of the car
What if I told you that there is an easy way to tell which side your gas tank is on without looking in the mirrors or getting out of your car?
You may be surprised to know, but most new cars in the last couple of decades explicitly tell us Which side is the fuel tank on?
So, the next time you visit a gas station in a car you've borrowed, rented, or even stolen, just look at the fuel gauge on your dashboard and you'll see a picture of a gas station with an arrow. Wherever the arrow points, it is the side of the car with the filler cap.
See the white arrow on the gas gauge pointing to the right? Car companies have used this as an indicator to let you know which side your gas tank is on.
The moral of the story is... check the gas level on the dashboard. This might just save you the embarrassment of looking like this guy:
Just to get this concept firmly in your brain, here are a few car gas gauges I stumbled across on Instagram, all different makes and years, but they all contain a pointing arrow.
Here's what a 2010 Chevy Cobalt, 2006 Jeep Cherokee, 2004 Infiniti G'35, and 2011 Nissan Centra look like.
And my personal favorites are the 1999 Ford Taurus and the 2007 Toyota Corolla, which even says Fuel tank door go with the arrow.
Of course, not all cars have this indicator arrow, but which side the hose is on the fuel pump icon should tell you which side the tank is on.
It is also rumored that the side where the pump icon is on the dashboard indicates the side of your gas tank, but this is not always the case.
If you have photos you'd like to share, or comments on your car's gauges and indicator needles, let us know!
This may seem like obvious advice, but really... aren't the obvious things the ones that elude us the most?
