The great petrol nozzle shemozzle: Has top motoring writer solved riddle that has plagued drivers for decades?

By Andy Whelan
Updated: 22:42 EDT, 22 May 2010

As a former racing driver and editor-at-large of the world’s oldest motoring magazine, you might expect Steve Sutcliffe to know a thing or two about cars.

But despite his years of experience, the Autocar expert’s knowledge was put to shame by an idle comment made by his mother-in-law at a family dinner.

Over roast lamb and all the trimmings, she revealed the solution to a frustration every motorist will have encountered: when filling up an unfamiliar car, how can you tell which side the petrol cap is on?

Fuelling debate: The arrow shows the fuel cap is on the right - or is it the position of the pump handle?

Mr Sutcliffe, like most drivers, had no idea there was any way of knowing - except for pulling up to the pump and hoping you’d avoided the embarrassment of getting it wrong. 

So he was stunned when mother-in-law Carol Hawkes revealed there was a secret code all manufacturers use. Look at the symbol next to the fuel gauge, she said, and the side on which the pump handle lies indicates which side of the car the petrol cap is.

He immediately had to share this news with his readers, and wrote excitedly on Autocar’s website: ‘At a stroke, our entire family was stunned into silence by this previously unknown gem of car knowledge.

‘We threw down our cutlery and, en masse, marched outside to have a look at the fuel gauges of our variously assembled cars.

Using her nozzle: WAG Alex Curran seems to have figured it out

'A new Fiesta, a TT RS, a Golf GTI, an MGF, a Supra Turbo, a Citroen ZX Advantage and a Peugeot 207 CC were duly examined.

‘And blow me down with a feather if my mother-in-law wasn’t absolutely spot-on; whichever side the pump handle appears within the gauge itself does actually tell you which side the filler cap sits.’

His readers were apparently surprised that the 115-year-old motoring magazine’s most experience road-tester did not know such a thing.

‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like driving different cars all the time and stopping at the pumps without the slightest clue as to where the filler cap is,’ wrote one driver using the pen name Zonny.

The revelation could indeed be a boon to many drivers... if only it were true.

Both Mr Sutcliffe and his mother-in-law were, it seems, taken in by an urban myth.

Every manufacturer The Mail on Sunday contacted said the pump handle on the fuel gauge graphic bears no relation to where the petrol cap is located.

But the good news is that many modern cars do have a little-known indicator on the dashboard - in the form of a small arrowhead on the petrol pump graphic, pointing to which side the cap is on.

Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota and Nissan all said their modern vehicles had such an indicator.

Vauxhall said all models built in the past two years have an arrow but added that the petrol cap always sits on the driver’s side in their vehicles anyway.

Audis and BMWs do not have an indicator as standard, but again say it is always on the driver’s side - except in BMW Minis.

Citroen and Peugeot do not have a graphic, and the cap can be found on either side of their cars. The manufacturers’ responses disprove another common, but mistaken, belief:  that the cap is on whatever would be the passengers’ side in a car’s main market, so drivers could safely fill up from a jerry-can at the side of the road, away from passing traffic.

On discovering the truth about his urban myth, 41-year-old Mr Sutcliffe was disappointed – but said it was about time car manufacturers did introduce a universal indicator.

He said: ‘I was certain I had come across a golden nugget of information which would make the life of every motorist so much easier.

‘There is nothing more annoying than pulling up to a pump only to discover the nozzle is on the opposite side to the fuel cap.

‘It’s a common problem people encounter with new vehicles or hire cars, because you never think of checking for the cap before you set off.

‘I’m glad I’ve sparked a discussion and it would be sensible for manufacturers to decide on an industry standard indicator denoting where the cap is.’

Chris Hunt, director general of UK Petroleum Industry Association, also believes that it would be sensible for all vehicles to have the same symbol on their dashboards.

He said: ‘From an oil industry perspective, if it makes the life of the motorist easier and avoids confusion on the forecourt then it’s better for petrol retailers.

‘There are some very strange manoeuvres on the forecourt as a result of motorists pulling up to the wrong pump because they didn’t know where the petrol cap was.’

But until car manufacturers adopt a standard, there’s really only one way of knowing for sure - getting out and looking...