I have been aware for a while now that people are taking petrol from my tank. I’ve had a Ford Focus for several years; it has a Ford Easy-Fuel capless refuelling system, meaning there is no cap or key to the petrol tank. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but it’s meant to only fit petrol nozzles and nothing else so supposedly a key isn’t required.
I discovered I was missing five miles of petrol at a time, and realised people had probably developed something that could bypass the capless system. I don’t know how they’re doing it, whether maybe they’re slipping a hose in the open petrol tank, but I decided to take pictures of my petrol dashboard when parking for a while, and again when I moving off, in order to determine any disparities that would provide evidence of petrol theft.
My car is parked outside my flat in a cul de sac communal residential drive. Every resident has a parking space. Not all the residents have cars so their parking spaces are empty. Other cars that aren’t resident aren’t meant to park here, but sometimes they do for a short while.
I parked my car in the drive on Tuesday 5 November and took a picture of the ‘distance to empty’ dashboard display, which includes the car’s total mileage in the display. It read 101 miles to empty, and 60098 total mileage.
I next returned to the vehicle on Friday 8 November, and took a picture before moving off. It read 88 miles to empty, but still 60098 total mileage.
Clearly the equivalent of 13 miles of petrol had somehow been siphoned from my petrol tank while the car was stationary. I already strongly suspected this to be the case, as I’d been noticing this sort of stuff for a while.
There are petrol thieves in the area. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s once again the same crooked people who have been stalking me all this time, having now progressed to petrol theft. Whenever possible I’m going to take the evidence of the theft to a garage or Ford dealer and ask them if they have any idea how petrol is being siphoned while the car is stationary, or whether they could increase my petrol tank security, such as with a modified cap with a key.
If I am unable to find a way around the capless petrol system circumvention I’m unfortunately going to have to sell the car, because there are petrol thieves in the area.
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