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Took a trip to Westfield London recently with the wife and her friend (BMW 1 series). Was low on fuel when I started (100 mile round trip). No problem, I’ll fill up en-route. As like most I suspect every service stop on the motorway I approached I though, next one, next one. I just wanted to get there.
Gauge was on around 5 miles when we got to Shepherds Bush around 2 miles from Westfield’s. No problem, I’ll fill up when we leave.
Turned a corner and it was total gridlock with everyone heading to Westfield’s parking. OK, not great but it’s moving…..very, very slowly. Gauge showed 5 miles.
I was glued to the gauge. We can do this I thought. It took 40 minutes to get to the car park entrance. I looked back at the gauge and it had dropped to 0.
Now I’m sweating. The cark park we entered for Westfield was a spiral one where you had to climb a quite a few floors to the very top. The traffic was just inching along up the incline. I kept turning off the engine to conserve fuel.
The wife and her friend kept looking at me. They thought exactly the same as I was thinking. If we run out now we are in a very long que on a steep incline with no way to turn around. It would be catastrophic.
I played it off cool, yeh these can go for 20 miles on empty, no problem. I didn’t know if the car could and I was kicking myself for not filling up earlier.
We made it to the top so whatever happened at least we were in a better position.
Done the shopping and hit up the sat nav to find the nearest garage (first time I’d ever used this option). Luckily there was one around half a mile away.
You can’t believe how happy I was when I spotted the Shell sign. |
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