Outback Humour or Smart a$$ ?

You obviously made a conscious decision not to stop earlier & top up with your Jerry can.
You wouldn't have been any happier if they had helped you & then given a bill for their labour!

Sorry BrownyGU but I am just laughing at your bad luck, I do hope you don't mind. Murphy's Law they call it..... In all seriousness though you would have thought that at least some one there would have helped you push the vehicle into the bowser, it wouldn't have been too hard, geez what's the world coming to, pity there wasn't another servo close by that you could have just driven straight through and gone else where, that would have put the grins on the other side of the faces. LOL

Cheers

D

one of the first things that you should have taken into account was the fact that by letting your fuel get so low you risk the very real chance of sucking up all the crap in the bottom of the fuel tank. Potentially blocking filters. You took a risk, lost and someone, who has probably seen this scenario countless times, had a larf at your laziness. Wouldnt have taken 5 minutes to get jerry can, fill up and on ya way. We all do things we wish we hadnt have. Its called learning. Glad you had no troubles restarting your car, but as anyone on this forum will tell you, dont let your fuel tank get very close to empty. Outback humour......city folks are just so serious.
cheers

thanks Browny, I would have bleep myself laughing at ya then helped ya push it : )

bleep happens as they say.

Cheers Wilko

Ah Well

Maybe they could have filled up one of their spare cans and let you put enough fuel in so you wouldn't have had to go through the drama of using your own jerry can ect.

Don't worry mate as long as you have a safe trip, you can laugh about it later.

Cheers

Hi BrownyGU , I feel sorry for you and I would not have been happy either with the smart asses , at least they could have helped . I purchased fuel at that service station last year and they did not seem to be friendly then . It looks like even in the bush no one helps anyone now . For 64 years I lived in the country and people helped one another but the bad attitude of stuff you I am ok has even got as far as Normanton . I hope you have a better trip from now on .

Browny

Ok so they did not offer a push

did you ask for a push? I am willing to put money on that they would have helpped

CJ

Browny.... smile and smell the roses, it would of been funny watching and I would of got a kick out of it as well.

Why would you want 3 people trying to do the job of 1 person.... now were you cranky because they were laughing at you or because you ran out of fuel.

Had a similar thing happen on the Birdsville Track last year where a Hilux coming towards us a few kilometers got a flat tyre..... we heard across the UHF him talking to his mates "Yeah don't worry, you's keep going" in a grumpy voice....

When we approached him we were the third vehicle in a convoy with a camper trailer.... we slowed to about 40Kph as the rest 500m in front did.

When we went past he had a flat R/H rear and as we went past he picked up a stone and through it at us..... obviously having a bad day.

He mist us by at least 100m but then the knob got on the radio and abused us for not slowing down and kicking up dust and stones..... I got on the radio and kindly informed him "your the one with the flat not me and next time pull of the road and change his tyre instead of on the road...... Had to laugh.

No use getting upset if you don't ask for help... next time if you want help ask.

A few years ago we were just about to head off from Adelaide into the Northern Simpson and I filled 1 of our 140Lt tanks with unleaded petrol.... put in about 70Lts and the guys at the workshop attached to the servo got a laugh and said don't worry it's happened a lot before.... we had a laugh...they had a laugh and of we went.

Gday,
Cant really see a problem? You did cut it a bit fine didnt you?
Did you ask them for a hand?

Have a laugh about it and move on. It is pretty funny really........

Browny,

You did say you were "extremely low on fuel", and the slight inconvenience of emptying your last 20L would have been better than doing possible damage to your injector pump, as you ran out.

Doubt if there'd be many on this forum who wouldn't have done something just as funny. Me included.

Also think you got a big slice of humble pie thrown in for free, with the $250 fuel purchase.

"Ha......Bloody hilarious......:)" Probably was....

Bob.

The humour there is expecting customer service from a servo lol, nah i shouldn't say that, they are not all the same. Some servos customer service make you feel like its a privelege to be able to buy their fuel.

Browny you got an auto or man? If man could have done the last 10m on the starter motor in gear.

wizzer

Browny

Dude! forget about about the running out of fuel thing 10 meters from the bowser, as once it happens it's in the history book of muck ups.

It's then how you recover the situation in front of the spectator peanut gallery that matters.

All you had to do instead of wasting battery trying to start the sucker, was put it 1st gear, foot off the clutch and 'key start' it up to the bowser and fill the mother up.

In the same manner as you do reverse key starts on inclines when you have stalled etc. Or how you SHOULD do it.

It wont damage anything, and makes you look and feel good, especially as you smile and' flip a bird' to peanut gallery 'commentator'.

DD

PS

Take no notice of the above responses to your post and have a good day.

Browny,

Do you have a winch? You could have hooked onto the bowser. The locals might have woken up.
:)

Skull

Pity you didn't have a manual car. You could have simply put it in 1st gear & cranked it over for the 10 metres. If you indicated you needed a push & no-one helped then they are smart a$$'s. If you didn't then it's damn funny :-))
Cheers Craig............

Hi Browny GU,

I reckon the Australian thing to do would be to approach someone working there and say "G'day Tiger, can you believe my luck? (insert laugh). Reckon ya could give us a quick push?"

Surely most people would be happy to help you push it 10 metres reagrdless of the fsact that thought you were stupid or whatever.

Lighten up mate and good luck with future fuel calculations.

TJ..

Browny,
100% with you. Country, city, anywhere, if someone looks like they need a hand, I offer/give them a hand. We aren't all perfect!!!!!!
Some bizarre responses.
Cheers
Matt

Mate i'd done the same thing,Except ive got a Tanami Pump (you need air too,i have arb pump),puts 20litres of the in about 2 minutes.... That would hav stopped there laughter...W.T.F

I'd say most of us would have had a go....

Might be better carrying a can of these instead of fuel.....Bwhahahahahahaha!!!!
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well .....neither my wife nor I would laugh, snigger gloat, try to justify or intellectualise about same, nor we would be stand by and let someone try to sigle handedly push a 2t? vehicle into the forecourt of a service station - we would HELP! .......wouldn't have to be asked, begged, cajoled, paid or anything actually.....we'd have just HELPED!

...some of you contributors on here need to have a good hard look at youselves.

Of course if you'd put a sign: 'MORON IN THIS CAR' in the back of your vehicles we could simply ignore you when you obviously need HELP! - whether asked for or not.......

I'm angry after reading this thread!

Sorry about your horrible, unAustralian experience BrownyGU

Happy days

George

Just got back from Normanton Myself :-)

Barra were on the chew - It was great :-)

Lived there for ten years and what I find funny s that that Servo has no changed since I first went there in the early 80s.

Same owners Father & Son & Wife - Same Paint Job - Same Fuel Truck - Same Cluttered Driveway, same chairs sitting in the service bay always with a few people sitting down having a chat :-)

Same & more dust on the parts shelves inside etc etc - They are real Characters that's for sure, but they have always been good to me.

So did you ask for a push? Or did you just look at them thinking they were a bit lousy for not offering :-) My bet is if you asked for the help, you may have got it.

But they do have a dry sense of humor - they still call me the Fruit Bat after all these years :-) After all you have to have some entertainment and the tourists do supply ample.

Cheers Tony

LOL Browny, you probably would have got a similar response here, but then I'd offer to give ya a nudge with the bullbar of the Paj convertable :-) which is how I usually push cars around here.
Glad to see you're still travelling well anyway. :-)

Cheers
Al

one letter and one word for you

Y GEN

:-)

Perhaps you need to buy a set of certified scales to weigh your fuel each day as one prominent member here does-it would never happen to RM!

Seriously-its not good for your injector pump, not cos of the OWT about dirt in the bottom, but becuase its the same as dropping the bung out of your sump with the engine running and switching it off when the oil light comes on.
Your pump is lubricated by the fuel.

Hi all . In the era I grew up in you helped anyone who was doing anything without having to be asked . If you did not you would have been told about it very quickly and would also have been sat on your backside if you had come up with any smart remarks . Even your family or fellow workers would not like you looking and not helping . The U JACK system is good until it is your problem .

Browny,
I guess you could have asked for help but have found offering help to some one in need gives every one a good feeling, even if a simple push.

That is not to mention the good laugh you all could have afterwards.

The way I see it is they are the ones who missed out, not you.

Rich

I thought it was funny, but then, back in the dim dark ages I once ran out of petrol on the servo bell ribbon. I got help purely so the bell would stop ringing!

Nowadays, I would have called myself an expletive deleted, expletive deleted in their earshot, asked for their agreement, asked to borrow a 5 litre can and pay for 5 litres of their best and agree with them that I had tried to cut it a bit fine.

Quote Max Smart; “missed it by that much”, and come up with the resolution to the problem all by myself and they didn’t have to get off their chairs and all of us could have had a laugh.

Hi Browny , I read the messages again and apparently some of these people have never made a mistake , in hindsight it might have been better to have put the 20 l of fuel in and drove to another place and filled up but you did not know the smart ass remarks you were going to get . You expect to get those remarks and no help in the cities but in the country it used to be different . I do not think you were unreasonable in your thinking . I hope to meet you somewhere on the road . How many kms has the GU done . Have a great time for the rest of your trip . How many kms left before the picnic is over and you are home .

Hi Browny , Make certain you have a good look at the top as there is plenty to see TI and Horn Is included if you are into military history . In 2002 44,000 vehicles crossed the Jardine R .I wish I was with you . Not like a friends of mine who recently flew to Weipa , next day drove to Seisia stopped there 2 nights and drove back to Weipa told me there was not much there and they had seen the lot . When we were there in 2003 with a group of 40 vehicles we were there 3 long days flat out and did not see the it all but as it was an organised trip we had to leave . It is a small world if you live at Merimbula , I have a mate that lives at Pambula also I have other friends around the area . I know of a few 3 L patrols that were not hand grenades but have not met anyone that had a bad one , only heard about them , I had a Hj60 with after market turbo that cost me plenty also a Crown SW in the early 70s that was a lemon ,

I reckon that wasn't too bad an estimation, you were only 10M out on a tankfull. It is funny though and a perfect example of murphy's law. Actually I've seen a Jet aircraft pilot underestimate by further, he run out of fuel when taxiing back still 500M from the refuelling location. He didn't have a spare jerry can though..