The Stovebolt Site Forums The Side Lot Southern Bolters Full Service

Full service gas station in the forties. Notice one attendant brushing off the customer’s coat. 😁
Now that’s service!

We (my Bride & I) were in Greece a few weeks ago and I bought gas twice. The first time was in Athens and three guys swarmed the car, one fueling and two cleaning windows. I was impressed but suspected it was a fluke. Well a few days later we filled up at a rural station outside Nafplio and pretty much the same thing happened, this time with just two attendants. It was like the clock was turned back 50 years.

RonR

That would be cool!
My sister lives in Oregon. I was there visiting a few years ago. There an attendant is required to pump your gas. However no other services are performed. Not sure the reason for it. It did free me up to check the fluids and clean the windshield.

The Oregon thing is "safety" related. If you have a Diesel engine, you can pump your own fuel. Gasoline is flammable, but diesel is only combustible (definition relates to flash point of the fuel - gasoline is minus 45F, and diesel is around 140F.) Now you don''t have to worry about an attendant mistakenly dumping a quart of motor oil into your power steering reservoir (that happened to me once.)

Kevin, better motor oil in the power steering than in the brake fluid reservoir. A friend had that happen.

RonR

Man, I remember those days. Customer service, you paid right there and never had to get out of your car. Checked your oil too.

When I was a kid all the old fillin stations were full service.
Gas, oil, windshield and look at the tires.
Had to go get that inspection sticker too 😁🇺🇸

LOL and somehow that has turned into my driveway with 5 drivers and all of them coming in needing something topped off or fixed.
Seems I show my kids how to do all this but it never seems to get done when I remind them.

Wish the inspections would come back just maybe folks may have all their brake lights working. Every single day there is a car in front of me with one or two brake lights out. My other favorite is with all these new LED light up dash gauges the ones driving around at night with their headlights lights off, no tail lights and only those very dim daytime running lights on in the front. Since the gauges are always lit and bright they don't look for that little bitty icon to say their automatic lights are not on.

This subject is near & dear to my heart serving as the basis for writing "Refueling the Past", available on Amazon.

I have your book Archie. I enjoyed it so much I read it twice. I took a lot of pop bottles to the gas station, by my house, for a penny per bottle. When I put air in my bicycle tires the owner/mechanic always let me use his tire gauge. When in high school I worked for him on weekends. It was always a race, between another kid and me, to see who could finish fastest without missing anything. I didn’t know, until years later, the owner was timing us too. We knew we missed something when he would come out and take the customer’s money. He would tell us᠁ like᠁ “Joe that right front tire looks a little low on air. Want to recheck that?”

These stories continue to feed my soul and the narrative of the book

This is for you Archie (46 Texaco)᠁ from a Facebook post.

"We called them "service stations"; no other name seemed to fit. And although they were gas stations, the service was exemplary. At the pump island the hose stretched to our car's gas tank. I acquaint the smell of gasoline with those blue paper towels the attendants used. At a young age I developed a fascination for those towels, somehow believing that that exotic scent of gasoline came from them. I loved everything about the gas station; I loved how the attendants squee-geed the windows to wash away summer dust and bugs while gas was pumped into our car.
It was at the service stations where an ice cold dripping wet bottle of pop waited for me inside the cooler. For ten cents I retrieved my favorite bottle of pop. It never tasted better than it did from a wet bottle on a hot day. In the back seat my view was momentarily blocked as the attendant raised the hood to check the oil. On the fresh and sunny days I heard the flapping sound of plastic multi-colored streamers dancing in the wind. During the wait I sometimes leaned my arm out the window and let my elbow embrace the side of the door. It felt hot from the scorching heat of the sun.
A ding hose sounded whenever cars pulled in. The service stations were places where I rode my bike to fill the tires with air. Our old bike pump in our garage did the trick just fine, but never left me with such a feeling of importance as when I rode in to the station. Free air, free road maps and free advice on when to get something under the hood looked at were all splendid particles of a galaxy of memories gone by. Those were the days."

AMEN ...

I still feel like a reputable SERVICE or FILLING Station would be welcome and profitable these day. We could call it Advance Task Force Service.

I grew up in that environment. Here’s a pic of my father at an about 18 or 19 yrs old with his first tow truck, a 1921 Packard v12 touring car with a Manley hand crane mounted where the back seat should be. About 1928. Another of my dad with his dad in front of their second garage. They ran 2 locations for a few years. Got a few more old garage photos around somewhere

We need to set you and Archie down together, an awful lot of knowledge between the two of you.

My Great grandfather had a service station in Southbend Indiana. There was a photo in the family album of him and my Grandfather in front of it in. Ethel was 13 cents a gallon.

I’ve got a photo somewhere of a 1925 Buick coupe in front of the gas pumps, which would have been just over my dad’s left shoulder in the first pic I posted. My uncle told me they had 6 pumps & each one was a different brand of gas. They quit selling gas in early 60’s.