I prefer the fuel filler on the _______ side.

Greetings my fellows. My, what stressful times we live in. It’s so difficult to maintain one’s poise and composure. What we need is to blow off a little steam. Not to worry. I’m here to help.

Do you prefer the fuel filler on the driver’s side or the passenger side? Why? Some people may disagree with you. What do you think their choice says about them? What does your preference say about you?

Feel free to be as philosophical or poetic if you want. Let it all out.

 

Behind the rear plate where God intended it to go

 

My GTO has it on the passenger side. Really there's no difference for me minus having less people at those pumps at Costco.

 

Pfft. My Mom had a 1968 Mercedes with the fuel filler behind the license plate, which was spring loaded. The spring was so strong that the fuel nozzle had to be attended during fill ups, lest the license plate spat out the nozzle onto the ground. As if trying to start a fire. And who’d want to do that? Let’s see. Hmmmm. Satan?!

 

Once on a road trip I assigned my kids the task of surveying what percentage of fuel fillers were on the left versus the right. The results sof the survey were fairly even. We looked for correlations among vehicle makes and styles, but found none. Are you saying there’s a correlation between Costco shoppers and which side the fuel filler is on their cars?

 

Left because tradition and ease of access, right for the shorter Costco line.

 

^I've always thought cars made and sold primarily for the US market favored the driver side. Whereas vehicles sold in large numbers in other nations as well as the US often have it on the passenger side. Never put much thought into it though, just a simple observation from my local Sams club.
Which, like Costco, seems to always have longer lines on the driver side fuel pumps.

 

I've noticed most European/AU built vehicles have it on the passenger side. BMW, Merc, Ferrari, Porsche, my GTO (Aussie built)...countries that drive on the left. Of course the Runner is built in Japan and they drive on the left so there are exceptions.

 

@whippersnapper02
Agreed. Out of curiosity I looked it up lol

https://www.idriveyourcar.com/blog/...#:~:text=The Verdict,left side of the vehicle.

 

Fun that the arrow next to the fuel icon on your gauge tells you what side it's on. I honestly would prefer the passenger side so I dont have to pull way up for my door to clear the bollards.

 

I vote they do it Porsche style, put that sucker on the front fender!

We could also go old school Chevy, and have dual necks. Lord knows our 4Runners could use a 2nd fuel tank.

 

I prefer it right up the middle.

 

You would

 

I also prefer a locking fuel fill door...but that was one of the things Toyota felt the 5th didn't need.

 

Right after Hurricane Harvey, someone tried to steal fuel from my 4th gen 4runner. It wasn't locking but you have to pull a lever inside the 4th gens to open the fuel door. They scratched up my fuel door trying to pry it open. Would rather they would have just been able to open it to find out there's an anti-siphon valve in the tank. Even better, I would have gladly given someone fuel or money for fuel if they needed it that desperately.

Although I'm sure a visible lock would have made them move to the next vehicle, I'm OK not having a locking fuel door on my 5th gen.

 

Some older cars like this Jaguar had two fuel fillers. The downside was that there were two fuel tanks and they were completely isolated, so when stopping for fuel both tanks needed to be filled. A very odd notion indeed! There was a selector switch on the instrument panel to choose which tank the engine would draw from. To add to the inconvenience there was no low fuel light.

 

Why did they both have to be filled if they were independent? Why not just fill the empty one?

 

Because sometimes you have two empty ones. And even if one was empty and the other one was half full, wouldnt you always want to drive away from the gas station with two full tanks?

 

Why would those European manufacturers want to make you walk around the car to fill up? Why wouldn’t one always want to have the fuel filler on the driver’s side?

 

They are driver side mounted on right hand drive vehicles. I’m assuming it’s more cost-effective to leave the tag set up as is and only changed interior for when the vehicles meant for left-hand drive markets. The four letter is not sold in right hand drive form as far as I know.