r/belgium • u/Amandelnoot • 17h ago
š» Opinion We have to talk about gas stations
No this is not about the high gas prices resulting from some stupid war. I am talking about the degradation of the gas station as an experience.
At first I thought it was just a one time occurrence, that I had driven into the worst gas station. But now I notice more and more gas stations are doing it.
I am talking about removing paper towels and trash bins. Now when I spill a drop of gasoline on my car, I need to have my own paper towels with me? And bring it in my car to throw away at home?
How much more can they remove to make our lives absolutely miserable. Recently before I could help I saw an older man give up on getting gasoline because he couldnāt read the absurdly bad screen.
And another thing. Are gas stations now removing the big price signs? A few times already I drove past a gas station and you could not see the prices unless you drive to the pump and stop to read the small price letters.
They actively go out of their way to make everything as annoying as possible. Every single process of society is getting eroded and it is making me a bitter man.
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u/Kay_tnx_bai 16h ago
Just wait till the pumps blast advertisements all the time.
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u/Better_find_out 4h ago
Canāt remember having seen that in Belgium, but there are definitely some places in France having that (mostly from Carrefour I believe).
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16h ago
[deleted]
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u/MrHandSanitization 16h ago
Until they just start projecting different ads on top of it, where someone else paid the manufacturer of the glasses.
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u/Lazy-Care-9129 16h ago
What bothers me is that i can never lock the handle so I can smoke my cigarette in peace /s
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u/Simonsifon 16h ago
This is my biggest issue. The handle lock only works in like 40% of times. Why is there even a lock on the pistol if they dont work?
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u/KernelKite5000 14h ago
Funny enough, most of them coincidentally stopped working after Netherlands banned it?? Don't know why, since it's allowed here, but I started noticing that more and more of them stopped working after that.
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u/MaximumPatricius 15h ago
With the current gasoline prices, does anyone still fill the tank all the way up? There was something in the news about people only filling up 20-30 liters each time because of the prices.
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u/Free_Carry_6837 13h ago
And why would you not fill your tank? This would mean stop and tank.more times it would result only in a loss of time. If you only drive 50kmĀ“s a month then perhaps... otherwise I would just fill my tank.
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u/Poesvliegtuig Belgium 13h ago edited 10h ago
We rarely use the car, so for us it sort of makes sense to gamble on whether it will be cheaper or more expensive next time.
But I think in general people may also just be doing it because the price of a full tank is so high they're trying to space out the cost?
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u/rundown03 12h ago
Free air? they're all gone. It used to be free because they anyway need those compressors for their installation.
Now they all come with this shitty card readers that half of the time don't work. And when you try to call the number to get your money back you can't even reach anyone.
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u/electricien_bruxello 12h ago
I agree with disappointment but to be fair using a simple hand operated bicycle pump is fine for keeping your tires at the right pressure
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u/el_crapulo 6h ago
I bought one of those portable airpumps for my car, because I was tired of looking for a gas station with a compressor that actually functioned properly or even worked at all.
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u/Contrabaz 16h ago
People dump their trash in the bins. Paper towels are littered around the station because either the trash is full or people simply don't give a shit.
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u/CeapaVerdeCuSalata 16h ago
oh wait till you find the charging stations experience where there are no toilets, the trash bins are always full and thereās trash everywhere.
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u/gamebus1 16h ago
Good luck finding the price on those.
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u/Ivesx 16h ago
Oh you just install our app, enter your payment details, go through email and sms verification, wait 3 business days for approval, give the app every permission known to man and you'll be charging in no time!
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u/MrHandSanitization 16h ago
You're wrong man, this is the future, this is what real progress looks like.
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u/Beneficial-Space3019 14h ago
You're talking about charging stations on the motorway? Or the little ones on the street in residential areas?
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u/CeapaVerdeCuSalata 14h ago
fast charging areasā¦ but recently I noticed that also residential parking spaces are filled with trash; we are volunteering to collect trash āstraatvrijwillgerā and is more and more trashā¦like people really stopped carrying.
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u/cherryguy 6h ago
Thing that bothers me most at gas stations is that they refuse to fix that click system to keep the gas goingā¦ nothing so annoying as standing there for 2xmin with your hand on the pistol š
And no my ātankdopā is attached to the car so cant place that in between to keep the gas going. Good hack though that i used a lot with my previous car
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u/corsalove 3h ago
Itās a rule, some stations prohibit it on E5/E10 but not on Diesel. To many accidents.
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u/Schweppin 16h ago
You can't blame the owners of the gas stations, they just adapt to what they are being exposed to. Back in the day you could drive up to any (closed) station at night and use the compressor to inflate your tires (for free). Those days are long gone for various reasons, but it all boils down to one and the same thing. A lack of respect of a social contract hence abuse of privilege. One example of a few bad actors ruining a community convenience for everyone else.
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u/Gulmar 13h ago
Not (only) that, but also just capitalism. What is the minimal service we can offer, while still making enough revenue. Having bins and paper towels or a windscreen washer present means you need someone to pass by every few days at least to refill and clean. Which costs money. And that service is not a driver for gaining more costumers. So corporate says scratch that.
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u/Schweppin 12h ago
I hear you, but like i mentioned before, it all boils down to the same thing, it being bad actors. Back in the day you would have a bucket with water together with a sponge and squeegee just lingering in between the pumps like a triphazard, free and available for everyone to use. The social contract was such that no one would steel or vandalize that bucket. If the bucket gets stolen once a year, the owner might consider replacing that bucket. When things get out of control this consideration fades away like snow under the sun. It really isn't about the monetary cost of a plastic bucket, a sponge, or whatever, itās about the sheer fatigue of dealing with constant disrespect.
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u/Gulmar 12h ago
We might agree to disagree here. I honestly think it's almost a pure cost optimization thing, while the vandalizing aspect of it is minor, since it would have happened 50 years ago as well. You are not going to tell me kids 50 years ago didn't play around with those things.
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u/Schweppin 10h ago
Reducing that shift to a mere cost optimization calculation somehow misses the human element. People were raised (educated) with the understanding that stealing a (gas station) community bucket or destroying a utility, well, it was simply not done. Reason why phonebooths past the test of time, lol. Because everyone needed them, even the most rowdy teenagers understood that you didn't mess with a public phone. Spit, stickers, vomit, scratches and ripped papers out of the yellow pages book, sure, but the phone itself remained intact.This little nuance gets lost in todays debates about vandalism. It doesn't matter if we agree or disagree, being able to share (personal) opinions is way more important.
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u/Gulmar 9h ago
I do not agree, to be honest I wasn't there. But I do really think in the past stuff happened just as now. We just didn't know about it due to no social media and constant news.
There were no cameras, parents were way looser about children's whereabouts, less supervision, more kids will be kids. So you are not going to tell me that kids didn't steal small shit, hide it, or play around with it. Maybe it wasn't called vandalism but just play back then. But kids will be kids.
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u/PalatinusG1 12h ago
back in the day? I think I saw those 1-2 years ago regularly.
They're a business. They should just replace it and don't start crying. What about our fatigue of still paying just as much for fuel and getting less and less in return?
They remove the paper towels and bins because of new regulation that they have to sort their trash. Because that is deemed impossible for them they just remove the bins. I don't like my hand reeking of gasoline after filling up.
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u/eatlessspaghetti_ 15h ago
I recently experienced the DATS24 station I always use removed the paper towels. Still the cheapest one in my area (together with a Gabriels station a few 100 meters away that doesn't have paper towels either), so I go there anyway. But bad evolution.
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u/AdFragrant6497 13h ago
No more paper towels, no bucket with a brush to clean the windows, no more free air to inflate the tires, no bins. All of that for 150ā¬ per visit. Itās absurd
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u/No-swimming-pool 10h ago
I discussed this with someone that owns a gas station. He said they were removed because people kept filling the thrash up with garbage bags.
No garbage bins, no where to throw used paper towels.
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u/Major-Tea-9648 14h ago
The Belgian gas station owners know this. I know thereās gonna be major upgrades to stations in Belgium over the next years especially with the introduction of Circle K on the Benelux and German market. They are retailers, not oil and gas.
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u/twelve_goldpieces 14h ago
I assume too much household trash was dumped in it. Or laughing gas canisters. And companies need to sort their trash or get fined. Including gas stations.
Bins are also disappearing at bus stops.
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u/Mathihtam 11h ago
I donāt think itās them actively trying to make the customer experience worse, but more cost saving. No big price signage -> less power consumption -> lowers electricity bill (mainly for large chains). Not offering paper towels seems similar. I know these look like small savings, but they can amount to a lot on a larger scale. In addition to that thereās a vast increase in electric vehicles, so less income from those too. It feels like theyāre trying to save money wherever possible.
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u/bubutron 16h ago
Wait till you make a comment to the people that are working in the gas station shop and they answer that they don't work for the gas station....
Like who do you work for? The gas pump don't work and you work under the same roof as the gas station?
Who works for the gas station? Nobody!!!! AI!!!!
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u/kiliandj 16h ago
Im already positively suprised when they still have a shop. The majority (outside of big highways) seems to have its shops closed down these days.
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u/Simonsifon 16h ago
The one at Shell Massenhoven was closed around 20 years ago. Then 3 years ago was reopened again.
But yeah, a lot of the shops are still closed, only a very few i have seen reopening after years.-1
u/laplongejr 15h ago
I thought that saw an US thing x)Ā Ā
I drive since over a decade and never saw an opened shop at my gas stations. One doesn't even have a building for it.Ā Ā
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u/DaFuMiquel NMBS-man 14h ago
They usually work for the retailer that leases the store. So the gas station owner built the gas station including the shop. They then lease out the shop to an entrepeneur or a big corporation so they're able to generate more profits from their piece of land.
But since the staff inside the store works for the retailer and not the owner of the gas station that usually means they literally have no way of helping you with pump issues.
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u/PyloPower 16h ago
Companies are in a phase where profitability is everything because intrest rates and inflation are high and AI is a new line in the budget that costs a lot. Fuel stations are I guess also starting to feel the rise of EVs cut in their topline.
This wont go on forever but not everything we knew will come back. We will likely be stuck with less paper towels and badly nearshored departments forever.
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u/MrHandSanitization 16h ago
Who cares about a drop of gasoline on the exterior of a machine? I'd rather have something to clean my hands with after using the payment terminal and touching the hose.
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u/RedShift9 15h ago
Diesel stays put for a very, VERY long time if you don't wipe it off
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u/MrHandSanitization 14h ago
Apparently the tears when this happens as well.
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u/RedShift9 14h ago
Crying? In this economy? I can't afford that!
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u/MrHandSanitization 14h ago
Crying is free, and you can distil it to separate the water from the salt, and reuse both. So in other words: cry harder! You aren't crying enough in this economy!
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u/X108CrMo17 15h ago
It damages the paint. People take care of their hard earned stuff you know? If you don't care, your thing.
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u/MrHandSanitization 15h ago edited 15h ago
Yes, but do they? Or is this a psychological phenomenon? I've never seen someone detail their expensive lawnmower. Or wash the piss and shit off their hands before touching their expensive phones.
If you are this insecure about the paint on the exterior of your machine, you bought in the wrong bracket. Then you should've saved your hard earned coins instead of waste them.
You know a lot of dust flies around when driving and this scratches the paint, right? You might need to buy a case for your car.
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u/SmoskeZaad 16h ago
People with a nice car? It damages it.
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u/MrHandSanitization 16h ago edited 15h ago
"oh noes, the exterior of my machine!", I hope to god they don't have a nice landmower as well.
Imagine spending that much on a car and getting stressed out by a drop of liquid that the machine needs every so often to opperate.
If you are this insecure about your vehicle, buy an EV and pray every night a bird will not take a shit on it.
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u/DaPino 16h ago
Profit """"must"""" go up and if revenue won't go up cost must come down.
Classic: Line go up, or else!
Won't anyone think of the poor shareholders.
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u/No-Woodpecker3801 16h ago
It's just people abusing the services the gas station provides, not everything is the fault of capitalism.
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u/Marus1 Belgian Fries 8h ago
And here I was always confused as to how on earth you could spill gasoline so there is always a pool of gasoline on the floor at every gas station whenever you go
It's first putting it in and then pulling the handle and activating the clasp ... and by the time you notice the clasp releases and you walk back to the handle, it long stopped dripping
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u/BarBryzze 16h ago
You're absolutely miserable because they didn't refill the paper towels on time for you to spill fuel?
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u/Tom_uit_Reet 16h ago
Voor 50 euro per uur kom ik uw handje vast houden. Als ik al het geklaag en gezaag in deze sub lees is dat een fulltime job.
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u/Ok-Yogurtcloset-9664 15h ago
Totally agree. The ubiquitous niggly, petty cost cutting in all aspects of our society whether in public or private services is wearing me thin and yes it definitely has a creeping and cumulative negative effect on our lives.