"Old-Style Pumps Balk At $4-a-Gallon Gas, Too"

[Ann]

"Like a lot of small-scale entrepreneurs, Cathy Osborne worries that
she'll go out of business if fuel prices rise above $4 a gallon. Not
because she won't be able to buy gas at that price, but because she won't
be able to sell it.

The old mechanical gas pumps with scrolling dials at her country store in
Fauquier County lack the gears to go beyond $3.99 a gallon. State
inspectors shut down her diesel pump several months ago when the fuel
topped the $4 mark, so now all that's left are two pumps dispensing
87-octane gasoline, set at $3.75 -- and climbing.

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have $30,000 to invest in new
pumps, and I'm barely skipping by," said Osborne, ...

About 8,500 of the 170,000 service stations in the United States are using
mechanical pumps, according to the Petroleum Equipment Institute, a trade
group based in Oklahoma. ... "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/15/AR2008051503756.html?nav=rss_email/components

[Elmo]

In the 1970's when gas prices rose above 99.9 cents per gallon, our dispensers were set to half the price per gallon and a sign was placed on each one saying that the sale price shown on the dispenser would be doubled. Eventually we got the dispensers replaced.

You couldn't do that now, because most of the self-service dispensers charge a credit card directly with the price shown. But I expect that Ms. Osborne could adopt a similar strategy.

--
You know what an El Cid Princess is, right? drive a big
SUV way too fast, don't care about running over animals,
tail gate you and blow the horn if you don't get out of
the way. They are more important than the rest of us and
cannot be bothered with life's inconveniences.

[Ann]

She tried that when the price hit $3 but someone reported her to VA
Weights and Measures - which frowned on that solution. She was able to
get a kit to upgrade the pumps to $3.99 (at a cost of $800), but there is
nothing at a reasonable price to go beyond that. For the small retailers
mentioned, the main concern isn't loss of gas sales. It's loss of profit
on sales of other stuff customers buy when they stop for gas.