LMCT+ opens its first Adelaide servo on Friday 2 October, on the corner of South and Daws roads at Edwardstown. Cheap fuel in this town is good news and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
We are an independent local crew with no connection to the servo, but we do know what busy new forecourts do to tired drivers, so here is what we would sort out before you go.
Expect a queue and pick your moment
When the Preston site opened in Melbourne the queues were long enough to make the news. South Road is already one of the busiest roads in Adelaide and this site sits right on the Daws Road corner, so the first few days are going to be slow going around there. If you can let the novelty settle for a week, you will spend less time idling in a line than you save at the pump.
Our partner business over in Melbourne, Rapid Fuel Assist, has been out to the Preston site and written up how it actually went, which is a better guide than anything we could guess at from here.
If you are going in the first week, go at a quiet hour. Mid morning midweek will beat knock off time on a Friday every time.
Sort the membership before you leave home
It is a members only site, so the discount is tied to your membership rather than to the pump. Get that done and loaded on your phone before you drive over. Standing at the bowser signing up while cars bank up behind you is exactly the sort of pressure that makes people rush, and rushing at the bowser is the whole reason we get called out.
Do not roll in on fumes
This one matters more than it sounds. If you arrive with the low fuel light on and then sit in a queue for a while, you are already flustered before you have picked up a nozzle. Nearly every wrong fuel job we attend has the same ingredient in it somewhere, a driver in a hurry who was not really thinking about the handle in their hand.
Put in enough to get there comfortably, then fill up cheap when you arrive.
Double check the nozzle
This is the one that matters, and it is the reason we wrote any of this down. The cheaper fuel is exciting and the place is brand new, which is exactly the problem. When your head is on the price and on the hype of a new station, it is not really on the handle in your hand. Concentration slips somewhere else for a few seconds, and a few seconds is all it takes.
A brand new site stacks the odds as well: a pump layout you have never used, a queue behind you, and a cheap price on the board that has everyone moving quicker than usual. None of that is the servo's fault. It is just the perfect recipe for the one mistake we deal with every day.
So before you lift anything, look at what you have picked up and read the label on it. Open the fuel flap and read the sticker inside that as well. DIESEL ONLY or UNLEADED PETROL, that sticker is the only thing that settles it for your car. Not the hose colour, which is not standard across brands, and not what the driver in front of you just did at a site they have never used either.
Be extra careful if you swap between vehicles. The ute takes diesel, the other car takes petrol, and your hand goes where it went yesterday. That is petrol in a diesel and diesel in a petrol, the two calls we get more than any other.
If it goes wrong anyway
Leave the key alone. Do not start the vehicle, and do not turn the key to accessories either, because on plenty of cars that alone runs the fuel pump. If you have to move it, put it in neutral and get it pushed clear of the bowser, do not drive it. Then tell the console operator so they can shut the pump down, and call us on (08) 7083 9699. We come to you, drain the tank, flush the lines and refuel on the spot, one all inclusive price quoted before we move.
Edwardstown sits in our southern suburbs patch, and the full walkthrough of what happens next is in our first 60 seconds post.
Enjoy it
More competition at the bowser is good news for every household in Adelaide and we hope the place goes well. Just bring the one habit with you: read the flap before you lift the handle. Thirty seconds, and the cheap tank stays a cheap tank.
Photo: the Edwardstown site on South Road before opening, taken by Nobby from Rapid Wrong Fuel Solutions.
