Fuel in france.

[NorfolkMike]

Have just seen a message on the camping cheque site about the fact that many french fuel sites have gone over to card only and that the U.K. cards do not work. I could see this as a problem on weekends and their bank holidays.

Any one have recent experience? I have not been over this Winter.

ttfn

Mike

 

[rayc]

Mike, this came up about this time last year. All I can say is that I got of the Sunday 6.30am ferry in Cherbourg and by the time I got to Caen manned service stations were open and there was no trouble getting fuel between there and Bordeaux. I guess it would be impossible if you were trying to use super market outlets but main road service stations were no problem.

 

[cris_408518]

Motorways will not be a problem, but A roads can be.

Card only is normaly only out of hours and that can mean from early evening to morning and all weekend in some areas and on A roads.

Most French places do not accept chip and pin still for British cars and the Auto Pumps with chip and pin still do not accept them as far as we know. Till operators will still swipe cards and you sign as usual.

One of my guys came back from Germany at the weekend, in Reims he used Chip and Pin but at the fuel pumps he had to sign at the same Hypermarket. He tried an Auto Pump on the way out and it did not recognise his card, but on the Autoroute the machine debited the toll with bt just entering the card in the machine with no pin.

24/7 Service off the motorways means a Card pump in the main, but during business hours you should be OK just signing.

 

[jacqui_5076101]

Hi

We got back on Sunday after a week in the Limousin and we arrived at Dunkerque on the way down at 4.45am saturday morning-our car runs on LPG so that can be an added headache looking for fuel - but we never had any problems at all, we made sure we had afull tanks worth to get us on our way and then filled up after a couple of hours in a manned one.I think the autoroutes are mostly manned its once you go off onto the N roads etc.

The only problems we did have was when we got back in the UK and had to drive 120 miles on the dear stuff (petrol) cos we couldn't find an autogas pump!!

 

[cris_408518]

Just a tip guys. GPS systems such as Tom Tom and Garmin have Point of interest info giving most UK LPG garages as well as all others.

Wherever you are you can just find the nearest garage and the little GPS will lead you there.

Even the little cheap Garmin I3 can have that "POI" data downloaded to it in seconds!!!!!!!!!!

 

[tom_5099319]

I drive to Italy every year with my family as well as several shopping trips or battlefield vists with a friend - mostly to France and Belguim. Never had a problem as such but never chanced running low and relying on an outlying out of hours filling station. I normally fill up during the day from supermarkets like Carrefour or Leclerc. When driving to Italy through the night I pay the extra to leave Sussex with a full tank and refuel in Luxembourg at breakfast time. 2 things to remember - Belguim cash machines do not accept UK debit cards as they are a slightly larger size. I went to every cashpoint in Ypres and found this out !! Also - at a filling station in Luxetmbourg last summer they would not accept my Chipped Mastercard without a PIN - even though I had not yet been given a PIN. The bank said that Belguim and Lux are the 2 countries where a Chip enabled card must be used with a PIN.

 

[Le Chant]

There's NO truth in the rumour whatsoever. Card only kiosks may happen sometime in the future, but certainly not yet. Our local SuperU has card operated dispensers for use only when the caisse is unmanned. That's from around 7pm to 9am, and between 12:30 & 14:30 for lunch. They take cash, cards, cheques at the caisse. Diesel's currently just over a euro/litre here.

You shouldn't have any problems whatsoever filling your boots when you land here in France. The m/way kiosks will take cash, and UK cards too and they're open all night. Bon chance!