Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bogle bomb here. If you drive a late model car, chances are your gas cap is connected to your car by a little rubber tether. That's so that if you happen to forget to replace it after you fill up, an indicator on your dashboard will let you know. Or even if your car doesn't have that indicator light, at least you won't lose the gas cap.
But what if your car doesn't have any of this technology and you drive down the road with a gas cap off without ever realizing your error. Losing your gas cap is a minor annoyance, sure, but you paid for that gas and you want it to stay where it belongs in the gas tank. Furthermore, ceiling off the fuel tank with the gas cap helps your fuel system maintain proper pressure, which in turn helps your car operates smoothly. So can driving without one cause damage to your car? Well?
Probably not, but it can cause some minor issues. You might lose a little gas, but more likely due to evaporation than to actual spillage. Because the filler neck helps prevent slashing. Any kind of gas loss harms the environment. And costs you extra money, which is not ideal, but it's not an immediate catastrophe. You might see a drop
in your fuel economy numbers, though. Also it's possible that debris or moisture could get into the gas tank, which also is not ideal, but probably will not be catastrophic either since it should be caught by the fuel filter. And finally, if you live in a state with emissions inspections, your car would not pass the inspection until you replaced the gas cap, but there's absolutely no reason you should drive without a gas cap long enough for that to
become an issue. The bottom line is that the consequences of driving without a gas cap are insignificant, and the solution is simple. Gas caps are easy and inexpensive to replace. You can purchase a replacement at a local auto parts store or an online retailer, and you can determine which cap you need in your cars owners manual the parts department for your car dealership could help too, And there's another technological failsafe to help prevent too much damage from
being done. Assuming that your car has a check engine light, because most cars on the road today do, you'll likely see it illuminate just a few minutes after you leave the gas station should you drive off without your fuel cap. Some modern cars even have a specific fuel cap light.
If this happens, performance may temporarily be an issue. Some cars are programmed to operate in a limp mode when the check engine light is on, which allows you to continue driving at limited speed until you can stop safely to assess and correct the problem, but it should switch back into normal mode as soon as you replace your cap. In some rare cases, the light may stay on even
after you replace your gas cap, but don't worry. You may need to drive for a while before your car's computer senses that everything is okay and the light resets, But if need be, your friendly neighbor head mechanic will be happy to check it out for you. Today's episode was written by Cheri's three Witt and produced by Tyler Clang. For one listen lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I
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