This happened to me a few months ago and I can NOT figure out how it happened. Let’s see if anyone can solve this mystery...

OK, everyone get out your pencils and a piece of paper. It’s time to take the impossible quiz...

PROBLEM:

A local weatherman stopped to fill up his gas tank on his way home from work one night. He realized that it took an unusually long amount of time for it to fill up with gas. After hanging up the pump, he noticed that he put a whopping 14.290 gallons of gas in his car.

He knew this was unusual because he always wrote down his car mileage and gas quantity every time he filled up. In fact, the most he ever put in his car (in the 230 fill ups prior) was 12.146 gallons.

So, he whipped out the Owner’s Manual to find the car’s tank capacity was only 13.2 gallons. Assuming that he was the victim of a faulty pump, he notified the gas attendant and drove off.

Two weeks later, he was astonished to find that he drove 500 miles on a single tank of gas! Again, his five years of records proved that prior to that, the most he ever got out of a tank was about 420 miles and he averaged about 380 miles per tank of gas.

QUESTIONS:

How was the weatherman’s car able to hold more than the tank capacity?

How was his car able to drive nearly 25% further than normal?

ASSUMPTIONS:

1.) The gas pump read 0.000 gallons when the weatherman started pumping the gas
2.) To the best of his knowledge, there is no ‘reserve tank’ in his car
3.) Nothing was done to the car to improve the gas mileage
4.) The gas was pumped on a cool night, so the expansion of the metal tank is negligible
5.) The car was driven under typical conditions (both on highway and in city)
6.) Regular unleaded was used (not that Super or Premium gas would help w/mileage)
7.) The weatherman was NOT able to duplicate this after returning to the same pump/gas station at a later date
8.)The weatherman has filled his tank up 12 times since this incident. Each time filling up with only 10.5 to 11.5 gallons and getting about 350-400 miles per tank.

I love math and logic problems, but this one has got me stumped. If anyone can help me solve this, you’re awesome! Thanks!