Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
Serious question: were full-service gas stations a common thing because people were too dumb to do it themselves (tbf pumps used to be a little bit less user-friendly)? Or was it just a class thing?
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You've done your own research above w.r.t. self-serve pumping, but I think you skipped right over one of Enoch Root's core points: they weren't simply
gas stations for buying fuel, but "
service stations" for having the car serviced on the whole. A lot of technology we take for granted now didn't exist at the time, and just keeping a car going involved much more ongoing maintenance.
For instance oil levels had to be checked regularly because burning and leaking was more common, with looser piston tolerances allowing blow-by and crappier gasket materials wearing out much quicker. Coolant level had to be checked too, because coolant recovery tanks weren't common until the 1970s; if your car ran hot and the coolant expanded it would simply puke out on the ground as you drove and would have to be topped up later. Bias-ply tires were much more fragile than today's radials, so tire pressures had to be checked regularly lest you cause uneven wear and unpredictable handling. Dirty windshields had to be manually cleaned with a squeegee because onboard washer systems didn't even exist until the late 1930s and weren't commonplace until the late 1950s.
Self-serve stations became popular because of cost savings to the consumers, but also because the services offered at "full-service" stations became redundant. E.g. my 13-year-old daily driver has never leaked or burned a drop of oil or coolant, etc. It's only ever seldom checked for these things because it's so reliable I don't need to check it.