Barbara Terry, a Shell Oil spokeswoman also known as Dr. Fuelgood, can tell a lot about your personality by the way you fill — or don’t fill — your gas tank.
What sort of pump personality do you have?
You probably haven’t thought about it much, but chances are you fit into one of four categories that Shell Oil Company has identified, according to spokeswoman Barbara Terry, a.k.a. Dr. FuelGood.
You are either an empty tanker, a disciplined driver, a pro-active driver or a fumes fiend, she said in a telephone interview from her home in Marina del Ray, Calif.
Say what?
“Empty tankers don’t really realize their car needs to be filled up until the last minute,” she said, noting that about a third of all drivers fit this profile.
“Disciplined drivers are like my mom, who fills up at the same time, at the same station, every week,” she said. “For them it’s a chore, like the shopping. They have a pumping habit.”
“Pro-active drivers fill up their car when they still have half a tank, quarter of a tank, left,” she said. “I’m one; I like to top it off whenever I pass a favorite gas station.”
And fumes fiends? “They get a real thrill seeing how far they can take it past empty,” she said. “I guess they like to be stressed out in life.”
TERRY, 37, hails from Springtown, Texas, a small town northwest of Fort Worth. She was taken up by Shell after carving out a fledgling career in a variety of auto-related areas, including being the auto-repair site expert of about.com and iamplify.com, appearing on the cover of Kiplinger’s magazine and representing various auto makers and advertisers in a number of capacities.
This fall, Terry, who admits to being “driven,” expects to have her own cable TV show called BT’s Garage, which will include reviews, interviews with celebrities and mechanical tips. She is also discussing a syndicated series for TV, In the Driver’s Seat, which is planned to be more of a docudrama involving her and her life. “It’s a great show idea, my being in Texas, my background, where I come from, the storyline behind it,” she said.
Not bad for a country girl from the Lone Star State.
“The mechanics of vehicles always fascinated me,” Terry said. “How a car really works, the engine, the transmission, the axles, the carburetor.” She said growing up on a 3,200-acre ranch with six brothers and a stepfather who was an aeronautical design engineer provided her with the background to learn about engines. “If the 2-ton hay truck broke down, you had to fix it on the spot,” she said, adding that she was the only one in the family to take her passion for cars and turn it into a career.
She said life on the ranch also provided her with a strong work ethic. “As a kid I hated having to do chores – milking the cows, riding out the horses before and after school – but I saw the value of it later on,” she said. In high school and at community college, where she took courses in auto mechanics, she learned “more book theory” but said she really valued her street smarts from learning “hands on.”
A self-starter, she set out into the world in 1991 by starting both a flower shop and an auto brokerage and service shop in Dallas. She sold the flower shop in 1998 when the auto brokerage took off. She later liquidated her inventory while keeping ownership of the building, and in 2002 took a break for six months and moved to Manhattan the following year.
She met TV producer Anthony Geathers through a friend and he entered her in a competition based on her background in autos. “Discovery Channel was looking for an attractive female who knew about cars,” she said. “We did a shoot with me talking about cars. They got hundreds of tapes and I made it to the final three.” After that she wrote columns and appeared on TV shows and in a Turtlewax commercial. “This past February, my tapes got passed around and Shell bought one for the Dr. FuelGood program,” she said. She moved to California in May.
AS DR. FUELGOOD, Terry has been touring the nation offering advice on how to “pump up your Fuel IQ and boost your knowledge about how to care for your car to ensure it performs well for the long term, make informed decisions at the pump and get the most out of each fill-up.”
Terry offers four tips for women drivers: Determine which gasoline to use, learn how to change a flat tire, learn how to use jumper cables, and learn how to check on your car’s important fluids.
When it comes to fixing your car, Terry advises taking it to a shop that you either have a rapport with or that is recommended by a friend or family member. If need be, call the Better Business Bureau and find out if the shop has a history of complaints against it.
“Take it in and focus on the problem you are taking it in for,” she said. “If they call two hours later and say the car needs this or that, ask them to fix the original problem and take the car to another shop to find out if it still needs additional repairs. Take it in for one thing and have them fix that one thing.”
To stretch your gas budget, she recommends keeping the tires at the correct pressure, servicing the car every 5,000 miles, changing the air filter every 15,000 miles and removing excess weight – golf clubs, bowling balls – from the car. Also, always use the recommended grade of oil and choose a high-quality gasoline, one with cleaning agents to keep line- and engine-clogging carbon deposits out. Keep speeds below 60 mph and use cruise control on highways to maintain a constant speed.
And avoid idling – when you get zero miles per gallon.
For additional information, see:
FUEL QUIZ
Terry offers four tips for women drivers:
Determine which gasoline to use, learn how to change a flat tire, learn how to use jumper cables, and learn how to check on your car’s important fluids.
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By Peter C.T. Elsworth
About Barbara
