Gas prices and weird behaviour

At home today driving to work the price of gas ranges from 2.89 to 2.97 the closer to work I get. I work next door to the airport where gas is high to gig rental car returnees. Monday and Tuesday I was in the Nyack-Middletown-Spring Valley NY area. Gas ranged from 3.25 to 3.36 for Self Service, Higher for the NJ bunch that is not used to Self Service and has to have full service since the area is on the border.

I noticed the same thing yesterday that I have noted before. People will get gas at the higher priced outlets even if that means fighting traffic flow and entry-exits to the station that are a PITA. I have seen stations that are 20 cents lower with no customers while the higher station across the street has lines.

Is this an odd quirk of human nature? Or are some stations just undesireable?

think yourself lucky, the price per gallon in the UK, is equivalent to $8.30 a gallon.

we pay at the moment approx £0.96 a litre for unleaded.

regards.

Pellidon said:

I have seen stations that are 20 cents lower with no customers while the higher station across the street has lines.

Is this an odd quirk of human nature? Or are some stations just undesireable?

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The lower priced stations were probably out of fuel. Here, you can't tell they're out of fuel until you drive in and see the plastic covers over the pump handles.

TinderBox (UK) said:

think yourself lucky, the price per gallon in the UK, is equivalent to $8.30 a gallon.

we pay at the moment approx £0.96 a litre for unleaded.

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The bulk of that is taxes (same as here...your taxes are just higher...)

JM-99

WOW!!!!!

TinderBox (UK) said:

think yourself lucky, the price per gallon in the UK, is equivalent to $8.30 a gallon.

we pay at the moment approx £0.96 a litre for unleaded.

regards.

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same as here...your taxes are just higher...

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Um no. Here, taxes are NOT the majority of the cost of fuel. They only account for 18% of the cost of a gallon of gas...


http://www.conocophillips.com/newsroom/other_resources/energyanswers/oil_profits.htm

Just where does this rumor come from, anyways?

TinderBox (UK) said:

think yourself lucky, the price per gallon in the UK, is equivalent to $8.30 a gallon.

we pay at the moment approx £0.96 a litre for unleaded.

regards.

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I thought we had it bad paying the equivalent of about $4.27/us gal (CAD$1.05/litre)

evan9162 said:

Um no. Here, taxes are NOT the majority of the cost of fuel. They only account for 18% of the cost of a gallon of gas...

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I misspoke...I was trying to say that most of their fuel cost was taxes...a lot of ours is, but theirs is a lot higher...

JM-99

You get what you pay for, I think..

greenlight said:

You get what you pay for, I think..

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How do you mean?

JM-99

Just like anything. Why do people buy bananas at safeway for artificially high prices when they are available for less everyday at alternative stores?

Back to gas and weird behavior....

When I'm done fueling, I pull the hose down to clear the few oz. of gas trapped in the loop. I assume that I paid for the gas, but I probably get the previous guy's gas, too, if it's still there. Does that make sense?

I'm with Greenlight.

Around here, gas will vary in cost by 15-20 cents per gallon depending on the brand, for the same grade and within three blocks distance. Both my cars are turbo charged and I drive them hard; I'm entirely willing to pay more for the higher quality gasoline. My engines start easier, run smoother, and make better power. I've had the amount of boost pressure that the computer allows vary by as much as two psi between different brands of premium gas,with the "same" octane rating.


I'm sure I'm in the vast minority in general and that most people wouldn't even notice, or drive cars that just don't care. My wife puts the dead cheapest regular she can find in her car and doesn't notice the slightest bit of difference.


Cheers. :buddies:

One reason for people hitting the higher priced gas stations might be brand loyalty . When I'm on the road where I know I will be filling up 3 or 4 times I look for Shell gas stations, I can trust Shell to no have water in their gas and the quality seems to be one step up.

First of all, for most american users, There are only a few wholesalers in any given area and fewer refinery's... In metro Minneapolis all the gas for city comes from two places, therefore, if you pay attention to which trucks deliver you will find out who drops what gas where... I find I can buy the same gas as at BP or shell dealers from the no name places, just the same stuff. the rest is marketing.


As to the quality of gasoline for turbos. bear in mind that environmental causes can create that much difference in turbo boost on a modern electronic engine management system. When we were running a racing car with a turbo, the same 500 gallons of gas, depending on the day could take anywhere from 16 to 19 psi of boost, ambient air temps, humidity, barometric pressure all contribute heavily to the amount of additional boost you can add before you start to run into detonation, burning pistons and EGT that will melt the turbos. It is true some places do list 93 octane and then mix so low grade in it, but if caught, they risk fines and license removal. On a cool day (under 80 degrees with a lot of humidity, ) we were often able to get an additional 60 hp out of the turbo. Colder, denser air with a lot of moisture just gives more HP.

I can not see the people who pay for full serve, My son who worked at a gas station here that was one of the last to do full serve, told me that the highest user of full serve were the people who were paying with general assistance voucher/debit cards. AKA welfare.


Also keep track of your weekly gas prices, you may discover a trend that prices fall during the week and then pop up thurs night for the weekend driving. If you pattern this you can often save several dollars a tankfull.

I'm well aware of the environmental factors which change hp output and possible boost pressure, as well as the effects of overboosting. I repeatably get a 1-2 psi drop when switching to a different brand of gas.

Run a water injector and an intercooler water mister. Every day is a cool, humid day.

:buddies:

In Oregon, every station is full serve.

I hear that talk about how all the gas comes from 1 place in our area too. Then why does my car run fine on some brands and ping on others? Quality, plus brands differ with their additive packages. Also a lot of the gas around here is delivered by fuel transfer companies, not Big Oil named trucks. Same truck, but different blends.

I usually hear this from those people that try to say using 92 is a waste, and 87 is the same thing out of the pump. Sure some cars don't care, but it's far from the same thing.

Actually the lower priced stations have gas. That was where I stopped.

Brand loyality is a tough nut to break for some.

I think here we have one refinery/distributor. The different flavors of gas are blended at the delivery truck as to additives for each brands "special". What is in the tank underground is a different kettle of fish. There is one company that most avoid because there is more water in the tank that in Eagle Creek Resivior.

What frosts my cookies is the wild flucuations in price. Up .30 today down .25 in a day's time. Then back down to where it was. We used to have a system. Prices went up on Wednesday and down on Mondays. Been that way long before I was around according to my Grandfather. Back in the 2000 election year one of the local candidates was asked why that happens. She did not have an answer and informed us she never saw the pattern. But she would investigate if elected. That plus she was on the Democrat convention introducing us to the next President "Earl Gore" (I swear I heard her say that - clueless on lots of things). Needless to say she did not win the election. Now the stations don't have a fixed pattern. Another politician trying to help us.

evan9162 said:

Just where does this rumor come from, anyways?

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From the netherlands I think... Our gas prices are pretty much similar to those in the UK, but here most of it is tax...


Pricing here is as follows:

34% is the price of the gas itself, including margins for stationholders etc.
66% is tax, of which 19% is salestax. the most beautiful part of it all, is that we actually pay sales tax over the taxes....

Here in Norway we pay about 12 NOK per litre. I guess that's slightly more than the brits have to pay (Tinderbox said they pay the equivalent of $8.30 per gallon, so maybe we pay $9 per gallon). Cars also cost (on avergage) 2-3 times more here than in the UK, and like 4-5 times more than in the US. Like Tinderbox said, consider yourselves lucky

It's kinda ironic that gas prices are so high here in Norway, seeing as we are one of the biggest exporters of oil in the world. The extreme import taxes on cars are also very silly because we don't even make any cars of our own, so there are no domestic manufacturers to "protect" :thumbsdow

That's not entirely true. Other than someone pumping the gas for you, they do not perform any other services. And the reason for the gas jockey is because Oregon has some archaic law that makes it unlawful for consumers to pump their own gas.

greenlight said:

In Oregon, every station is full serve.

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