Petrol - motorway rip off!

saintjanet

AMO wrote:

Hintza wrote:

[url="http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/faq.htm?id=46

That's very interesting to know. Last time Which? magazine looked into this, they stated that the supermarkets bought their petrol from the major petroleum giants and therefore is identical.

AMO

I have to agree i think evo magazine did an article on this and drew the same conclusions.They also said that buying from small outlets could sometimes result in getting "old" fuel that may have deteriorated,with the turnover being low ,they had often had the fuel in stock longer than the supermarkets.

Cumbrian_Male

The fuel comes from the local refinery but the tanker driver adds the additive pack seperately for each load depending on company delivering too.

For what it's worth I use Shell V Power @91.9p/L

7p/L more = £5.60 for a full tank and it is never fully empty. I think the most I have put in is 70L.

AMO

Cumbrian_Male wrote:

The fuel comes from the local refinery but the tanker driver adds the additive pack seperately for each load depending on company delivering too.
For what it's worth I use Shell V Power @91.9p/L
7p/L more = £5.60 for a full tank and it is never fully empty. I think the most I have put in is 70L.

Yes, but there is a difference between adding additives and the base petrol causing harm to a car.

I buy standard petrol and buy additives separately as I believe it is not cost-effective to buy it as part of the petrol itself.

Because petrol tax is marked up so heavily, any additives you buy is marked up in the same way. Furthermore, as petrol is so expensive, why would you want to have part of it substituted by an additive. Finally, the amount of additive they add is so small, for the amount of extra you pay, its not anywhere near as good as going into ASDA and buying an additive every once in a while.

AMO

mistyarthur

Where I live lately the prices have been cheaper if you go to the service stations on the M1 than buying it from a supermarket in town!

suffolkb

It always amuses me when the rural folk moan that petrol is more expensive where they live. I live in the country now. The roads are clear, driving is a pleasure and I get well over 20% more mpg than I used to get. More than compensates for a penny or two extra per litre.

thecremeegg

its more expensive because they can charge that price. you run out of fuel on a motorway, you have no choice but to fill up there, thus a higher price can be charged

moonrakerz

thecremeegg wrote:

its more expensive because they can charge that price. you run out of fuel on a motorway, you have no choice but to fill up there, thus a higher price can be charged

You don't have to fill up on the motorway, there are plenty of places close at hand - if you run out of fuel it's your own stupid fault !

If your local supermarket petrol station had to stay open 24 hours a day, 365 days a years - including Christmas Day, had to provide free toilets, had to provide free parking, and all the other things that the Services Areas have to provide, do you really think they would be cheaper then ?

The motorway services areas are still hog-tied by lots of silly rules and regulations which don't help them - or the traveling public.

AMO

moonrakerz wrote:

The motorway services areas are still hog-tied by lots of silly rules and regulations which don't help them - or the traveling public.

Some of the rules need relaxing such as enabling limited advertising of service stations so that they don't go to the lengths of changing their company name from Moto to Moto Marks & Spencers just to allow the words Marks & Spencers to be displayed on a motorway board. However, the regs exist for good reason - without them, you'd see more adverts than motorway signs.
You'd also get stupid advertising like on a 'Feeling Tired - Take a break' motorway sign having a 'Have a KitKat' commercial sign underneath!

Also, without restricting the space that the motorway services can have, you'd have full blown supermarkets off the motorway - I am not sure if that's a good or bad thing. However, it would certainly mean a lot more areas for the supermarket giants to battle it out.

AMO

Gorgeous_George

1. Motorway services have larger overheads than other petrol stations. They are open 24/7.

2. Branded fuel is higher quality than Tesco's.

3. The impact of Tesco (and other supermarkets) is huge on town centres. Local businesses disappear and the same is happening to local garages. When all the local garages have disappeared, supermarkets will charge what they want. Filling up will mean a trip to Tescos whether you want to or not. The extra miles don't only cost petrol.

Each to their own, I suppose.



GG

moonrakerz

AMO wrote:

You'd also get stupid advertising like on a 'Feeling Tired - Take a break' motorway sign having a 'Have a KitKat' commercial sign underneath!

Good idea ! the authorities could rent out all these new gantry signs - which at present either display traffic news 6 hours out of date or inane "nannying" notices.