1. Home
  2. Car Maintenance
  3. Overpriced filling station or Newsagent?

Overpriced filling station or Newsagent?

My love affair with LPG is being strained to the limit at the moment. Saturday night, I dropped into my local Shell Station, to fill up with LPG. Sadly, all the local cheap independent LPG sellers close in the evenings and weekends, so I'm forced to fill up with shells overpriced gas. My local independent retailer can sell it for 40p/L however a giant multinational such as Shell, charges just under 50p/L. Anyway, the Shell LPG pump was still out of order a week after I last tried to use it.

No problem, I'll fill up at the local BP station with expensive LPG, Sunday morning, on my way to work.

Gone to pull into the BP station at about 6am, only to find cones across the entrance and the cashier farting about with Sunday newspapers. I asked her how long it would be before I could have some gas? About 15 minutes she replied as the papers have to be dealt with. I told her I was on my way to work and couldn't wait 15 minutes, however, she could only apologise and said she couldn't help.

What is it with these filling stations, I can't have gas 'cos they're too busy selling papers!

Incidentally, I filled up with Unleaded at Morrisons this morning paying

96.9, as opposed to the 101.9 my local BP station is demanding

This is one p*ssed off customer, who will not be returning to BP, in a hurry

tox.

Reply to
Your Worst Nightmare
Loading thread data ...

"Your Worst Nightmare" wrote in message news:utYZi.5242$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

They likely make them more money than the fuel.

My local BP is 102.9 and 107.9 for diesel. Funnily, I don't use it.

Reply to
gazzafield

"Your Worst Nightmare" wrote in message news:utYZi.5242$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

Newspapers give a better profit than selling petrol/diesel/lpg.

Reply to
ABC

"Your Worst Nightmare" wrote in message news:utYZi.5242$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net...

Like many employees - they work to a set of procedures and are not allowed to make any judgements. It is called progress.

Reply to
John

"gazzafield" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net...

Yup.

Hmm - for my usual areas, Shell, supermarkets and Total are usually the cheapest. BP is often a penny a litre dearer.

Reply to
DervMan

"gazzafield" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@pipex.net...

I should imagine the margins the multinationals make on LPG, are something they could only dream about on petrol.

If a small independent can sell LPG at 40p/L and make a profit, what sort of margin is the multinational working on. Clearly, because the Exchequer has treated LPG generously, this has given the multinationals an excuse to cream it and not pass the full saving onto the motorist.

The generous terms given to LPG users, was meant to encourage people to covert to LPG.

Surely, Cheap LPG, amongst other things, was meant to offset the cost of a conversion, and not to line the pockets of companies such as BP and Shell?

tox

Reply to
Your Worst Nightmare

"Your Worst Nightmare" wrote in message news:bi_Zi.6609$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe7-gui.ntli.net...

Doubtful.

Most, if not all, petrol stations are run on a franchise basis. The chap running them has to make money or he goes out of business, as so many of them are.

Business sets out to make money, shock! If you don't like it, do as you have done already, go somewhere else. BP< Shell et al will still make their money selling the fuel to the supermarkets.

Reply to
gazzafield

You cannot have it all ways - one minute someone complaining because the fuel stations are trying to make a profit - the sods :)

Previous posts complain that fuel stations are closing as they are loosing money

Reply to
Tommy

Only if they're selling the fuel at a loss.

Newspapers have even tighter margins than petrol.

Reply to
SteveH

Wrong.

Reply to
SteveH

Yes but their stations are a nice green colour :-)

Reply to
rp

And annoyingly the Saab is less grumpy on the stuff.

I'll fill up where I need to and won't worry about the price difference too much. Over 25,000 miles a year and just over 50 to the gallon, 5p a litre is only a couple of tanks of diesel.

Reply to
DervMan

The funny thing I find about petrol is that as the average consumer you really don't know if there is any difference between 96.9p/l or

102.9p/l. Is there any difference in the quality of petrol? My guess is people just assume petrol is petrol, this probably causes the manufactures to produce the cheapest product as nobody will want to pay more.

Around our way, it appears people seem more interested in the shop attached to the station. We have a Tesco station and a Shell about 200 yards away from each other. The Tesco station is always packed (even on the days it's 1p/l more expensive), the Shell station only ever has the odd car or two. The thing is, it's the Shell station keeping the Tesco prices down (the Tesco station down the road that killed of the local competition is 2-3p/l more expensive).

Regards,

Tim

Reply to
Tim

Has it got the GM V6 engine? My Omega likes the BP stuff, especially the Ultimate. Less grumpy is a good way to describe it.

Reply to
rp

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.