Petrol prices.

Adrian writes

I fill to the cut-off point every time, then feed mileage, litres, cost etc into a spreadsheet which keeps a complete record. It's the only way to get accurate fuel consumption figures. (IMO).

The message from Gordon contains these words:

While true, it's not an area of great concern to many.

Hold on, in Redditch, Worcestershire, unleaded is 93.9. Someone else said Texaco had it at 99.9 And another person said they saw it for 90.9, thats 9p per litre difference in total, now I am aware of regional differences, but......

So I wonder what petrol could be REASONABLY sold at?

Hmm.......

That was me :-) It puzzled me that this Texaco was just opposite of an Esso which had 94.9p for unleaded. Normally those two stations have identical prices as this is probably the only practical solution. You can actually see the other station's prices from the forecourt.

A further mile up the road, another Esso has unleaded for 93.9p.

Guy King writes

I jus' like doing spreadsheets. :-)

I used to work it out by calculator and plot a graph way back when I had a Mk1 Cortina, and it was only when the mpg graph dropped sharply I found out a carb jet was blocked.....

The "pay at the pump" is the best idea I think - stick your card in and then you can fill to a certain amount or you can fill the tank up. No change, no messing and no accidentally going over what you've paid, etc. And you have the added bonus of not having to queue at the cashier desk, too!

Stephen.

A station at ASDA has this. I did have problems because the pump was dry and the cashier didn't notice. The pump nevertheless charged me a small amount, but I got a shop voucher from the cashier. However, I completely forgot to use it.

There's nothing new about that. It's been going on for years - most supermarket petrol stations (bar Asda with their drive-through setup) will see at least one a week.

I keep a check on it - but only because the car tells me.

Stephen H ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Never bloody goes high enough to allow me to fill.

Hell, one local BP even used to cut off at £60 if you were paying in the hut.

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

So's mine.

I use the "remaining range" on the computer and zero the trip odo when I fill up. Add the two together, and if I'm heading for better than 500 miles, I'm doing well, much less and I've either been doing too much urban or too much hooning.

The "remaining range" won't read more than 620 miles... (three digits, so

The message from Adrian contains these words:

How daft! Driven carefully I can get nearly 800 miles on a tankful.

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Mine's a petrol auto. Even then, I've seen it reading 620 to go with 100 gone.

A diesel manual should be able to get damn near a thousand miles pussyfooted.

So does mine, but not quite the same figure as a fuel v mileage calculation. ;-)

I've only had the car a few weeks though, so haven't tested it more than once.

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Mine's an auto.

Heh, my brother-in-law is a German living in the UAE, it costs him less than a fiver to fill his BMW 330 :( When he asked me how much UK fuel is, he didn't understand when I told him "twenty quid"...

Every time he's over here, he's dumbfounded that diesel is more expensive than petrol, he travels the world and says the UK is the only country where this is the case :(

The number 3 pump at our local Shell petrol station used to spend more of its time out of order than it did working. This went on for many months and often resulted in annoyingly long queues for the other three pumps. I eventually commented on the unreliability of the pump, and they told me "No, it's fine, it's just that number 3 suffers badly from drive-offs, so we keep it switched off."

It made sense when I thought about it: It was the furthest from the shop's front door, and also offered the quickest get-away for cars with an offside fuel filler. It seems to be on most of the time these days though, so either the problem's not so bad now, or they've gone and installed cameras.

The message from "Tony Bond \(UncleFista\)" contains these words:

I saw it today at less than UL, but it was in the wilds of Wales and the UL was about 106.

They may pay higher annual car tax for a diesel.