$16 a gallon Prestone antifreeze

And so is my 1TB Hard drive with 10,000 times the capacity of the 100MB I paid 4x as much for a few years ago

So who's overcharging for antifreeze? We sell prestone and it's only $10-12 a gallon

abcd wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g17g2000yqe.googlegroups.com:

So your price includes the airfare to Sweden to buy it then? sounds like a bargin to me.

m6onz5a wrote in news:1e4ecfe0-1030-480e-ad6c- snipped-for-privacy@f6g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:

Maybe the OP bought his at a gas station.

Could be. The thing is, if you dont like the price, say "NO DAMMIT!" and go someplace else.

Ethyleneoxide, the precursor of ethylene glycol, cost about $0.60 per pound the last time I checked. That would mean that concentrated antifreeze would cost about $6 per gallon bulk, plus packaging, additives, etc. The jug alone probably costs $1.50, as a guess.

So the price the OP quoted was pretty profitable, I guess. But you can ALWAYS find a cheaper source.

"hls" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Yup. We have something called Canadian Tire up here. They sell things like oil, tools, auto parts. I think they have stores like that in the US too. Apparently the OP couldn't find one.

"hls" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Way less than a buck. Closer to 25 or 50 cents.

Gas stations make a pitifully small margin on gas. Their money comes primarily from lottery sales, and anything else they get from their attached convenience stores.

It was a "discount" retail auto chain store, which had a garage attached. I noticed also that they had several brands of motor oil on the shelves, and that the cheapest price they had (which was the house brand) was $3.49 a quart !!! They had plenty of oil going for over $4 a quart. I went to another retail auto store, got the same overpriced story, but these guys were a little less greedy. The store brand oil was only $2.99 a quart !!! I eventually went to my favorite place for auto supplies, the huge box store whose name I need not mention, and got some sanely priced antifreeze and oil. Makes me wonder if the huge box store is taking a loss on these items. Can it be that those other retail stores actually need to charge over $3 a quart for oil , to make a profit ??? 5 years ago these same stores always had some oil on sale for around $1.29 a quart. Now there never are sales, and the lowest price in $2.99 a quart???? Almost a 300 percent increase in 5 years. Crude is currently $75 or so a barrel, which is not very high.

We don't have something quite like Canadian Tire. That's like taking ALL of Sear's automotive department and separating it out into t different chain.

Canadian Tire doesn't strike me as being quite the same quality as a Sears would be (although SWears has slipped in the past 20 years, too.) The closest thing we have here is Pep Boys.

LOL. Talk aabout a Freudian Slip! "SWears"?!?

They make money from motor oil, antifreeze, and the like as well. The OP just got a high price from one of these places. Antifreeze is profitable, and that was the point I was making.

I estimated about $0.60 per pound for ethylene oxide, but that is the market price. Large companies take the ethylene and make their own EO at a much cheaper price, and then convert that into glycol. So their prices are lower still.

Hachiroku $B%O%A%m%/(B wrote in news:R2_go.43588$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe20.iad:

If Sears eliminated its bedding, furniture, clothing, shoes, cosmetics, and most of its appliances, you'd have a Canadian Tire.

Canadian Tire is a strange hybrid of hardware, sporting goods, lawn & garden, housewares, and automotive. It's a concept that wouldn't work in the US, because you have too much choice and too much competition.

The chain recently launched a Pep Boys/AutoZone/Kragen ripoff called PartSource, which is basically the automotive department of the main store established as a stand-alone unit. It sells exactly the same stuff.

Canadian Tire's parts quality is identical to Pep Boys, which is to say, lousy.

What socialism? A free market doesn't necessarily mean cheap prices, especially when only a few companies supply everything.

OTOH there's a $7/gallon rebate on Prestone antifreeze, 7/1/2010 -

There's also a $5/gallon rebate on prediluted 50/50 antifreeze, more proof that prediluted is a stupid choice.

That description makes it sound a lot like the old Western Auto stores. They dropped the auto parts section a long time ago, then most of the stores were sold out to Ace hardware. Still carry L&G, hardware, some housewares and misc. crap.

Could be buying the crap they want our FD to switch over to, Sierra. Best price I have found from a place that actually has it was $29.00 a gallon!!!

This is what they want us to run in the primer pumps to make them "green" currently we run vacuum pump oil. You lose maybe a tablespoon of oil every time you run the primer and they think this is terrible.

To give you a true idea of the oil use, I have been in this department for 16 years. In that time we have used a total of ONE gallon of primer oil!!!

That is ridiculous, Steve, but you already made that point. There would be a lot of oils that would be green.. (EVOO maybe included :>)

There are two reasons why this stuff is expensive:

1. The additive package in it isn't cheap. It's more expensive than the glycol these days.
2. Only a relatively small number of outfits make it, and so there is no competition to bring prices down. And there probably won't be, as the auto aftermarket isn't expanding.

Primer pumps?

--scott

You just have to watch your prices. There's always someplace that's higher than another. O'Reilly's wants 8-11 bucks for 11 ounces of R134a. Sometimes my wife finds the same can at a budget store for 3 bucks. Not often enough that I haven't paid O'Reilly's price though. What gets me is the washer fluid gallons for $4. Not talking about bug cleaner or whatever they're pushing to boost the price, but simple washer fluid good to -20 F or so. I won't put in any without anti-freeze because you'll sure enough get a snap freeze with that stuff in there. I was almost out and kept seeing it for $4 or $3. I resisted. That's what you do when the price looks high. The other day I was in O'Reilly's and they had it for $1 so I picked up 4 jugs. Think I'll pick up another 4. It doesn't go bad.

--Vic

Welcome to high prices gotta luv it.

Last time I was there (couple monts ago) Walmart had 12 oz cans of Johnsens 134a for $6.88.