My employer pays for the gas that I use in my work car and it burns 87 octane so I usually don't pay too much attention to the price. When it's time for me to fill up the Mustang with 91 octane I do notice.

The difference between 87 and 91 is now $0.45! Didn't there used to be only about a $0.10 gap between grades? I'm thinking that they are sticking it to the SUV and performance owners now.

Top 5 Review Generators

1. Wal*Mart
2. Chervon
3. Shell
4. BP
5. GM

 

Well, when you think of it on a percentage basis, it makes sense that it would be 45 cents now when it used to be 20 cents back when gas was a dollar. Since gas is $3 now, we should feel lucky that 91 doesn't cost 60 cents more a gallon. Don't you feel lucky?

 

Unfortunatley, we're not going to see much of a drop in gas as long as people keep demanding it.

I still see a lot of people just burning away gas frivilously by not planning trips. I try to plan my week out so I know what I need and when I'm going to be in that area. Saves a lot of gas, really.

That and just being conservative on acceleration. That's another postive thing you can do, especially on a well shifted manual trans.

I've also been using Lucas in every other tankful of gas and I must say I have noticed an improvement.

I was getting about 22.7 MPG overall average and now I am getting around 25.9 to 26.1 depending on the traffic.

Traffic is also another thing that can affect your gas mileage. If I leave about 10 minutes early I can beat a lot of traffic that used to cause stop and go conditions that waste a ton of gas.

 

Just move within 5 miles of work

 

Slightly off but on a related topic, what KILLS me is the difference in price of gas by region. 87 octane here in my town is around $3 per gallon. We took a 5 hour drive down to the hills of Kentucky in our family car, and once we got thru Cincinnati and down into Kentucky gas dropped down to $2.84 per gallon. Now, Kentucky is beautiful and people can laugh about hillbillys and such, but this was really out in the sticks so it made me wonder how it could be so much cheaper when the cost to deliver it there had to be more but yet, it was that much less per gallon. We filled back up and headed home, and after about 2 hours north it was back up to $3.

 

why the heck would the gas octane be based on a percentage?

isn't 87 and 93 made from the same oil... so the price of the oil went up...but i don't think the processing or additives skyrocketed in price.. So basically they are screwing us even more again.

 

Something I've just noticed around here in NJ is my regular Shell station is getting $2.86 a gallon for regular, and about a mile or so down the street, BP is getting $2.75. Guess what, Shell is no longer the regular, at least not for now. Both these products are of equil quality as far as I'm concerned, and for a .11 a gallon difference, I'll go the extra mile.

This to me is significant because just 3 months ago or so, all the prices were within .03 of each other. Now it seems the prices are down, but some are choosing to continue to gouge.

 

I struggle with this one. I try to shift conservatively, but then I start asking myself, "well why did I buy a performance oriented vehicle in the first place?"

Done that... 2.5 miles from work... it's nice... but at the same time, somedays I wish I had more time behind the wheel.

 

Tom, don't feel bad on that ride. For us here in PA (outside of Philly) gas is around $2.85 for regular. But drive only 30 miles north to Allentown PA, and gas was in the low $2.50 range for regular! How's that for regional bias. Its only a 30 minute trip and its that much cheaper.

 

How much do you think gas stations pay for the gas they sell? Why not drop their prices below the "competitive" prices, ie below $3 then once they have a higher percentage of the buyers of gas coming to their stations other stations would have to drop as well. By that logic they wouldn't lose any money since they would have more customers, since others would just seem rediculous... which they are.

^ Which is probably why I'm not a salesman...

 

Why would a station manager lower his prices (thus forcing competitors to do the same) to arrive at the result of similar market share at a much lower profit percentage?

 

Because they would receive more business, even if they were receiving less per gallon, they would sell more gallons and possibly make the same amount of profit because of that.

 

They wouldn't receive more business because all their neighboring competitors would drop their prices to match. Thus they would all find themselves within three or four cents of one another (again), but at 20 cents lower than before--a profit-losing change. Only an idiot would start a price-fight while selling limited supply/high demand goods.