Save 20 cents per litre.........

These are Shell oulets.

Shell sells poor quality fuel?

Shell/Bp no problems

The fuel I have been getting the last 3 fills from Shell is returning far less mileage.

I agree that the quality has gone downhill lately.

BP is probably OK but they are all in the game to give us the poorest product they can get away with to maximise theire profits.

Oil companies have never been "Compassionate Capitalist" companies - these are companies who always value and respect their customers and never knowingly sell dodgy goods.

Gerhard

You are probably saving 20 cents on the 16 cents thay have inflated the price by to pay for it.

You don't REALLY think the oil companies would trim their profit margins by that much, do you???

You have paid for your discount at Coles. If you bought a "home brand" products and a loaf of bread and some meat from them then they have well and truly covered ther a**es. The profit margins on these "value added" products is frightening.

Everything in California is more expensive - it's probably got the highest cost-of-living of any of the US states. Anyone earning less than $100k p.a. in San Francisco is considered a low income earner. Blaming the high gas prices there on discount fuel schemes and saying the same will happen here is a bit misleading.

On fuel prices in general, when I was living there (2001-2003) - gas was about $1.97USD a gallon. About 69c AUD a litre. The most expensive I saw was $2.37 a gallon, or 83 cents/litre in AUD. I saw it in parts of the country as low as $1.60/gal, or 56c AUD a litre. I just did a websearch, and it's about $2.79 USD a gallon in San Francisco right now - about 98 AUD cents a litre. Texans are still enjoying $2.37 USD/gal, or 83 cents/litre.They import most of theirs too. No reason it couldn't be that cheap in Australia.

$1.229 down the road from me today in Melbourne for regular ULP. 48% more expensive than in Texas. The US imports about 60% of it's oil.

Did you know we are currently importing over FIVE BILLION DOLLARS worth of fuel a year now? It's something like 28% of our total trade deficit.

Don't bitch at Coles about our high petrol prices - it's the taxes which makes our fuel so expensive here.

Another thing - paying by credit card at the servo? Probably more than half of all transactions - next time you fill up and there's a queue, see how many people pay by plastic. With credit card fees charged by the banks at around 1.5-2%, about 2c to 2.5c per litre of the fuel cost is just to cover the credit card fees.

Dammit! Should have bought the 3.2L Di-D instead.

Just read what I posted - should have waited until morning, it sounded a bit rant-like :-)

I actually read that in a business journal and then experienced it myself. I can only believe that it is true. Its a bit like privately owned coffee shops competing against Big business, although mostly franchised, the likes of Gloria Jeans. They set up next door with low prices until the private guy goes out of business and once he has gone, yep, slowly increase the prices. Its not new..

Royce

Thats $9023 per 70 L tank. It doesn't do much for the diesel vs petrol debate!

Think you made a decimal point error.

D-Jack

From memory you are allowed 150 litres per discount coupon. I know trhat I have filled the Patrol with 115 litres at one time without a problem.

Happy discounting.

Patrick

I'm with you barry..

Good words Barry, I heard it said the other day that coles, woolworths and safeway own 14% of the fuel outlets and sell 56% of the fuel in this country, not sure this is a good way for us to be going, remember the corner store, now gone and swallowed up by the multinationals, and the corner servo is going the same way very fast, they will have us by the short and curlies on fuel soon, worse than we are now, just like they have us with food, funny how they pick on the things we cant do without???

Cheers

Spot on Pesty, Everyone should forget the small saving on fuel and look at savings on their food like shopping elsewhere to keep WW and Coles in check.

Why should they, it's a guarenteed coffer filler.
Andy M

Of course they could, BUT where are they going to make up the shortfall? increase income tax, increase GST, increase beer, wine, spirits, milk, bread. YOU WILL PAY, NO MATTER WHAT.

Instead of continuously slugging the indidvidual voter they could try to make companies and wealthy people pay - that would greatly increase their income - Steve Vizard and Alan Bond paid NO tax for may years.

"they could try to make companies and wealthy people pay"

Yeah, let's penalise the people that got off their fat arses and made something of their lives even more shall we!
You'd be surprised at how much these "wealthy people" already pay the government in fees and charges other than taxes.(Let alone the $millions they donate to charity for which most want no recognition)
Unfortunately there is no way of segregating the 'Visards' and 'Bonds' from other hardworking people that fall into that catagory, it's a big umbrella that covers a lot of people.
If they're good enough to make it, they should be allowed to keep it without criticism from those who haven't.

Avagoodn
Pezza

Guys - the tax on fuel is 38cents per litre or about 30% not 50%. Yeah the government could reduce this but then what....they would have to go somewhere else to get the money to run the country...increase income tax, introduce death duties, increase gst, tax per kilometre driven etc etc. Get used to it and to big companies having dominance in the market it's fact of life and simply not worth stressing about.

Agreed, save a few bucks on fuel but not many people look at the supermarket prices, just fill the trolley and say.."oh well, thats the cost of living", not really smart.. woolies and coles are taking a loss or maybe just breaking even on fuel and making a killing out of groceries.. sucking most people in...big time. Michael

That's the biggest load of crap I've read for quite some time!

" so ever moron can afford to run a V8,"

I had fast V8's for many years, and am planning to put one in the nissan, does that make me a "moron", you twonk, (thanks Trucky)
and I suppose that makes landrover and toyota engineers all "morons" too, or is it just the thousnds of people that buy their vehicles?

Pezza

Problem with arthurking83's analysis is that the market for oil is international. Imposing high taxes in Australia, does nothing to curb demand in the rest of the world (such as Bangladesh for example where highly-subsidised diesel sells at the pump for about 10c a litre.)

A theory I was taught as part of an economics degree about 13 years ago was that in a free market oil should never run out completely because as reserves dry up suppliers will keep putting up the price having regard not just to present production capacity and demand but also the total reserves left. Why sell a barrel today for $60 when you know that in year's time it will be worth $100? This theory explains why prices are rising so fast now - suppliers are effectively thinking ahead and factoring future scarcity/price rises into today's pricing decisions.

As prices go up people will look more closely at alternative energy sources and the fourbys will spend more time in the garage. There is no need for the government to accelerate this process.

I like the look of this company, which is in the final stages of developing a compressed air car. Range 200 - 300km on a tank of air and runs at about 1/10th of the cost of petrol. In a few year's time this forum might be full of discussion on what sort of compressed air engine is best to retrofit to what 4wd: link text

Hey Andrew, that link... thats not a car. it's a blow fly with its wings removed.....

Fair comment - but my plan was to stick my wife in one so that I can afford to keep running a 4wd.

I was more interested in the engine than the cars - I think they say they have a version that buses run on.

Hey I'm one of those morons that OWN a V8 too (albeit really slow)!
The difference between my moron(ity) :) and 99% of other morons is that I'm at least (aware?? but mostly asleep) most of the time, to know that I don't need to drive a V8 4WD to go pick up the kids from school!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't need a V8 4WD to get to work 7.5Klms up the road along a newly made bypass(I resisted the exclamation temptation)

My really slow '79 RR sits there gathering dust for 2 years at a time, while we commute in a 4 cyl turbo, that eats most V8's, and uses 1/3 of the fuel!

Some time ago I was trying to figure out "what car to get the missus"
I had 3 option, '86 Rangie, '89 Rangie, '92 Rangie!
I decided on the 4cyl turbo hatch....... and never looked back. :) :)
( I'm on our third version, they just get better with less age)

The other question!
Do we really need "fast V8's" ?
Are you really going to get there faster in a V8?
Maybe once! Just before you lose the license :)

I thought the current pricing was due to China, and the ongoing instability in Iraq as well??

But Andrew is right! Bangladesh is not helping oil reserves, but that just gives some smart Aussie, the incentive to find the alternative fuel, not some dumb Bangladeshi!

I remeber a friend of my sister, she just got a new 80series GXL. 4.5L I think etc, etc.
I ask her why they want the cruiser..........because she feels safer!
She really "didn't like the 25l/100kms" (her words).
I offered my opinion that a mid '80s Merc wagon was much safer, and more economical!
Dunno what she drives now?? The kids are bigger so I guess a V8 cruiser?? *sigh*. She moved to QLD, where fuel is cheaper :)

"...ps I notice that if I shop at Payless or frankling the amount of savings on $30 of food more than offsets the $2 I save on 50l of petrol."

Even better, go to the markets, support the little fella!
You will save even more.
Just as an average comparison!
Safe/Woolies have tomatoes, on average @ $4/kg.
My Dad goes to the markets (lingers for hours (He's retired!))
. He buys a 10kg box of tomatoes @ $4. I would throw out 2 or 3 (they look bad), My mum would turn them into sauce/soup/stock.
Now we have to go to the big chains every now and then for some items??
If I had more time (and I could walk!), I reckon I could save at least 50% of the average supermarket bill($100/week) at the local markets/growers markets!