Discount gas vs. major chain station's gas?

the heck if i know!

 

Most stations have a mini store, coffee brewing, pizza slices. Probably adds to what they charge per gallon for gas? One thing that's kinda cool is, if you buy gas, they'll turn on the coin operated air compressor for inflating tires. $1.50 otherwise and the compressor shuts down before you've finished filling your tires. Another 6 quarters. Five years ago it was mandatory that air be free. That decree got rescinded.

 

I had a friend who's father owned a few gas stations, he always told me that they make most of their money via food/drink/cigarette sales, gas sales were supplemental at best.

 

Costco In central NY was $1.79 for 87 and $2.19 for 93 octane. I'm waiting for it to go even lower.

 

That’s the truth. By the time we pay insurance, maintain the pumps, pay credit card fees, ust permit, etc, gas isn’t the big money maker most of the time.

 

Getting the info from Shell.com probably could have clued you in...

 

i am waiting for Shell to go under $2 in IL before hitting the road finishing 3rd leg of hwy 34 running hot into the Chicago 'burbs to find the zombie virus

the gasbuddy tells me its still ranging $2-$3 for reg while the Citgo & Marathon places all seem to be 185c-199c

 

i am sure they would know best about their own products!!

 

They also trying to make you buy theirs.

 

They know what's best for their bottom line. Which is feeding their customers spoonfuls of half truths and exaggerations to make their product appear better than the competition.

My favorite is statements like "no other [widget] does a better job at [whatever] than ours." Which is just advertising code for "they're all the same."

 

Exactly. Gas is pretty much a pure commodity with the only real difference being the big boys adding some cleaning additives which cost 1 cent a gallon and spending 5 cents a gallon telling you about it. Then they mark it up 25 cents a gallon

 

because i had this when i was a youngster in the late 70s

 

These guys have suckered me for years!

 

I looked at gas buddy earlier, and the difference between Arco and Chevron was more like $0.60 a gallon, lol.

It a lot like T-shirts. Nike takes a t-shirt made in Bangladesh that cost $0.60 and slaps their logo on it and people line up to pay $35 for it.

 

It has more lead in it than race fuel and it's terrible for your engine. But I remember kids in high school getting a tank full on the weekends for their 'race car' : laugh:

 

And no pinging/knocking if over geared too I bet. Those were the days.

 

sister’s ex husband worked there in high school and had collected just about all of them.

 

There are many 3rd party testers that confirm SHELL claims on their fuel. I’ve read many. Go look

 

Yeah, sure. I found this:

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-maintenance/study-shows-top-tier-gasoline-worth-extra-price/

It talks about a study that AAA did on "Top Tier" gasolines, and how it's worth the extra price.

The problem is that the list of "top tier" retailers includes Arco (cheapest in my area), and many other non Shell/Chevron retailers.

Where images like this:


directly dispute the idealized images from the Shell advertisement I commented on earlier. That advertisement looks like it used NEW components and compared it to, I dunno, something that was sitting in a junkyard for 15 years.

Seems like it's actually pretty hard to find non-top tier gasoline.

 

its a placebo effect that makes me feel so good and warm inside