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As you all know, gas prices are on the rise. I live in California where the average gas price is around 3.00 a gallon. I own two vehicles. The first vehicle, i put in regular grade gas in whatever cheap gas station i can find around town. The second car, a bit nicer, i am very particular with the type of gasoline I put in. I currently only put in shells or cheveron BUT since those prices are 3.30 a gallon for supreme, im considering an alternative....sams club gas or equivalent. That would only set me back at 2.79 per gallon for their highest grade of gas.
Do you think there's a difference between Shell's gas and Sams club gas or is all gasoline stations equal? Do you even care which gas stations you go to?
There is no appreciable difference between Shell vs Sams Club Gas, They may have a some additional additives in one vs the other.
Sams Club buys in enough volume nationally that they have contracts with the major pipelines/refineries to get the same gas as shell gets.
This issue with some smaller independent gas station is they get gas from many places, and the additives can interact with each other when they get shell "extra" today, Gulf "Extra" tomorrow, and Exxon the Next Day.
(Btw: The gas that comes out of the pipeline is all "Generic" It only when its "Branded" that the additives are added).
I always fill up at Chevron, but I only use 10 gallons a month. So am I frugal with gas? You tell me.
Chevron is actually the most convenient pump for me, anyway. There is one closer, which is some off brand, but it isn't any cheaper than Chevron most days, and at best is only a few cents.
So at most, I might save $1.00 a month by shopping around, so to speak.
I don't think there is much, if any, difference between the different gas stations, but I could be wrong on that. I'm certainly no expert.
I don't go out of my way to find cheap gas but get the cheapest gas I can on my route for usual errands...and I combine all my errands and put them in order so I don't go across town multiple times.
I don't care about brand...never have. I don't mind paying less, but since getting a Prius, I usually just get gas at the closest place without giving price a thought. Let's say I search out the cheapest place and save 50 cent per fill up....that might save me $120 over the course of 100,000 miles. Is that really worth the time and effort to find the cheapest gas? I would probably spend 5 hours looking up the cheapest place/driving a little out of my way.
I think that the best place to start is with the car that you buy.
My car has a small 1.8 litre 4 cylinder engine that gets a "real world " gas mileage of 42 miles per gallon with a mix of city and highway driving. Where I live the highway speed limit is 60 mph. I drive at that speed. My annual mileage is about 6,000 miles, and that is about half of what the "average driver " does.
Last edited by Beretta; 03-19-2017 at 12:44 PM..
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It all comes out of the same pipeline or fuel barge depot before getting trucked to individual gas stations. We usually buy Exxon because there's a station nearby and Publix has frequent 'buy a $50 gas card for $40' promos for there.
I usually buy my fuel at Costco. It's always the least expensive plus I get a percentage back with my Costco rewards check that drives down the price a bit more. Here, the difference is just a few pennies from place to place so any savings you might see are gone quickly if you drive out of your way to get the fuel.
About 15 years ago I bought a diesel because I had a long commute. Wouldn't you know...right after I bought the car, the price of diesel went up higher than regular fuel. Prior to that, diesel had been lower for decades! I did get about 50MPG and I am sure that still made up the difference.
We have a Shell station down the street and get gas there 99% of the time. The prices are maybe a penny or two more than discount stations in town (Racetrack), but we have a fuel rewards card with them which brings the price down lower. Usually the card gives us a minimum of 3 cents off per gallon, but every now and then, it will give us 25 cents off per gallon.
The fuel rewards card is a discount card like you'd get for any store, and is not a credit card. You can sign up for it online. If you shop at Winn-Dixie, you can tie it into the fuel rewards card for greater discounts.
We would get the gas at Shell even without the discount card because we find our cars run well and long on it. A few times we got gas at Hess, and the cars always seemed to go through the gas much quicker.
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