Fuel Prices getting out of hand

[chrisp]

£1.66/litre for E5 super unleaded is a bargain!! At my local (out in the sticks) fuel station it is now £1.69/litre for Esso E5 Supreme.
I've also just had to order some more heating oil and that was £0.87/litre - the highest it's ever been. When I started buying it (admittedly back in the 1980s) it was £0.11/litre and even just last Summer it was around £0.50/litre.

[vexorg]

Stirling services were £1.78 a litre for diesel at the weekend

[3cav3]

Just got a quote of 95p a litre for heating oil,guess they are trying to freeze people to death.

[cavalier1990]

£1.47 for regular unleaded and £1.63 for super is cheapest I could find, no doubt it'll have went up since then!

[3cav3]

Diesel has now hit £1.92 for regular by us. To be honest if it goes up any more my wife will not be able to afford to go to work, which will then mean I will have to sell this car as without her wage it'll be touch and go weather I can afford my mortgage, let alone any luxuries.

[Envoy CDX]

Never good. The price of fuel and everything else is going to destroy "hobbies" for alot of people.

[3cav3]

The government really needs to drop fuel duty to give us a chance, as the price is so high, they are getting more revenue from increased vat anyway. I believe in Ireland the government has done exactly that. Why not here? They say they want to reduce inflation, the fuel spiralling out of control isn't exactly going to achieve that.
We've had 2 years being dictated to and at times being under virtual house arrest, surely now we should be given a break? Whats the point of freedom if no one can afford to go anywhere? Or is that part of their plan?
Anyway rant over, I'm not going to rush to sell the car yet, but will monitor what happens. Just don't like the idea that I may be forced to when I work round the clock pushing myself into the ground.

[Robsey]

I have split the fuel conversation from the original WIP thread.
After a page or two, we would have lost track of the original topic.

For my own input, prices here in Manc-land seem a lot lower than up in Scotland and the surrounding areas.

My local prices are between £1.49 to £1.53 for regular diesel at the supermarkets.
Add another 5p per litre for branded fuels.

As for prices in general... my household fuel has risen from £94 per month to £135 per month.
Everything seems a million miles away from the amazingly low prices two years ago, when Covid first hit.
Two weeks from today will see the second anniversary of the start of the first lockdown.
Diesel at that time dropped to £1.03 per litre, and empty roads meant that fuel consumption was far better than usual.

Since then, we have had Brexit, Russia's invasion of it's neighbouring countries (Ukraine and soon Finland).
Every excuse under the sun to push up prices.

As 3cav3 said, - even those of us who worked throughout the past two years are still struggling to make ends meet.

As for hobbies, they do not count anymore.
If you can afford to tinker on a fossil-fuelled car, then you must have money to burn. Or so it seems.

As we erupt into a drug and drink fuelled anarchy, at least you know you can party like it's 1999 - as per the government's leading by example.

I am not a politics person, but it seems that all politicians have a hidden agenda to grind us all down into submission, whilst they do as they please.

[vexorg]

Supermarkets are still reasonable in the west of scotland, though quite a few BP garages seem to be battling for the highest prices around.

It's a real shame we dont have our own oil and refineries in the UK...

[Robsey]

We have refineries, but they only do unleaded.
Shell in Ellesmere Port and Runcorn are the closest to me. Approx 30 to 40 miles away down the M56.

Do we not still have BP in the north sea?

[chrisp]

I've just seen a picture in the press of a a BP site in Kent (probably on the M2) showing £2.07 for diesel and £1.84 for petrol!!

[Robsey]

You sort of expect silly prices in southern counties and at motorway services.
They don't need an excuse to charge way over the odds.

On the whole I use supermarket fuel.
It is usually okay quality wise, even though we had all the scare stories of contaminated fuels 10 or so years ago.

Does it honestly give better miles per gallon and reliability to justify the higher price of named brands?
Personally I have not noticed any real difference, except to my wallet.

I have not run my Cavalier for two years, so I have no experience of the new E10 stuff launched last year.

Recently for the Vectra, I find that the diesel is more smoky and occasionally a bit flatter than a year ago.
That could simply mean my car is worn and in need of a good service... or that the fuel is being compromised in the refining / mixing process.

[James McGrath]

What I don't understand is that the UK produces about 90% of it's own oil from the North Sea.
I know it's sold on an open global market but surely it should affect us less than elsewhere.

[Robsey]

What I don't understand is that the UK produces about 90% of it's own oil from the North Sea.
I know it's sold on an open global market but surely it should affect us less than elsewhere.

As I hinted to earlier - the UK refineries only produce petrol, (as far as I am aware) which we then export.
Diesel vehicles have to have fuel imported from mainland Europe.

The cynic in me says that it is not being made easier, because the push is to get everyone to go electric, even though the infrastructure is nowhere near ready yet.

Making thousands of companies bankrupt in the process does not seem to matter.

All very nicely timed.
Covid, Brexit, Clean Air Zones, Russia... "got to keep the pressure on and the excuses coming!!"

[vexorg]

I fell out with Scottish Power recently when they tried to put me on a new "cheaper" tariff (that was over 3 times my old tariff!). How can they say it's 100% renewable green energy, we live next to the largest on-shore windfarm in europe, it's been there for about 10 years or more, same turbine, same power lines, same substations, so why are the electricity prices shootng up too?
The people I've spoken to in scottish power were eventually very honest and said they dont know why.

But back to fuel, the prices are getting very random from garage to garage here, and sad when you see diesel at under £1.70 in BP and think "that's cheap!"

[Envoy CDX]

We have refineries, but they only do unleaded.
Shell in Ellesmere Port and Runcorn are the closest to me. Approx 30 to 40 miles away down the M56.

Do we not still have BP in the north sea?

Think we sold it.

[chrisp]

Quote: "How can they say it's 100% renewable green energy"
It seems all the electricity supply companies are offering what they claim to be 100% renewable electricity as an option, and you see people rather smuggly quoting that that is what they are getting, so they are helping to "save the planet".
It's actually a lie - if you are connected to the national grid you will get electricity made from the same mix of sources as everybody else - which on average is over 50% from natural gas, around 18% from nuclear and the rest made up from wind, solar, hydro, oil and coal. The only way you could get all your electricity from wind & solar is if the power companies somehow found a way of training electrons from these sources to go solely to you. And even if they could accomplish this unlikely feat, you would then deprive other customers of their "share" of the sustainable sources.
I think it's high time the Advertising Standards Authority stopped the electricity companies advertising in this dishonest way.

[vexorg]

woohoo 5p off a litre, historic even, the fact they are still about 30p up on the deal due to price hike is neither here nor there

And for the oldies amung us (and most are), £1.90 a litre is £8.65 a gallon!

[Envoy CDX]

Aye... up 11p overall.

[vexorg]

Well, first fill up for me since the price increases due to part working from home and the citroen getting 650-700 miles per tank. Over £100 to fill up at sainsbury's!!!

So much for cutting the tax on it, it's higher now that it was before he mentioned that.

[Envoy CDX]

It's bonkers.

[Robsey]

I am fueling in a piece-meal fashion.
£20 here, £30 there.
At the moment, I am averaging £70 per week... yikes
The thought of getting 13 litres for £20 is very upsetting.

I remember the days of £1.45 per gallon... so £1.71 per litre is devastating. (£7.80 per gallon).

UPDATE - just realised that was 32p per litre for 2 star

[ilovedmymantas]

I used to put £40 petrol in the cav once a fortnight, now it's more, even though I don't do many miles
I've seen a 10p rise since two weeks ago, this is a shell owned station and although i'm a 'member' I don't bother swiping anymore - the offers are always something I wouldn't normally buy and fuel rewards points are pitiful!
I go to a petrol station for petrol ( and air but that's a different story...), not for a magazine or krispy kreme.

Today's top-up was £1.84 for E5 v-power

I did learn today, thanks to accidents on both carriageways that motorways and city bypasses are essential to keeping towns and cities unclogged. I've never seen the roads I normally travel so congested.
I also learned my cav can do 0.3-0.5 gallons per hour in first gear

[Robsey]

Being so close to Manchester and the M60 motorway ring-road (the north west's version of the M25), I am often told how many gallons per hour I am getting, as opposed to miles per gallon.

I think that means when travelling at less than 8 mph.

6:30am to 10:30 am, then 3:00pm to 7:00pm are the best times to avoid if you are watching your fuel bill.

Combined with other motorways - M56, M61, M62, M66 and M67 which all bring my local roads to a halt when they have an incident.
And please don't mention the Snake and Woodhead Passes over't tops to Yorkshire and the M1.

The joys of modern motoring.

I remember my oldest sister's beige mk1 Escort being virtually the only car on the road during a 20 minute drive back from a neighbouring town in the mid-70's.

When roads were sedate affairs, and not road rage fuelled car parks.

Not sure why, but Shell and Esso (remember them?) used to be the cheapest places around.
The most expensive place local to me is a Shell garage.
But it still has a long way to go to match a BP station behind Manchester Airport

[chrisp]

Quote: "And please don't mention the Snake and Woodhead Passes over't tops to Yorkshire and the M1".
I travel the Snake Pass quite often en-route to relatives in Sheffield. It's usually all right once you're on it but to get to it from the M60 means getting through Hyde, Mottram and Glossop - which are always jammed solid nose to tail and moving at a snail's pace. It can take an hour to get through what is only about 5 miles. The M67 was built leading off the M60 and is optimistically signposted to Sheffield 23 miles. Trouble is the M67 ends abruptly at Hyde and disgorges all its traffic into what are effectively country lanes. There clearly was an original intention to extend the M67 across the moors but this has never been pursued. What about "levelling up" and getting this built?