US drivers avoid premium gasoline to cut costs.

[xcel]

Premium is the unwanted stepchild.

Janet McGurty - Reuters - July 15, 2006


Is $0.20 worth it for nothing?

NEW YORK - As gasoline prices reach record highs, U.S. drivers are shunning premium grades when filling up their cars, unwilling to pay as much as 20 cents more per gallon for the higher octane. As the price of crude oil flirts with $80 a barrel, the price of gasoline is rising accordingly. For the week ended July 10, a gallon of conventional gasoline averaged $2.973 - about 7 cents higher than last year. Conventional premium was $3.09 a gallon.

"Sales of premium and mid-grade have declined over the past few years as consumers trade down octane levels when prices increase," said Jeff Lenard, a spokesman for National Association of Convenience Stores, an industry group representing convenience stores where three out of every four gallons of gasoline is sold.

In April 2006, U.S. gasoline retail deliveries of premium grade were 4.9 million gallons per day, or about 8.2 percent of all gasoline sold. This is less than half of the almost 20 percent of market share it had in 1983 when 5.7 million gallons per day sold.

Conversely, sales of regular gasoline rose in the same period, from 22.4 million gallons per day in April 1983 to almost 49.0 million in April, 2006, according to EIA figures.

As a result, oil traders report that V grade - as premium is known in trade parlance - is not actively traded. Thus, the market is dominated by large refiners who make just enough to fill their requirements, which is part of the reason why it is so expensive.

"Premium is the unwanted stepchild," said one Gulf coast oil broker. "It used to be a decently traded barrel but since we have done away with MTBE and the advent of F grade and going to ethanol it's traded a lot less."

The ban by several states on MTBE, a suspected carcinogen which can seep into groundwater, has made ethanol the additive of choice to make reformulated gasoline meet clean air requirements.

Drivers in cities or areas where air quality is an issue, pay even more for this reformulated blend.

Regular reformulated gasoline averaged $3.106 as of July 10 while reformulated premium was $3.307 a gallon, according to government data.

F grade - also know as reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending or RBOB - meets the clean air requirements in clear air attainment areas but requires expensive blending components to finish it up.

While drivers are getting more price sensitive at the pumps, they are not cutting back on overall gasoline purchases. Data for the four weeks ending July 7, 2006 shows that gasoline demand averaged 1.7 percent over the same period last year.

"Consumers will do everything but stop buying gas. They will use plastic to delay the pain, they will trade down in their octane preferences. Sometimes that is just temporary, but we always lose some," said Lenard.

[tigerhonaker]

People I work with and others are doing just what this says. They are using 89 Octane now instead of the 93 Octane it calls for.

Side Note* I ask a lady that is going on vac. this coming
Wed. driving to Maine, what her FE was on her Chevy Avalanche? 14 MPG

Can you just imagine that and driving to Maine and back, bitching about the price of gas every day but when I ask her if she considered getting a vehicle that got better FE. Her response was, Terry I'm not driving one of those little toy cars like you, are you crazy? So who can figure these peoples line of thinking? Not me.

Terry

[xcel]

Hi Terry:

___Not only is her little trip going to cost her $450 in gasoline over the 2,100 + miles vs. $125 in your HCH-II, the Avalanche isn’t all that safe!

2006 HCH-II Crash Test Ratings


2006 Chevrolet Avalanche Crash Test Ratings

___I wouldn’t be caught dead in the Avalanche as it is a rolling death trap by comparison to an HCH-II let alone a mess in terms of fuel consumption … Can you imagine what a broken femur must feel like? Ouch!

___Put on your ole “PT Barnum and Bailey – Greatest Show on Earth” hat and give her the real story

___To bad they will never get it until it is too late. Probably after they discover the monthly pump fill costs more then the monthly payment on the vehicle itself

___Good Luck

___Wayne

[tigerhonaker]

Wayne,

I have read many-many Threads/Post that you have done but These Graphs Show and Tell the Complete story. Is it not interesting that this Lady thinks in Her Mind that Huge goes along with SAFE?

This is completely leaving out the Gas Consumption side of the equation. Some people you just cannot help, they know best and will never ever in their life time listen to someone else. They know best always. That's why they stay Broke and constantly Complain about the price of Fuel but do nothing to Help-Themselves. She's working today to get extra gas money for her vac. to Maine. But she is not going to drive one of the Toy Little cars.

Terry

[psyshack]

Funny this comes up like this. Ive been kinda sorta waging a silent war with custmers and folks I work with. Most of them drive trucks, vans or SUV's. They are all whineing and complaining about gas prices. Just seems to go on and on and on. Its Bush's fault, its China's fault. Its never there fault.

So what I did was go and get $500 bucks out of the bank. 5ea $100 bills. Faned them out and tacked them on my bulltin board next to my desk at work. Everytime I fill the civic up I take a bill and then tack the paper money change back up on the bulltin board. I dont really use the money for gas. I buy all my gas, beer, cigs at a store ive been tradeing with for years on acct. Which i pay in full every two weeks. I did this 6 weeks ago or so, and theres still $300 bucks or better on the board. Its funny as hell to watch these folks shaking there heads.

I have a new F-150 at the office as my Co. truck. It spends most of its time parked behind the building. I much rather use my Civic for sale call's, tech. support or startup runs. I then turn in my mileage at 40 cents a mile. I take those check stubs from mileage, write on them what I used the money for if I spend it, say like the tint I just had put in the Civic or Casino or investment. then I thumb tack that up next to the gas money.

Folks leave me little notes on the board at times. Some arent nice at all. Ive left them right where they put them and just LMAO!

[brick]

On Thursday I needed to tank up for my weekend trip and I **almost** decided to push the tank out to its very limits for the sake of saving ~$0.10/gal in RI vs. CT. I had something like four gallons left in the tank and I needed three to get where I was going...but you know what? It just doesn't matter. It's either going to end up costing me $3.05 or $3.15, that's the difference between making the trip comfortably and spending the last 20 miles wondering if my tank really has as much capacity as I think. At least in this case it's just a matter of a couple of dollars.

The thing about trading down for regular when a car needs premium is that it may save you that couple of dollars but it might balance out when the car decides to retard the ignition and run like garbage. We may not get any mileage benefit in our Hondas, Saturns, etc. on premium but you can't go the other way around and expect a high compression engine to work at its peak efficiency on anything but the high octane stuff that it was designed for. If these people don't give their cars what they need, they save nothing and dump more CO2 in the air than they have to.

[laurieaw]

Originally Posted by psyshack

Funny this comes up like this. Ive been kinda sorta waging a silent war with custmers and folks I work with. Most of them drive trucks, vans or SUV's. They are all whineing and complaining about gas prices. Just seems to go on and on and on. Its Bush's fault, its China's fault. Its never there fault.

So what I did was go and get $500 bucks out of the bank. 5ea $100 bills. Faned them out and tacked them on my bulltin board next to my desk at work. Everytime I fill the civic up I take a bill and then tack the paper money change back up on the bulltin board. I dont really use the money for gas. I buy all my gas, beer, cigs at a store ive been tradeing with for years on acct. Which i pay in full every two weeks. I did this 6 weeks ago or so, and theres still $300 bucks or better on the board. Its funny as hell to watch these folks shaking there heads.

I have a new F-150 at the office as my Co. truck. It spends most of its time parked behind the building. I much rather use my Civic for sale call's, tech. support or startup runs. I then turn in my mileage at 40 cents a mile. I take those check stubs from mileage, write on them what I used the money for if I spend it, say like the tint I just had put in the Civic or Casino or investment. then I thumb tack that up next to the gas money.

Folks leave me little notes on the board at times. Some arent nice at all. Ive left them right where they put them and just LMAO!

man, you are darn lucky someone doesn't take one of those $100 bills and use it for one of their twice weekly fillups on the old dodge hemi 4x4 LOLOL

[psyshack]

laurie

We are very hard on stealers. That will get you fired fast at work. As for the custmers and theft. When caught,,, and you will be caught. the company you work for is banned from the office. We will refuse you. No support, sales or warrenty.

As for higher oct. fuels. There still selling well. So well if your not careful stations will be out when you need a tank. I started running 91 oct. in the civic two or so weeks ago. IMO at a 10:5:1 compression ratio it needs it. On 87 I would get some off idle knock at times. With the 91 it does advance the timing a bit as seen on the SG. It seems to pull the A/C better and 5th gear roll on pass's are better and require a little less throttle imput.