OT Petrol/diesel prices

[Tricky Dicky]

Paid 97.7p a litre for diesel today which was 2p cheaper than the petrol. I cannot remember the last time I paid that little. Is this this the cheapest going?

Richard

[Theo]

petroprices.com says the cheapest nationally (on Wednesday) was: Unleaded 98.9p Diesel 96.9p LPG 47.7p

Theo

[Andy Burns]

Discovered the reason that saisnburys here has massive queues is not due to the lower price, but that a nearby asda has dug up their forecourt for replacement, sainsburys meanwhile have decided to replace their pumps in blocks of four, making it worse ... so lately I've been going to tesco for diesel @97.7p

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There seems to be a rush on to replace the underground tanks. Several local ones are being done at the same time. Very bad planning, I'd say.

There was a time when filling stations were so numerous, you didn't have to worry about getting fuel when low. But these days you need to think ahead - even in London. Or perhaps it is just London where housing might make better profit from the land.

[charles]

Replacing tanks is expensive, so you need to be selling a large quantity of fuel to stay in business. In this pair of villages we once had 5 places selling fuel, now there's only one. Yes, one on the largest site has bebcome a block of flats, but the others are still in the motor business, but they don't sell fuel.

[damduck-egg]

It is nationwide ,though there were always isolated places where you had to plan ahead or store fuel. Now there are many areas that need a 15 to 20 mile round trip to get some fuel . Where I grew up in Devon in the 60's the local village 2 miles had two garages and within 5 miles there were another six. All gone now and the nearest pump is 8 miles away. Reasonable easy to cope with if you still drive regularly in that direction, it is filling up a can for use in the chainsaw or garden equipment that is more awkward.

A lot of those places had been set up post WW2 as people left the forces with some mechanical skills and as car and( tractor) ownership expanded and became normal they had a good business for their working life before selling them or passing them to family when they retired .It is these 2nd and third generation owners who got clobbered by the difficulty of equipping workshops for todays complex vehicles, , the increase in service time of vehicles, no profit on fuel and the cost having somewhere to live because the original owner in retirement was still living in the Bungalow he built alongside the workshop in 1949 and didn't sell it with the business.

G.Harman

[Jethro_uk]

I vaguely recall hearing somewhere that tanks have to be inspected/ replaced every 25? years ?

If true, this might explain why it seems to happen in batches.

[Jethro_uk]

30 years ago, my father (a European) wondered why UK diesel seemed to be unique in being *more* expensive that petrol, when it was the reverse on the continent.

The first diesel *car* I saw was a Fiat 131. As was the first LPG car I saw (not the samne one).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think you're right that the tanks need routine replacement. I'm just surprised so many of the ones I sometimes use are being done at the same time.

[charles]

Perhaps the local authority has suddenly woken up.

[cl]

It's because back then diesel was thought to be 'greener' because diesel engines back then were more efficient. Some countries (France in particular) therefore taxed diesel at a lower rate than petrol to encourage take up of (more expensive) diesel cars. The UK didn't do the same thing and kept the tax rate on diesel the same as on petrol.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think diesel was cheaper in Europe long before 'green' was of interest. It was probably taxed at a lower rate because it was used by commercial vehicles. So those willing to put up with a very slow and noisy car got the benefit too. It's only really in the last 25 years or so that diesels have matched petrol cars in performance.

[Tim+]

Yep. France in particular doesn't have much in the way of coal or oil reserves any it was seen as a way of reducing imports.

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

NOt any more, but there was a lot in the 1970s

[damduck-egg]

I'm sure that 30 years ago petrol and diesel in Hampshire where I was working were very close and it wasn't unusual for the diesel to be a couple of pence cheaper. Our fleet of Astras was switched from petrol to diesel just before with some cars still fairly low mileage , I well remember the sluggishness of the diesel after the petrol one. Had the benefit from buying the 2 year old petrol at a knockdown price for my Dad, even better was the accounts department was still paying the same allowance per mile for diesel as petrol so with the better mileage and lower cost of the diesel we were quids in for a while till they caught on. It wasn't until the early nineties when diesel had become more popular and was no longer dispensed from a pump banished in a far corner of a fuel station amongst the rubbish bins that the price of diesel started to go up beyond petrol.

G.Harman

[Roger Mills]

I can think of lots of places (not in London - but that may be the same) where former filling stations have become hand wash car wash places.

[cl]

As I said the UK government didn't do what the mainland European ones did.

It's never been *significantly* more expensive here in the UK, always at most just a few pence.

[NY]

Gosh, was it as long ago as 30 years that diesel was the same or more expensive than petrol. I hadn't realised that. I'd have thought that 30 years ago diesel was considerably cheaper than petrol - as it always used to be when it was only lorries and taxis that used it, as opposed to family cars. Mind you, 30 years ago is 1986 - how time flies! - and I suppose by that stage there were quite a few diesel cars on the road.

I wish manufacturers would manage to make petrol cars that had the low-end pull and the 50-70 (and beyond!) acceleration and the slow-revving engine of diesel: a petrol that drove like a turbo-diesel would be the best of both worlds.

I've driven diesels for about 15 years and wouldn't go back to a petrol out of choice (every petrol car I've driven runs out of puff on a motorway and has pathetic 50-70 acceleration compared with my 1.6 HDi, and you can't let it pootle along at idling speed with you foot off the throttle in a traffic jam because you'll stall, so you end up racing the engine and slipping the clutch). Also 55 mpg rather than 35 mpg is an incentive!

However there is the thought that diesels might not be too good for the environment.

[damduck-egg]

Greatest diifrential I recall was in recent years where diesel could be around 9 pence more. More users exceeding refinery capacity was supposed to be the reason. Since then a lot of people have started to return to petrol as turbo equipeed small petrol engines have come along and not a few owners having been bitten by the complexity of modern diesels with DPF problems and other costly bits.

G.Harman

[DJC]

Yes, since the congestion charge came in all the ones I know inside the zone have gone. The one on Kings Cross Road became housing several years ago and the one behind the BT Tower seems to have closed sometime last year. The one behind Kings Cross Station has gone so my usual convenient refuelling stop is 10 miles down the A40 at Hanger Lane.