Modern Vespa

Down another 11¢ since yesterday ($2.13). Been a while since I've seen the prices go down this fast. Enjoy it while you can.

Any QT's in your area Jim? We have a few in SA.

$1.97-$1.99/gal.

Interesting. Perhaps proximity to a refinery has limited benefit if there are no terminals where tankers can fill up. I dunno, I just pay the bill....

I wouldn't use 87 octane in my lawnmower. In the UK we have the choice of 95 or Super, 97-99 depending on brand.

In the Vespa, always Super. For the pence difference in a tank, its not a problem.

Currently in the U.K, we are paying c£1.35 a litre, or £6.20 a gallon. Or $8 US.

95RON in the UK is equivalent to 91(RON+MON)/2 in the US. Different specs...

I'm always slightly bemused by US folk getting so het up about gas prices - the US has the lowest price of all the major economies.

Perhaps it's because the price can vary so much between gas stations, so everyone sensible searches for the best price. Here, Safeway has 87 for $3.19 while at a Chevron 400 yds away it's $3.99 for 87 (regular). Premium (91 here) is more of course, but it's regular that is invariably the quoted price. Oh, and that's be for cash of course - debit cards are often charged more and credit cards are always charged extra. That's one of the good things the EU has done for the UK, stopping retailers from charging more for the use of cards for transactions.

None close. We have Walmart (Murphy), HEB, and the usual convenience stores. Hey, I was excited it dropped that much in a day!

Here's the really sad part, though: we have been home for about 7 weeks, and only filled up the scoots twice... they don't get that much riding here. Unlike this summer, when we were filling them every other day or so.

$2.35 for regular here in the Great White North, premium $3.05.

Not bad for the Great White North. I bet prices in the Republic of Minnesota are a far cry from yours.

In California I paid $3.39 for 87 octane yesterday, cash only. ATM is a 50 cent fee, credit card is $.10/gallon more. Chevron charges $3.99 in downtown Oakland.

It cost a minimum of $134 a year to renew a registration for the oldest, most depreciated scooter.

People still seem to be coming here from everywhere else. Go figure.

11,500 RP per litre in Indonesia for the good stuff. Lower octane is cheaper.

= about $3 a US gal. Bit more for Imp. gal.

$4.09 for 91 octane in Santa Cruz CA (75 miles south of San Francisco) today. Other stations are a bit cheaper but I wanted to wash off the fire ash in their carwash.

Best
Miguel

I had a rental to turn in and an early train to catch in France few years back. I ran around the town trying to buy gasoline with a card as I had not enough cash. Not one place accepted the card and all of them had self operated fuel pumps thus nobody to talk to. In the end I gave up and turned in the car.
There's also AKI as part of the fuel octane story.
It was mostly called "Ethyl" when I was a kid, not so much premium, etc. as now. Lots of modern turbo cars are designed for higher octane fuel. You also have the operators who think the premium name on fuel means it's a "better fuel" vs. an inferior fuel such as 87 in much of the USA and even 86 in the western USA. They are simply two different fuels.
In the USA we "talk about 87" as that's the "price on the sign" yet might use another choice based on what we are fueling. While 89 through 93 seem much higher to a customer I suppose the extra cost to the seller of storing the other high octane, lower sales volume fuels digs into their margins more than I tend to consider? No doubt the octane enhancers don't coast the cents per gallon we pay for them-but that varies with seasons and refinery choices as to what they use for octane enhancement?
In the USA ethanol is a commonly used for affecting octane and the economics can be skewed by doing so toward it being more economical than it might actually be when cost of production comes into full view.
it gets far more complicated than I am able to understand overall.
In the UK & European fuels I suppose they adjust fuels for winters, etc. but have different octane boosters available? I really have no idea who refines Euro fuels but see the Euro oil stock sources in the newspaper.
I began driving right when North Sea oil was the earths hot spot for energy-been a good while...
USA gasoline was 17-18 cents per gallon my entire childhood, yet when I last lived in Kansas in 1973 I paid 23.9 cents per gallon( two hours from refineries in Wichta,KS) at "Tommy, the Workingmans Friend" gas station on I-70. Moved here to Kentucky to find common @ 38 cents per gallon (one hour form the refinery in Ashland,KY) with only a 2 cents tax difference as I recall.
Me thinks some gas retailers gouge people in my area and I'm not alone.

Some stations in Ky used to offer a debit card discount of 3 cents but now gone. We get CC incentives to use a CC so I always use my plastic.
Many retailers have the typical patronage cards to promote one brand fuel buying but I don't live where they are so of little use to bother with. I tried the Shell CC/save 10 cents per gallon thing years ago-but they easily ran me off from thinking I could pay fast each month and avoid interest or fees with CC shenanigans. My best card to save was the Pilot/Flying J "RV card" that saved me at all those stations but it ended- probably was too good and cost them?
I see people buy gas @ Sam's when in a city and the prices are never much different than next door stations w/o memberships required. In fact it's often cheaper at Murphy's, another Walmart brand, go figure on that one?
KY vehicle renewals are very cheap but the property taxes can be high until a vehicle gets old. 2013 BMW X3 is ~ $400 yearly, 2015 F-150 is ~$450 yearly. My vintage MC's cost ~ $5 each per year for property taxes only, not tags. Antiques or vintage get a free pass as they use NADA gold book and it devalues collectibles.
Real estate where we really beat out left coast people as it's far! cheaper here-and worth less too of course. Wages much lower here and severely depressed. They don't build cars & parts in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mexico, etc., cause they like football...

Expensive, with frozen fog for added grumpiness.

Photographing extreme - you obviously climbed to the nearest lamp post to capture this scene....

There a many refiners in different countries all around Europe, some smaller, some larger. Quite often surrounded by other facilities producing oil-based chemicals/materials.

At least in Finland, only diesel have a separate winter quality. Gasoline is the same all year round.

In Finland it's getting harder to find a place where you can pay with cash anymore....it's self service, the most common station chains have their own mobile pay apps, but they and others take also depit/credit cards. Mobile paying is a fastly growng trend, also used is shops, for train tickets, parking etc.

I can't think of the last time I filled up and didn't use plastic of some kind - mostly debit, sometimes credit.

There are places that still take cash?!

Actually all the places around me will let you pay inside if you want and do take cash. Can't remember the last time I did though. I constantly find myself without cash now as there are almost no ATM's left and tap to pay is just so easy. Oh yeah big brother has my number alright.....

Arco has machines at the pump islands that accept paper currency.

Prices like that are why I never purchase Chevron except when I have no choice. They're the highest picex in my area.

Saw $1.96/gal here locally yesterday!

Lower than expected but alcohol free stuff is still pricey.

Yep: always carry an ice-axe and crampons just in case!

Or Corbin overstuffed his custom seat.

The only time I use plastic to pay for something is mail order. Keeps my banking simple and less chance of sneaky fees or the need to fix mistakes/theft.
It doesn't bother me to walk into the store to pay for gas just as I'm not too lazy to put shopping carts where they belong. Life is short, but not that short.

I have an accountant that actually prefers I use cards. If I use cash there is really no way to get accurate reporting as to where I'm spending my money. I trust my accountant as my wife is a CPA/CGA and runs the accounting division of the company.

So you're saying the boss is the boss? In some places that's known as double jeopardy.

Isn't that illegal?

I'm not guilty of lazy, ever, my worn out body parts are my e.g. of how that's true...
CC use for us is to avoid walking into stores that don't exist here to begin with not about shoe leather or shopping carts? I often put away or use other peoples carts to keep them away from my car or save the cart guy work.
I'm currently waiting on a new CC and we'll use my wife's card until it comes. This marks the 2nd or 3rd time this past 12 months my CC #'s been stolen. Seems that no matter how careful of this crime it does happen.
I'm as careful as anyone with my plastic but they still seem to find a way, meanwhile we all pay the price for crime. I do wish they'd put the damper on the gift card thing as thieves often sell them to certain merchants like certain cultural groups in corner stores or buy here/pay here car lots.
Rant over, enjoy the rest of the holiday!

Yup, we all pay for the crime and it really is a big problem that needs a solution. Of course the criminals almost always come up with a way around it. I keep my cards in an RFID blocker wallet as an extra precaution. EVERY transaction done with one of my accounts or cards gets immediately emailed to me and my bank has called me a number of times to confirm certain transactions. The bank has literally called me less than a minute after I have purchased something online.

Not sure why the US was so slow to adopt chip and pin technology. I believe most US cards use it now?

Now that you mention it, my last trip to Europe was with a magnetic strip card at a time when they had already gone to chips over there. We've had them a couple years on our cards from a KY credit union. The calls to a phone when questioning a charge has gotten down right obnoxious! We have sons in three states and family spread around plus we are retired and do travel. To have a need to call my credit union every time I leave the state is not gonna happen plus when we have done so they have still yet cancelled or cards in some very obnoxious ways-I can remember not being able to pay for my hotel, etc in a number of foreign countries.
We finally seem to have gotten them to now call my wifes cell phone as our land line has no msg machine given we really don't use it much since cell phones came into real life.
They actually have questioned us buying gas to drive to Knoxville, TN only 3.5 hours south of our home.
The pay at the table dining thing is not yet a given in our area and I pay with cash to avoid my CC walking out of sight but who carries much cash now? I pickup a Walmart $100 when there but otherwise lack cash in pocket. I know gasoline pump skimmers are common but I've never seen one, as yet.

Chips yes, pins no, I've even asked to have a pin on some of my credit cards because of our travel abroad. I was told that if you use a pin on a credit card it will treated as a cash advance with associated fees. So I'm used to the surprised look when the receipt says "signature required" when traveling outside the US. That slso means that at many places you can't use a US card for gasoline because you can't input a pin. I've tried using my debit card with pin outside the US and generally not had good luck except at ATMs to get cash in the local currency. Note, many times they offer to do the "conversion" for you and bill your bank in local currency. Every time I've seen that the conversion rate has been worse than my banks and sometimes they even charge you a fee on top of it.

I'm now into week two w/o a new CC. Not that it would serve me much purpose back in the woods...
Given my own anecdotal experience with CC theft coupled with the fact that as a retired old fart who doesn't eat out much nor even "like" shopping (well, other than farkles! and all things that go zoom-currently after a new car) there must be one hell of a lot of CC's being stolen? So many it would seem that it's become beyond a so called normal problem?
meanwhile we tend to think in terms of wedon't pay for those charge the boogerman makes after our's is compromised yet the reality is that we DO PAY! Those banks are not eating crow.
We get double points for gasoline and groceries but must beg for our points each quarter while at least one of our son's get them automatically on all purchases.

$1.93/gallon here yesterday. 8)

$2.39 across the state line (NC), $2.19 three miles away, $2.04 ten miles south and $1.97 eight miles west of me. The last three prices are all in the same county, go figure. For me, gas was always about one third the price of minimum wage. In 1967, minimum was $1.00 an hour and gas was $.33. Figuring for that, around here at $7.25 minimum gas should be $2.41. Below that now, but it was above it for at least a year in the last couple years. They do use winter blends (added oxidizers) here starting about this time and that's when my gas mileage drops about 10%. So a lower gas price kinda evens it out. Beats the $4 a gallon we were paying after Katrina.

I've seen everything from $1.99 to $2.69 in the Houston area over the last two days. Shell is almost always the most expensive. What surprised me was that Murphy (Walmart) was $2.06 while immediately across the street Exxon was $1.99.

The prices vary within a retailers various outlets even when they are sourced from the same refinery with distance from the source a seeming non factor.
In nearby towns I also see the Kroger phenomena. The Patels own most all the Shell stations with a million miles and raise their 87 price to 10 cents over the other brands as Kroger points get you 10 cents off. Two of those nearby towns has an actual Kroger gas station and they do the same thing and are 10 cents and up higher than the others.
I saw a Speedway two weeks ago in Lexington, KY that was 70 cents gl higher than the next nearest one 35 miles away?

It is the custom blends for just about every county that makes the price so high on the West coast.

And that is just the state road tax, what about the extra taxes on every business that touches that fuel before it gets to the pump, that raise the price too. It is taxes just added along the way so they are HIDDEN.

Remember, the only one that pays taxes are the End consumers, every business just passes them on when they are raised.

My $1.99/gallon station was at $2.07 on my way home last night.

I knew it was too good to last.

$1.82 for reg.
With my grocery card - price was $.96 a gallon!
I was tempted to fill the bed of my Chevy F-150! (full 8' bed - with a LEER cap on it to keep out the squirrels and leaves.)
O.S.

You garage your scoots in that thing??


$1.84 here. You've got us beat!