Killer thread!!!
One thing that we can all do is buy fuel from the CHEAPEST station, rather than support the stations selling it for more cuz of the brand name.
Kurt, quit going to that Conoco if they are selling for $0.20 more than Kicks or F'n J.
I honestly can't believe it when I pass a chevron with a bunch of cars filling up, and another block down the Holiday has gas for 15-20 cents less and the same amount of cars. The Holiday should be freakin' PACKED and there shouldn't be any cars at the Chevron until they lower their prices to match Holiday.
Drive around the SL valley or anywhere else, and the stations all have different prices...local economics at work. My wife bought gas for 20 cents less today in Murray than in Draper.
Here in the intermountain region, our fuel comes from the 5-6 refineries in NSL and from Sinclair in WY (via pipeline). It's all the SAME STUFF people. Seriously. Your car doesn't know the difference.
I saw nearly every brand represented at one time or another at the transport loading rack at Tesoro while I was working there. Especially F'n J, Exxon, Maverick and Holiday, as I recall. The local refineries all blend it the same, using the same additives, to the same specs.
The local refineries are also set up to ONLY refine Rocky Mountain Sweet, which is what we have in the basin, WY and CO. Seriously, if not for commodity speculation, there is NO reason we should be paying any more than we did 5 or 10 years ago, except for maybe ULSD.
I know that 2 summers ago, they were making 11 cents a gallon on gas and 28 cents a gallon on diesel, simply because of demand.
We can reduce demand...but we also ought to be making the stations compete.
Brett (most fillups are $160-170 in my eXcursion. F'n J is usually the cheapest which is good, since their pump doesn't shut off at $100)