Anybody Else Notice the Gap Between Regular and Premium Widening?

mrjre42 wrote:

mtn wrote: Costco in Oak Brook and Mettawa (Lake Forest/Vermin Hills/Green Oaks) is $0.60 difference, FYI--Oak Brook data about 4 hours old according to my wife; Mettawa about 1-2 weeks (by me). (Where are you located?)

I'm in the Libertyville area. Luckily my dd takes regular so it isn't a huge deal.

Cool beans. Go and get a coffee from Hansa for me. Or beer from the Island. (I grew up in Libertyville)

I haven't seen the .10 between grades since I lived in Ohio, that was in 2006.

I run premium in the bike and the car. I filled them both up three weeks ago and I'm still rolling. Gas prices are not a huge concern for me currently.

Local to me is 2.55 to 3.05, but this station offers 87,89,91 and 93.

I need the grocery store to start selling harbor freight gift cards, but Xbox, Amazon, and home depot gift cards all help bring the price down along with groceries.

Now that the jeep is gone, I'm not so concerned with price because the whole fleet gets in the 20s and I don't drive 50k miles a year anymore.

Tom_Spangler wrote:

Knurled wrote: Increased fuel economy isn't about saving money, it's about reducing oil consumption.

If that's the goal, then CAFE is the wrong way to go about it. Rather than force the carmakers to meet some arbitrary fuel economy number based on easily-gamed tests that nobody can reproduce in the real world, the government should scrap CAFE and tax the hell out of gasoline. Then you'll see people buying more fuel efficient cars. And, I'd wager that those cars would get better real-world fuel economy than the CAFE-tuned ones we have now. But proposing a tax increase is instant political death, so it'll never happen.

Pretty much, as I understand it CAFE as of late mostly just made gas guzzling trucks grow physically larger so they can end up in a different arbitrary class where they can still legally continue to guzzle gas, and the PT Cruiser. The existence of the PT Cruiser alone is evidence enough that CAFE was a bad idea, at least in it's current implementation.

What I want to know is what takes 89 and 91 (outside of California)? I don't get why they waste time and resources getting it. Was there a certain car that requires 89? Just give everyone the two options save like a million fuel deliveries a day.

jere wrote: What I want to know is what takes 89 and 91 (outside of California)? I don't get why they waste time and resources getting it. Was there a certain car that requires 89? Just give everyone the two options save like a million fuel deliveries a day.

I learned this when I worked for a company that made underground storage tank monitoring equipment:

Stations only have two grades. They mix them to make the middle grade. So, if you select the middle grade, you may get regular or premium if something's broken.

In reply to snailmont5oh:

That would explain the station near me that used to occasionally sell 89 for the same price as 87. Seeing as the location was more likely to see a tractor at the pumps than anything requiring high octane fuel, their premium tank must have been getting too stale.

Here in western NC it is $2.19 for regular and if i go to any other gas station than the local ingles premium is $2.89-3.09 but the ingles on my way to work is $2.68 for premium.

I burn $310-$325 a month for gas in my new Silverado. My work allowance covers my payment and gas.

1. I'm glad I'm not burning premium.

2. If gas goes back to $4.00+/gallon I'm Berked.

I use maybe 10 gallons a month, so it's not a huge problem for me.

Station up street is

87 $2.15

89 $2.35

93 $2.75

60 cents. Mostly I'm buying diesel because truck or premium because wrx and racecar. I can run the datsun on 87 unless going to track and making nitrous passes. So generally it's just 93 in there too, but honestly i have burned less than 20 gallons in 2 years in it so no foul.

Back when I had the neon, I kept it fed with 93 and the gap was 10 and 10. About the time I replaced it it was 10 and 20. Now it is 20 and 20.

One gas station in town has premium 90 cents a gallon more then 87, the other 3 seem to run 70 cents a gallon more then 87. As long as i can get my 93 for less then $3/gallon im alright with it

Around where I live its a .25 cent increase from regular to premium. That said premium is around 2.28/gallon so Im not complaining.

My local go to place is currently at

$1.78 regular

$1.88 mid

$1.99 premium

Other side of town is a different story.

$1.79 Reg

$2.09 mid

$2.29 premium

93 is about 50-60 cents higher than 87 at the stations I regularly go by here in central NC. The gap wasn't that big a year ago. Fortunately only the Miata needs premium. The Protege and P71 only need 87.

Tuesday evening the Thornton's I use by work was $1.99 for 87 octane, Wednesday morning I drove the xB for the first time in awhile and saw it was low. "Glad gas has gotten cheaper", and it's the only one of four I put cheap gas in. Got to the station, jumped to $2.35...

Yesterday I drove the WRX to make sure the winter wheels I just swapped on were good for tomorrow's rallycross, decided to fill up and 91 is at $2.86

Enyar wrote:

Knurled wrote:

onemanarmy wrote: funny in an sad/ironic way that this is happening. The Feds mandate more MPGs, so car makers turn to higher compression and turbo motors.....now the demand for premium is rising, and prices are going up, slowly negating any savings from higher MPGs. wonder why they can't just let the market decide what it wants?

Increased fuel economy isn't about saving money, it's about reducing oil consumption. "The market" has proven time and time again to be short sighted beyond belief.

Beat me to it!

That is a fallacy. Higher efficiency results in more usuage not less. More mpgs make it cheaper to operate a vehicle and results in more miles being driven and more oil used overall. Yes, you as an individual might use less oil if you increase your mpgs, but don't think in the big picture it is about using less oil.

I noticed yesterday that the station near me that offers both the usual "up to 10% ethanol" gas and ethanol-free has a bigger gap than usual in the pricing - 60¢/gal.

My family fleet runs regular, but we also get a 20% discount on the pump price. Our FL based grocery chain has a regular promotion for $50 gas cards for $40.

snailmont5oh wrote:

jere wrote: What I want to know is what takes 89 and 91 (outside of California)? I don't get why they waste time and resources getting it. Was there a certain car that requires 89? Just give everyone the two options save like a million fuel deliveries a day.

I learned this when I worked for a company that made underground storage tank monitoring equipment: Stations only have two grades. They mix them to make the middle grade. So, if you select the middle grade, you may get regular or premium if something's broken.

Not always. Some stations don't blend at the pump and they will have three or four different tanks.

I remember when Sunoco had 86, 87, 89, 92, and 94. The 94 smelled pretty good actually...

jere wrote: What I want to know is what takes 89 and 91 (outside of California)? I don't get why they waste time and resources getting it. Was there a certain car that requires 89? Just give everyone the two options save like a million fuel deliveries a day.

My E36 actually asks for 89. It usually gets 91, but if I'm driving a long distance and there's 1/2 a tank it it, I'll fill the rest with 87 to make my own 89. Even though it's a blend, 89 is 6-10c/L more here, and then 91 is 3c more than that. It's especially strange since our prices are regulated.

John Welsh wrote: I have noticed it and noticed it both ways. Years back when gas was creeeping to $4 I noticed that the octane split was staying the same. Typically this was 10 cents per grade. $3.75 regular $3.85 mid grade $3.95 premium So, this was about a 20 cent delta from regular to premium. Currently, with gas near $2 I have noticed as much as a 70 cent delta. I have really come to rely on the smartphone app Gas Buddy when the Q45 (which requires premium) needs filled. The app gives local gas prices and can be set to give the Premium price. I just opened the app and locally I am seeing deltas of around 50 cents. The lowest I could get now for Premium is $2.45 (Sam's Club)

Gas Buddy isn't very helpful around here. The gas stations only advertise their 87-octane price on their big signs, and the idiot users of the app simply add on 10 cents for 89 and another 10 cents for 93 without actually verifying it at the pump. (They gots to get their points, yo.)

So I end up think I'm getting a deal if I drive to a particular station, only to find premium for 90 cents more a gallon.

The difference is $.78 between 87 and 93 at my local Exxon. I do remember when grades were staggered by only 10 cents. Good times.

28 cents per gallon here