Gas Prices

[Car-Guy]

Regular is down to $2.42/gal range here and dropping, can find it for $2.3x/gal if you search. But diesel is still $3.45/gal range. Not driving the diesel truck as much now!

So are you running regular 87octane gas in your 454 without any issues?

 

[Koolau]

Glad to hear they're not shutting down!

You got it right: a tax on drivers. I'm not a fan of more taxes, but a disincentive to burn fossil fuels would be one place where I'd tax if I were king.

I didn't explain the mechanism very well, but I figure that a barrel produced in North America would always fetch the high price, no matter what. So OPEC doesn't game the system, maybe the "high price" would be a moving average. The refinery would be indifferent as to where the oil came from since it all would cost the same amount. Buy from Texas and pay the highest world price to the producer. Buy from OPEC when the current world price had sunk, producer gets paid the current (cheap) world price and the difference between that and highest world price would go to the debit.

I'm sure they'd cry foul, since this would be considered a "tariff", but I think it could be argued for since they are not playing fair when it comes to manipulating the price of oil.

Actually kind of like your idea. What we need is stable prices, not necessarily low prices. It's the huge swings that get us buying SUVs one year and Priuses the next. If we could predict what our actual fuel costs would be into the future, we would eventually find that alternatives make sense and then start to build them with out the fits and starts that we've seen for 20 years.

However, manipulation of prices has its own problems, though we do it all the time as a gummint. Been doing it for years (farm subsidies, tax incentives, blah, blah, and etc.) My issue with any plan that dedicates money to "pay off the debt", etc. is that gummint money is fungible. Many examples I could give which demonstrate this issue. As long as gummint sees a source of money, they will use it to "buy votes" instead of pay down debt.

Actually, if gummint wanted to stabilize prices, they would simply mandate a move toward increasing storage capacity - SWAG of 4X current. (Alternately, they could do it themselves.) As stated earlier, the inelasticity of fuel demand, combined with miniscule storage capacity leads to wild swings in prices. Imagine OPEC or whomever decides they want to short us a couple million bbl per day to drive up prices (or punish us). If we had the capacity to give them the middle finger salute, they would run out of petro dollars before we ran out of gas - if we had plenty of fuel in storage. Just a theory of mine, so YMMV.

 

[REWahoo]

Price controls? What could possibly go wrong with that...

 

[Another Reader]

$2.759 for 87 octane regular at the local Costco in San Jose this morning. $2.999 for the 91 octane premium for those that use it. I was sure prices would go up after the election. Now I think they will go up after Christmas, which is looking pretty weak right now.

 

[rodi]

Glad to hear they're not shutting down!

You got it right: a tax on drivers. I'm not a fan of more taxes, but a disincentive to burn fossil fuels would be one place where I'd tax if I were king.

I didn't explain the mechanism very well, but I figure that a barrel produced in North America would always fetch the high price, no matter what. So OPEC doesn't game the system, maybe the "high price" would be a moving average. The refinery would be indifferent as to where the oil came from since it all would cost the same amount. Buy from Texas and pay the highest world price to the producer. Buy from OPEC when the current world price had sunk, producer gets paid the current (cheap) world price and the difference between that and highest world price would go to the debit.

I'm sure they'd cry foul, since this would be considered a "tariff", but I think it could be argued for since they are not playing fair when it comes to manipulating the price of oil.

You would have a hard time arguing that the tax should be based on the pump price. The pump price in other countries has higher taxes on it. As I mentioned above, in CA, we have fairly high taxes on gas, compared to many other places. (Maybe not the highest - but up there.) Plus there's that whole liter/gallon conversion thing you'd have to do. LOL.

If you were talking about unit to unit prices PRE TAX, compared to another place, you'd be making an argument that makes sense (to me). I may not agree with it - but it makes sense.

Otherwise you're just asking us to increase our gas tax to match Canada, Europe, etc. I doubt that would fly at all.

 

[aja8888]

Glad to hear they're not shutting down!

You got it right: a tax on drivers. I'm not a fan of more taxes, but a disincentive to burn fossil fuels would be one place where I'd tax if I were king.

I didn't explain the mechanism very well, but I figure that a barrel produced in North America would always fetch the high price, no matter what. So OPEC doesn't game the system, maybe the "high price" would be a moving average. The refinery would be indifferent as to where the oil came from since it all would cost the same amount. Buy from Texas and pay the highest world price to the producer. Buy from OPEC when the current world price had sunk, producer gets paid the current (cheap) world price and the difference between that and highest world price would go to the debit.

I assume from your posts you are not that well informed on the oil and gas industry, and that's OK. But what you are missing is that all crude oil is not the same and all refineries are not equipped to process all crude oil types. Some refineries are not equipped with process equipment to handle high sulfur crude and that is generally lower priced oil. On the other hand, Arabian light crude is very easy to refine and that is a high priced commodity. Plus, a lot of crude gets traded by brokers all over the world and transportation costs influence the pricing.

What I am saying is that it's not that simplistic to assume crude oil could be price controlled and everyone would be happy.

 

[Car-Guy]

I guess they'll need to change their arm and leg gas price structures to just fingers and toes these days.

 

[Walt34]

$3.05 here, but it's usually a rip. It usually worthwhile to drive 20 minutes to VA to fill up if near empty.

 

[38Chevy454]

Regular is down to $2.42/gal range here and dropping, can find it for $2.3x/gal if you search. But diesel is still $3.45/gal range. Not driving the diesel truck as much now!

So are you running regular 87octane gas in your 454 without any issues?

Actually, yes run cheap regular in my 38 Chevy with the 454 engine. It is built with 8.5:1 compression and has a big cam that bleeds off some cylinder pressure. End result is runs fine on the cheap stuff, which is good at 12-13 mpg highway and 6-8 mpg in town. In addition I live at high altitude, which makes even less cylinder pressure and therefore lower octane needed.

Now my 68 GTO with 10.75:1 compression and stock cam does need all the octane supreme has, and even can use a bit more if I have some racing gas or similar high octane to supplement. I do not complain about the extra cost for this car.

Rest of my old cars are also set up to run on regular. High compression is good for power and engine responsiveness, but I like being able to use whatever grade without concern.

 

[Car-Guy]

Actually, yes run cheap regular in my 38 Chevy with the 454 engine. It is built with 8.5:1 compression and has a big cam that bleeds off some cylinder pressure. End result is runs fine on the cheap stuff, which is good at 12-13 mpg highway and 6-8 mpg in town. In addition I live at high altitude, which makes even less cylinder pressure and therefore lower octane needed.

Now my 68 GTO with 10.75:1 compression and stock cam does need all the octane supreme has, and even can use a bit more if I have some racing gas or similar high octane to supplement. I do not complain about the extra cost for this car.

Rest of my old cars are also set up to run on regular. High compression is good for power and engine responsiveness, but I like being able to use whatever grade without concern.

That makes sense. I had a 70 chevy with a 454 a number of years ago. If I recall, the comp ratio was about 10.5:1, and it needed premium to run right, and lots of it.

Funny, but my 2009 LS3 with a 10.7:1 comp ratio will run "okay" on regular. I accidentally filled it once with regular (almost a full tank) and it ran okay. Not sure I'd want to give it a steady diet of 87 octane.

 

[eytonxav]

Price at QuikTrip this morning $2.49.

 

[fidler4]

My 16 year old daughter got her license in June. We bought her a small used Honda Civic but she has to pay for the gas. She mows lawns for a few neighbors and is a good saver so its not problem for her. The other day she told me that when she got her license she had to pay $4.15 per gallon for gas and now she is paying $2.89 per gallon. She is very aware of the price of gas in the area. I can tell she is going to be a LBYM type of person.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[kitesurfer2]

$2.59 this morning at exit one on I95 Georgia.

 

[Car-Guy]

I was in Houston late last week and noticed gas was low as 2.29 at a couple of stations. I'm sure it was lower somewhere in town since I just happened to notice it at a few stations just off the freeway as I drove by.

 

[ls99]

SW PA $2.96, for reg.. There is absolutely no competition around here. All stations are the same unless using affinity cards.

My truck's 5.0 and suburban 454 runs reg, the Jag uses mid grade. Can use regular since the per cylinder ignition timing control will back off timing to control ping. Meaning some power loss.

 

[Walt34]

Still $2.95 here, but I cashed in my grocery store points and got 60 cents off/gallon yesterday. People around here do sometimes get incensed about it but I still bear in mind that the overall tax burden is lower in WV than many, if not most, other states so it doesn't bother me as much.

 

[aja8888]

RUG = $2.219, D2 $3.299 here in north Houston.

 

[HFWR]

$2.389 at Costco in Stepfordville...

 

[ls99]

Still $2.95 here, but I cashed in my grocery store points and got 60 cents off/gallon yesterday. People around here do sometimes get incensed about it but I still bear in mind that the overall tax burden is lower in WV than many, if not most, other states so it doesn't bother me as much.

DW's Caddy gets the grocery store discount. She does the food shopping, she gets the bennys. By the way I am prohibited from tagging along for food shopping

 

[LOL!]

I haven't filled up the car since late August and may get through December without reaching empty. I am surprised to read about these prices.

 

[audreyh1]

I haven't filled up the car since late August and may get through December without reaching empty. I am surprised to read about these prices.

Yes, there has been a big change!

$2.44 here at even the regular gas stations

 

[freebird5825]

$3.09 is best local price here in East Nowhere, in upstate NY as of Dec 1.

The good news is that particular gas station is within 2 miles of my home.
And, my winter driving is much less frequent and of much shorter distance than during the good weather.

Once the snowmobiling season kicks in full force, the prices will go up.

 

[W2R]

The Exxon station that I use is 1.3 miles from here and there are probably a half dozen closer gas stations. That's one of the perks of living in an inner/urban suburb* I guess.

Gas there is $2.45/gallon. It's a couple of cents cheaper at the Discount Zone on the other side of the street at that corner. I last filled up on November 11th, and prices have dropped 10 cents/gallon since then.

My 2014 spending on gas so far adds up to $831. I guess gas prices do not have a huge impact on my budget, mostly because of the inner/urban suburb location in which I live. Everything is close by.


*By "inner/urban suburb", I mean that my suburb is old and was built 50-100 years ago right next to the city line, and it looks much like an urban area with high rises, small lots for residences, and buildings close together.

 

[REWahoo]

My 2014 spending on gas so far adds up to $831. I guess gas prices do not have a huge impact on my budget, mostly because of the inner/urban suburb location in which I live. Everything is close by.

Made me look.

YTD spending is $3,043 for gas and $2,777 for diesel. For those of us with multiple vehicles and drivers, and where everything is definitely not close, this drop in fuel prices will save us several hundred dollars a year.

 

[W2R]

Made me look.

YTD spending is $3,043 for gas and $2,777 for diesel. For those of us with multiple vehicles and drivers, and where everything is definitely not close, this drop in fuel prices will save us several hundred dollars a year.

Wow! The drop in fuel prices makes a big difference for those farther out and with multiple vehicles and drivers.