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Yesterday I took a drive in the car and decided to fill up the tank before storing it. The needle was oscillating between 1/4 tank and 1/2 tank (God knows how much it really had with the inaccuracy of these gauges) but I put in Shell Premium 93 octane and ended up paying around $22.00. I don't recall paying that amount to fill up the tank ever. Is this ridiculous or what? What are your experiences on this?

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Not to be rude, but why even worry about this?

If you can afford to own, insure and run an "extra" car, you are hardly in a position for this to matter. You'll put less fuel in it than your daily driver due to less time/miles.

Inflation and gas prices are currently up.

It's $5.79 a U.S. gallon in London currently for regular gas.

If you put in 6-7 gallons, you paid about half that per gallon.

Last edited by DannyP
@Impala posted:

Yesterday I took a drive in the car and decided to fill up the tank before storing it. The needle was oscillating between 1/4 tank and 1/2 tank (God knows how much it really had with the inaccuracy of these gauges) but I put in Shell Premium 93 octane and ended up paying around $22.00. I don't recall paying that amount to fill up the tank ever. Is this ridiculous or what? What are your experiences on this?

I would love to fill up my speedster for $22.00.  You have no need to complain at that price.  Everything is pricey these days, and gas in the U.S. is probably still cheaper than all almost other countries.

Danny is right on in terms of this issue.

It's pricey here, too.  Although we are forced to using metric measurements (which I abhor - Whitworth would be my preference @edsnova ), and buy gasoline by the litre.  For hitest, we are paying anywhere around $1.50-60.   As there are approximately 3.8 litres in an U.S. gallon, that would mean your gallon price for gas is somewhere around $5.90.  (using $1.55 per litre as the conversion).

Life is tough everywhere...

I was always shocked when I had to fill up a rental car in Ireland or Europe as it was always way more then we paid in Massachusetts, so I just checked Euro Gas prices and this is as of today:

NationCityPrice in USD Regular/Gallon
IrelandDublin$4.78
SwitzerlandGeneva$4.74
SpainMadrid$4.55
JapanTokyo$4.24

And here at home in Massachusetts this week:

Regular                  Mid-Grade
Current Avg.$3.411$3.691
Yesterday Avg.$3.413$3.695
Week Ago Avg.$3.425$3.692
Month Ago Avg.$3.391$3.660
Last edited by Gordon Nichols

Gas prices are almost at a record high here and as high as the gas shortage days of Katrina. When COVID first started and no one was driving, gas prices slowly lowered to the point of near sanity but they rebounded much more quickly of course.

I can easily pump $100+ dollars in my wife's BMW X3 and it doesn't go any further than it did on less expensive gas

Did the price of gas go up? I never even look at the gas gauge. 100 miles City and 150 miles Hwy. Then I stop usually at Costco and I never even look at the pump other than to make sure I am using Premium. I have Dodge Ram 5,7 liter. In a similar manner I usually earn a $1. per gallon discount, max 25 Gallons, after spending $1000 at my local Safeway. When I have my discount the truck is nearing empty. So I fill it once a month. My BMW X5 diesel get 28 mpg at 95mph so who cares. Just did round trip to Seattle and bought fuel once each way. During the 1981 recession my business was doing terrible. I sold my 911 and bought a VW Diesel. Biggest mistake ever. The VW in could not be driven in 5th gear in a stong head win. The other side of this story is my son bought a Tesla Model S. I says he saves $500 per month on gas.

Here they want to be like Europe and replace cars with bikes in city centres so they keep shrinking car lanes and increase the petrol cost so you won’t drive as much and use people as human shields to slow traffic down… no guff… they even have the nerve to call the lane signs traffic calming rather than what they are traffic frustrating as every year I see a bunch knocked off.   Imagine the poor fire truck driver can’t negotiate and sometimes has to force the oncoming driver into the signs damaging his car as he barrels along using both lanes … saw this with my own eyes and the city continues to grow the program.

Last edited by IaM-Ray
@edsnova posted:

The Europeans pay taxes and get services in return. In the case of fuel taxes, one benefit is viable mass transit. Crazy system they got over there, I know!

Exactly!

One other thing. The cars Europeans drive (generally) get great fuel mileage. I rented an Opel station wagon in Paris (2017) and drove over 2,000 miles at 75 miles per gallon. The price of fuel was about 1.45 Euro per liter ($7.80/gallon).

I guess they would import those cars here if anyone wanted them.

When your country is 500 miles border to border you don't have far to go. The once good 'ol US of A that distance is 3,000 miles East to West.

We rely on cars and trucks for our basic needs. Not much rail service over the entire country. Europe is spider webbed with rail.

Prior to 1974 the major oil companies capped our wells and bought oil from the Arabs. Fast forward to 2020; US was the largest oil producing country in the world. Gotta ask yourself how gasoline went from $1.50 (here in the Old South) to $3.25 in less than a year?

What I can't figure out is why the people support things that are obviously contrary to their own best interest.

Got to buy gas today. Yesterday it was $2.99.

My Z4 averages 25mpg. Right now the cost to drive 2,000 miles is about equal to the European trip of 2017.

We're a strange bunch us humans; *everything* has gone up over the years due to inflation and other supply/production costs but we want gas to be the same price (more or less) always as if by magic.  I recall being quite small and mom complaining that the local Getty (I think) was more expensive that others and it was maybe $0.20 a gal.

US directly supports fossil industries to the tune of ~500billion a year, imagine what the cost would be otherwise.

Further aging myself, when I was approaching driving age, I was trying to convince my dad to buy me* a car and I think the price average in the PA area we lived was ~3k new.  You can buy an admittedly better car now, but new less than 20k is tough ask.  Gas prices, in that perspective, remain quite 'inexpensive'.

Me personally, I CAN'T WAIT to find out what it costs to fill my new toy!

*Dad was unmoved; no car was purchased for my use regardless of my excellent arguments of persuasion.

@MusbJim you are correct sir!....luckily some of us are able to still afford our 4 wheel therapy...what is sad is the pain being inflicted on those not as fortunate (though inflation of food , gas prices etc... among other things)  is absolutely PREVENTABLE if the powers that be in charge at the moment would reverse course with failed policies and work for "we the people" instead of themselves in their search for ultimate power....just IMHO

If you suffer under the delusion that the cost of a gallon of gas has no further bearing just remember that EVERYTHING we have moves on an internal combustion engine.

Be careful of what you wish for!

Sorry I don't understand what you're saying -  I suffer no delusions around the fact that our world (for the most part) society and economies are  dependent on fossil fuels if that's what you're suggesting.

I maintain that I look forward to my speedster being finished so among other things, I'll be putting fossil fuels into it but mostly hopefully enjoying some retro motoring.

@msjulie posted:

Sorry I don't understand what you're saying -  I suffer no delusions around the fact that our world (for the most part) society and economies are  dependent on fossil fuels if that's what you're suggesting.

I maintain that I look forward to my speedster being finished so among other things, I'll be putting fossil fuels into it but mostly hopefully enjoying some retro motoring.

Knowing everything that you're having done to your speedie, @msjulie, I have NO DOUBTS about your future "retro motoring" enjoyment!

As always, Stan is right on the money.  Anyone paying attention knows that Jerome Powell is full of sh-t. Real inflation is closer to 20-25%.  Look at the prices in the grocery store. Beef up 50%, chicken 30%. Home heating oil last season, about $1.60 a gallon, this year $2.90 and climbing.  At 1200 gallons a season, that’s real money for a lot of people.

@LI-Rick posted:

As always, Stan is right on the money.  Anyone paying attention knows that Jerome Powell is full of sh-t. Real inflation is closer to 20-25%.  Look at the prices in the grocery store. Beef up 50%, chicken 30%. Home heating oil last season, about $1.60 a gallon, this year $2.90 and climbing.  At 1200 gallons a season, that’s real money for a lot of people.

Rick's not going out of his mind, I had (another) "hyper-inflation is here" post I put up after an extremely long day of dealing with... well... runaway inflation. It was too much for a car website so I took it down after Rick responded.

So, in the spirit of this post on this site:

"Yep, fuel sure has gone up, but not as much as some other things".

Last edited by Stan Galat
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