I run both my cars (300zx NA and '95 Maxima) on Premium unleaded, of course. The higher octane stuff most of you guys use is not available at the pump here at all, anyway. When petrol prices were at their highest about 3 weeks ago, I bought a tankful of Caltex at $1.43 per litre. With my Woolworths supermarket discount of 4c a litre I paid $1.39 a litre. A week or so later of normal driving I found I'd used a tankful and had been getting just under 10 km/L. I didn't have a Supermarket receipt for the next tankful, so I used one of the very few BP stations left. I paid $1.40 per litre. I checked and the Caltex station was still $1.43 /L! So the 4c discount was in fact narrowed to a 1c advantage by their high initial price. Not only that, the tankful of BP gave a much better km/L figure (easily more than 10km/L) and the car felt much smoother and more powerful on the stuff. I will of course now only buy BP and Woolworths can shove their 4c discount "where the sun don't shine"!:angry::angry: What really annoys me is that the petrol-discount-for groceries thing down here has forced the closure of at least 1/3 of all Petrol stations in the Hobart area, while the discount stations are doing what I observed - now they have little competition left they are free to jack up their prices and rip off the public. Dare I suggest by selling a Premium unleaded which really isn't 95 octane at all? A mix of 50% normal unleaded and 50% premium perhaps? The way my cars ran on this stuff that's certainly what it felt like.
yep, tassie .. you can certainly get caught up with false economies and presumed savings .. on my last fill, with shell savings coupon in hand, i drove 5km to shell to fill up on 98 octane .. drove home another 5 km .. did my fuel economy check ..just around 9km per litre at $1.30 a litre.. having bought 40 litres, i saved $1.60 less the $1.30 i spent for a litre getting there/home ..doh:wacko:
It's not so much the mathematics of it..... Both stations didn't really involve going out of my way at all, so that wasn't the issue for me. What annoys me is the cartel situation that is rapidly developing. Coles and Woolworths here have an absolute strangle-hold on everything except liquor sales, and they're trying very hard to get that too. Their petrol discount scheme has been less of an attempt to buy consumer loyalty than as a lever to get control of petrol distribution here. I can see a time when ONLY the filling stations (you couldn't call them SERVICE stations) affiliated with Coles and Woolworths will be left, and they'll sell crap petrol at extortionate prices. We're currently paying 9c per litre more than Mainland prices, and their seems to be no regulatory body with enough clout to tell the oil companies here to bring their prices down to something based on the real cost of petrol to them.
Couldn't agree more John Coles are building a new store where I live - that will make it 3 within a 5km radius!! All they care about is pushing their own brands. The 4 cents a liter discount at Shell is a joke as even blind Freddy can see that it's built into the price somewhere along the line. For my part I refuse to buy into their would-be monopoly. Same with Woolworths they can go get stuffed as well. At least in Queensland we do get a Government rebate of about 8 cents a litre on fuel. Really looking forward to paying Tassie prices (Not!):angry::angry::angry:
I really can't see the justice either :angry: I to, use to fill up at the time at the Woolworths station because I have friends there that would give me the 4c discount, & the petrol is crap!!! I wouldn't use it in my lawn mower! I now use BP also. We are paying for premium what the mainland pays for 98 octane. It's ridicules, it would be more than viable for 98 octane to be sold in Tasmania. A perfect example would be the motor expo that we just had! With a large number of cars on displace that should/would use 98 octane petrol. Maybe it's time I ran for politics. A little off topic, but Kingston (my local suburb) is being built up at an incredible rate. The road in & out of the CBD are already congested enough, & it's only going to get worse. There are road works happening all over the place, and who ever made up the plans is a moron! They are spending millions of dollars to achieve nothing. It's not going to help at all, & the main reason for the road works was to stop industrial vehicles driving threw suburban streets. The current million dollar road works hasn't achieved this at all.
I work at Kingston, and totally agree. Several things need to be done there immediately. First, Put a roundabout outside the front gate of Kingston High School. There's a lot of traffic at that intersection, and it needs some control. There's plenty of room for a roundabout there too without acquiring properties etc. Next, a pedestrian bridge or underpass so that the pedestrian-controlled traffic lights aren't required outside the school. Third, take that stupid bloody widened area out that they put in a few years ago in the footpath, at the Coles corner with the highway. You used to be able to go down the inside lane and turn left up the highway without having to wait for all the vehicles going straight ahead. Now, unless you're the first one or two vehicles you have to queue. They could even develop the unsealed area behind Coles as a merging lane, if they were really serious about improving through traffic. Fourth, why hasn't an off-ramp down onto the Huon highway been provided just north of the bridge, so that traffic approaching Kingston from the South doesn't have to turn right at the roundabout and go through Kingston, to access Kingston Beach, Taroona, etc? It could loop around and use the now redundant right turn lane which will soon no longer lead to Hobart. Just a few ideas. My apologies to members not in the area - this post is very area specific by its nature, of course.
Couldn't agree more John... My main concern it the main round a-bout in the heart of Kingston. There was enough room to have two lanes heading into Hobart. They could have made the roads break into 2 lanes leading up to the round a-bout. One lane used for turning left only, & the other to go straight ahead, or turn right. But the way it has been designed, cars have to cue at every entrance point. I'm glad I don't have to travel to work during peak hour, as I would be cueing for easy over 5 minutes just to reach the damn round a-bout!!! So yes, John, there are heaps of little things they could of done in the first place to make huge improvements. The new round a-bout and on/off ramps they are building behind Kingston High don't look like making a considerable improvement to me. Maybe we should copy these posts John and send them to the local council :LOL:
Yes Jono, I'm sure that roundabout was designed by a panel beater. It's renowned by RACT as a major Tas black spot, and I think it's basically because it's too damn small. It would be 1/2 the diameter of the Elwick roundabout - which I think is well engineered - but serves more traffic and at similar speeds. You have to be very sharp using it at peak hours - traffic is on you before you know it. The stupid thing is that instead of re-engineering it, they applied a "traffic calming" strategy by narrowing the approach roads. As you say, you have no choice but to queue. There's plenty of room for extra lanes to allow two streams of traffic to enter the roundabout at once, but what it basically needs is to be doubled in size as well as having all entry/departure roads re-engineered. Yes, maybe we ought to forward copies of these posts to the Kingborough council
