The Lemon Fool

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60375568

"diesel hit a new record high of 151.57p a litre last Thursday"

But if your local Costco has a filling station try them
I filled up on Saturday for 139.7

153.9 at the weekend round here.

My local Esso was 155.9
higher anyone ?

I don't really see why prices reaching a "new record high" is news. We have inflation, the trend of the price of everything is upwards. It shouldn't come as a surprise if everything is at a record high price every day.

Now if it was to start heading down, that would be news.

Scott.

pje16 wrote:My local Esso was 155.9
higher anyone ?

I remember when I picked up the V70 in Saltash in Cornwall. It was on fumes (if diesel has fumes) and I went to the Services at the A38 roundabout as it was the nearest place for quite a distance, and I picked up their Supreme Diesel by mistake.

I remember squeezing the trigger, looking at the display, and thinking £$%£ me, that's over 150p/L.

I sold the V70 to buy the Maser, so it would be about 10 years ago.

Paul

Sounds like you were stitched up
this site only shows petrol but it's nowhere near 1.50
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

pje16 wrote:Sounds like you were stitched up
this site only shows petrol but it's nowhere near 1.50
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html

This suggests diesel was nudging 135-140p/l in 2012 and 2013. Add in a 5p premium for the super stuff and then the A38 trunk road services tax and 150p was probably about right.
https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-p ... -over-time

According to petrolprices.com the same station is currently 7p/L more than most of the fuel stations in Plymouth Centre at the moment, which are mainly 147.9 or 148.9p/L. I only put a couple of litres in, just needed to make sure I could actually get back to Plymouth as the display was saying there was less than 20 miles left.

Most of the time diesel is dearer
but as per my OP not at Costco
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=33352#p480517
Diesel was 139.7
Unleaded 141.7 and
Superunleaded 144.7

Costco in Brum is similarly cheap.

But it does say it is only open to members.

When adjusted for inflation and the lower purchasing power of the pound ( divide by 43 ) then fuel is no more expensive the price that we motorists were paying in the 60s. Rapid acceleration, high speeds , a/c etc. reduce the m.p.g. drastically and would all be avoided if fuel was expensive.

marronier wrote:When adjusted for inflation and the lower purchasing power of the pound ( divide by 43 ) then fuel is no more expensive the price that we motorists were paying in the 60s. Rapid acceleration, high speeds , a/c etc. reduce the m.p.g. drastically and would all be avoided if fuel was expensive.

Agreed, my wife hardly believes me when I tell her how I used to fill my motorcycle tank (BSA DBD34 500cc) for £1 in my late teens!

Hi Folks,
I used to track my mileage, mpg, fuel prices. And then I thought 'Why?' The only 'warning' it would give as to a potential problem with the car was if the mpg suddenly inexplicably went up or down. I would not stop using the car because of the cost of fuel. Judging by the 'spirited' way a lot of people drive fuel cost is not a problem. I accept that as a retiree my mileage is not was it was when I worked for a living and I can choose to use it when I want, but running a car has costs. I if did the sums I would probably be financially better off using taxis and buses or hiring for longer journeys but when you've driven for over 65 years, giving up the car is a big decision that can wait till I have to.
Ray.

Ray,
I started haphazardly recording mileage & fuel used probably just under 60 years ago, and didn't bother too much about the resultant mpg. However, in, I think 1992, I bought a Montego, and began to get suspicious about it's economy. So I kept a check - 20, 21 & 23mpg. Not good for a 1.6ltr. The car went back, presumably the carburettor adjusted, and then mpg went up to 29 where it remained for the next 6 years or so.

I have recorded these figures ever since, and whilst I've never had another problem, the results have been most interesting, to me at least. As I said, the Montego averaged 29mpg over 6 years. It's replacement Peugeot 405 LXDI, 42.5 mpg over 10 years. The next car, a Focus diesel 45.5mpg over 4 years, whilst the present car, a Toyota Avensis 1.8 petrol is managing 38.8mpg since bought in 2013. All four cars have been used for towing a caravan and by the same two drivers.

From my point of view, the Focus, despite being a modern diesel engine compared to the Peugeot, was a disappointment mpg wise. (It was a disappointment in other ways as well, but thats a separate issue.) On the other hand, the Toyota, despite being a petrol as against the diesels, is a very pleasant surprise.

FWIW, from memory, my first car, Austin A35 van (1098cc engine) used to do 36mpg, the next, a 1098cc Minor estate did 35mpg, whilst the 1300cc Beetle dropped to 33mpg. So perhaps the Montego at 29mpg was reasonable for the time. But certainly not today!

Regards,

ten0rman

p.s. Yes, those were the days: petrol at 25p (5/-) per gallon!

quelquod wrote:Agreed, my wife hardly believes me when I tell her how I used to fill my motorcycle tank (BSA DBD34 500cc) for £1 in my late teens!

For some reason, the price of two stroke in 1967 has stuck in my mind. (My first motorbike.) Five and tenpence a gallon, or a smidge over 29p after a decimal conversion. Without the oil shot (from a natty little hand-held injector), I imagine it would have been 27p or thereabouts. Per gallon. ( )

CPI increases since 1967 would suggest that today's price ought to be 16.1 times as much. That would be £4.38 per imperial gallon, or 95.6p per litre.

The fourth column of http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html shows how inflation-adjusted forecourt prices have held up since 1983. Apart from a big blip around 2012, they've been more level that I would have supposed. Paying 139p per litre in 2013 must have hurt a lot more than 150p now, but somehow my brain has mercifully erased the pain.

BJ

ten0rman wrote:Ray,
I started haphazardly recording mileage & fuel used probably just under 60 years ago, and didn't bother too much about the resultant mpg. However, in, I think 1992, I bought a Montego, and began to get suspicious about it's economy. So I kept a check - 20, 21 & 23mpg. Not good for a 1.6ltr. The car went back, presumably the carburettor adjusted, and then mpg went up to 29 where it remained for the next 6 years or so.

I have recorded these figures ever since, and whilst I've never had another problem, the results have been most interesting, to me at least. As I said, the Montego averaged 29mpg over 6 years. It's replacement Peugeot 405 LXDI, 42.5 mpg over 10 years. The next car, a Focus diesel 45.5mpg over 4 years, whilst the present car, a Toyota Avensis 1.8 petrol is managing 38.8mpg since bought in 2013. All four cars have been used for towing a caravan and by the same two drivers.

From my point of view, the Focus, despite being a modern diesel engine compared to the Peugeot, was a disappointment mpg wise. (It was a disappointment in other ways as well, but thats a separate issue.) On the other hand, the Toyota, despite being a petrol as against the diesels, is a very pleasant surprise.

FWIW, from memory, my first car, Austin A35 van (1098cc engine) used to do 36mpg, the next, a 1098cc Minor estate did 35mpg, whilst the 1300cc Beetle dropped to 33mpg. So perhaps the Montego at 29mpg was reasonable for the time. But certainly not today!

Regards,

ten0rman

p.s. Yes, those were the days: petrol at 25p (5/-) per gallon!

I started a little earlier than you, with an ex-GPO Telephones Morris 8 Van (1943 vintage) in 1956. I ran that through the Suez crisis, when petrol rose from about 4/= a gallon to 6/= for a while, before falling back to about 4/6d after the crisis. As a Goods vehicle, I got 16 gallons/month, whereas private cars got just 4 gallons/month. I was known as "Mr Petrol" in some quarters for that. I averaged about 36mpg, but also 79m/pint of oil. Then I had 2 VW Beetles, which did 38mpg or thereabout. The first, bought in 1958, usually got to about 300 miles before the reserve tank tap had to be operated. Looks like the second one, bought in 1960, seems to have had a lower mpg figure of 35.4mpg over 3 plus years, probably due to shorter runs. Petrol in 1963 was still only about 4/6d a gallon for Power or Shellmex.

Then I had a Vauxhall Victor FB, which averaged 27mpg on mostly short runs and trips over the Pennines. Followed by a second hand Vauxhall Cresta PBDX, automatic, which did 20mpg regardless. Petrol in 1968 was about 5/6d, although I was able to rwefuel from the company pump at a lower price because of the discount they got. About 5 bob, as far as I can work it out.

Then company cars started intervening, but looking at what records I have, a Lancia Dedra averaged 31.7mpg over 112,000 miles, a Rover 620 gave 34mpg over 111,000 miles, a Toyota MR2 averaged 34mpg over 13,000 miles as a second car, and then back to my own vehicles, a Peugeot 406 2.1TD averaged 45.7mpg of diesel over 52,000 miles, a Peugeot 407 HDi did 44.4mpg of diesel over 40,000 miles, a Suzuki SX4 did just under 40mpg of petrol over 38,000 miles and the current Suzuki S-Cross 1.6 Boosterjet has been doing nearly 47mpg over just 8,000 miles in 2 years during the pandemic.

The vast improvement in petrol mpg, despite a/c and other factors, is amazing.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:Then I had a Vauxhall Victor FB,
TJH

A great post TJH
I remember the Vauxhall Victor
my dad had one in the mid sixties
Petrol must have been cheap as we would quite often go out "just for a drive"
to places we hadn't been to before
He is often tells me how there was next to no traffic in those days

pje16,

Yes, we used to "go for a drive" as well, but usually either for a day out or an afternoon out, and almost always on a Sunday. Living in West Yorkshire, one favourite place was Hollingworth Lake; another was Cragg Vale & over the tops from Hebden Bridge towards Keighley. But, probably my favourite was a day out to Ainsdale Beach near Southport. Dad used to be a long distance lorry driver and so knew a few short cuts (incidently, some of the tales he used to tell us from that era were rather hair-raising), but one short cut which I never fathomed out was on those Ainsdale trips. We went over the tops on the A640 to Denshaw, turned left to Oldham, along Union Street West and then on to Manchester. However, he knew some sort of short cut near Manchester where he turned right onto a main road, and then almost immediately turned left and eventually coming out on the high speed A580 East Lancs Rd, a dual carriageway which took us along to St Helens. Of course, the A580 back then was a "magical" road to an 11 year old, dual carriageways being few and far between, but Dad, driving a 1953 Ford Prefect always kept his speed down to around 40mph. Another relative who sometimes went with us drove a pre-war Prefect and later a 1954 Popular and used to drive at 60mph so you can imagine who I travelled with.

Reminiscences! Must Stop!

ten0rman

ten0rman wrote:Reminiscences! Must Stop!
ten0rman

you just reminded me of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBETVhHpcPk

bad news folks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60490749
my local Esso (the one that takes the p*ss, mentioned before in this post)
has wasted no time in hiking the prices up
as of yesterday
1.589 for petrol
1.619 for diesel
do I need to mention I never fill up there

local tesco 95 petrol was 145 p/l saturday .