6. "Looking for the cheapest gas in town? Try the Internet."
You can't actually buy gas online, but Web resources can help you find the cheapest fill-up in town. Among them, GasPriceWatch.com and Gaswatch.info help people track pump prices. More comprehensive is GasBuddy.com, which includes a network of 174 local sites, complete with maps and message boards that tally gas price by ZIP code.
"People are frustrated by the variation in the price of gas," says GasBuddy.com co-founder Jason Toews, and they're using the Internet to take control.
It has worked wonders for Sue Foust. Every day, as she passes roughly 10 stations on her commute across Tucson, Ariz., Foust notes their prices, then posts them on TucsonGasPrices.com, a local affiliate of GasBuddy.com.
Every four days or so, when she needs to fill up, she checks the prices others have posted in her area. It turned out the Shell station she used to frequent is one of the most expensive in the city. Now she fills up elsewhere. "I really do feel like I'm saving money," she says.
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7. "It's a gallon when I say it's a gallon."
It's hard to know whether you're getting all the gas you paid for at the pump. But in some places there's a very good chance you're not. State or county authorities check pumps for accuracy, but in some areas it can be years between inspections. Arizona, for example, has only 18 staff members to check the state's 2,300 stations.
That means stations there can expect a visit once every three to four years, according to Steve Meissner, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Weights and Measures. In 2005, 30% of the more than 2,000 complaints the department received were valid, and it levied $167,000 in fines. The good news is that it's often easy to catch the most common problem: Older pumps in poor repair may begin charging you for gas before you've pumped it. Check the meter to make sure it registers $0.00 before you begin and doesn't start charging you before the fuel is flowing.
8. "I might gouge you on a soda, but my coffee's a real bargain."
With margins on gas taking a hit -- in 2006, fuel sales made up 71% of revenue but only 34% of gross margins -- stations are increasingly looking to their convenience stores for income. Given that fact, you'd assume the average Kwik-E-Mart would be a terrible place to buy just about anything. But that's only partly true.
Stock that usually sits on the shelf does tend to be vastly overpriced, so if you forgot ketchup on the way to a barbecue, you can bet you'll pay a lot more for it at a gas station than you would at a supermarket, says David Bishop, the director of convenience retailing for Willard Bishop Consulting. What about popular beverages? You'll pay more for a 20-ounce soda at a gas station than you would for a 2-liter bottle in a supermarket; water and energy drinks similarly tend to have high markups.
But there are bargains to be had: Some high-volume goods, such as cigarettes and beer, are often competitively priced at gas stations. And a cup of coffee goes for a fraction of what you'd pay at Starbucks.
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9. "If you're having car trouble, you're in the wrong place."
The days of the local gas station staffed with a skilled mechanic have all but come to an end. Most station owners have swapped car lifts for beverage cases and carwashes, or anything else that brings in a high-volume stream of income and traffic, says Dennis DeCota, the executive director of the California Service Station and Automotive Repair Association. The more people who pull over for a soda, the greater the chance they'll top off their tank and vice versa, the thinking goes. Few owners want the hassle of a business such as car repair, even if it earns the same amount of money as a convenience store.
In addition, repairing cars is increasingly expensive, and the ill will and potential liability from a fix-it job gone wrong are more of a headache than many owners are willing to risk. Today a service station can require $100,000 worth of diagnostic equipment -- a significant investment. It's a risky venture with little payoff, says Southern California station owner Arabshahi. In fact, Arabshahi removed the service station from one of his locations after he bought it.
"I don't have a service station because I am not a mechanic," he says. "If he messes up a job, then it's my name on there."
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10. "You might not need regular gas to run your car."
Cars run on gasoline, but not all cars need traditional gasoline to run. In fact, 6 million cars on the road today (mostly from U.S. manufacturers and built since 1998) are "flexible fuel" vehicles that can run on E85, a fuel that is 85% ethanol and only 15% gas.
When Minneapolis resident John Schafer bought a car in late 2001, he chose a Chevy Tahoe because it's a flexible-fuel car. Since then he's filled up almost exclusively with E85. The big difference he's noticed: about 15% fewer miles to the gallon. But it's a drawback he's willing to put up with.
"I'm committed to the technology," Schafer says. "With E85, it burns cleaner, so it won't pollute as much."
Although E85 generally costs less than regular gas, there is some concern that it may grow prohibitively expensive as demand outpaces supply: By 2006, ethanol was being used more than just in E85; it also composed 15% of every gallon of gas sold. Supplies of ethanol are likely to grow thin, which could drive up the price of E85. And even die-hard Schafer says he won't buy E85 if it starts to cost more than gasoline.
This article was reported by Jim Rendon for SmartMoney.
Published June 17, 2009
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