Flamin' fuel costs.

[Bren]

As stated earlier, the duty on fuel pays for schools, etc..

 

I always have a chuckle when I read Mike Rutherford in the auto express - he seems to think every penny taken from the motorist in tax should be spent on the roads - we would have better roads but very little else.

 

I sometimes moan about my 40 mile round trip to work - looking at some of the distances travelled on here it is nothing.

 

Having said that, it is getting to the stage where if I can avoid driving I will - if I can walk/run/cycle then I will do so.

[nigel bickle]

Both of our incomes are 'adequate' -thanks for asking.

 

My fuel can be offset against tax, and my wife likes a nice smooth comfortable drive -hence the 20vt Fiat Coupe. We have looked to replace, but it makes more economic sense to stick with munters, and weather the mpg (30ish on a run).

 

We stay here, by the sea, we are because its highly likely one of us will be working somewhere completely different soon, as neither hold any job security. 7 days notice -max.

[skattrd]

With fuel prices being what they are, I had to change from driving what I wanted to drive daily (25-30mpg) to sensible diesel as it was barely worth my travelling for work at times. I do a lot of travelling in my job, and chose it as I quite enjoy spending considerable tine driving.

 

My issue is with the statutory allowance for mileage that the government set, 45ppm for the first 10k then 25ppm after that.

The lower rate of 25ppm hasn't changed for a long time, even though fuel costs have, significantly. Diesel is costing me about 12pppm, add in tyres, servicing and general maintenance and thats the 25p done. It's a good job I don't pay finance or have depreciation on my old motors.

[M'coli]

2008 taught OPEC and the oil speculators a lesson in how much the public is willing to fork out for a litre of fuel, so I believe they are artificially keeping prices high and raking it in off of the back of the rest of us. The result is that the general public has less money to spend on other stuff, which could be part of the reason we're still in recession - if 20p was knocked off of the price of a litre there would be a lot more disposable income available to bolster other areas of the economy.

 

As to the idea of "suck it up"(sorry Nigel!) , if your income is high enough then it's not a major problem, but if you're on or close to minimum wage it does. Say, for example, you are employed on a low wage somewhere you can commute to with no cost and are then offered a job at a higher wage many more miles away - the cost of fuel to and from that job can more than negate that wage increase.

 

I'm in this position - I could commute to a job half-way across the Pennines that makes good use of my skills, but because it's a biotech position it's piss-poorly paid so it's not worth my time to go there when I can work locally and end up with the same amount of money, more time because the commute is less and less stress because I don't have to take the M62.

[Spiny Norman]

Not going to get any better either.

http://news.sky.com/story/1055435/fuel-prices-head-for-highest-level-ever

 

Fuel prices will never come down. As places like China and Brazil start wanting cars for everyone the world oil price is going to skyrocket. I reckon in 20-30 years time the 'average' Joe on 'average' wages in the UK won't be able to afford to drive at all.

[Lankytim]

Don't we produce our own oil here though? Why do we get affected by global prices?

[jonny69]

Not that I know of - pretty sure North Sea oil dried up some time back [edit]. We're affected by a number of reasons. Oil is getting harder to find and the oil companies are ploughing billions into drilling to find new oil. The oil they can get is harder to get out and therefore more expensive. What they do get out is now up to 50% water and slurry, which has to be separated out before the oil can even be refined. Some of the oil companies are now even considering re-opening oil fields that they closed 50 years ago, because it's cheaper for them to suck the dregs out with new technology than it is to drill for new oil or to continue to try to refine the low quality crap they are getting out the new wells. So that's why the barrel price is high, but on top of that our currency is very weak, so the oil price might not be at an all time high, but it is high to us because of our weak currency.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

As to the idea of "suck it up"(sorry Nigel!) , if your income is high enough then it's not a major problem, but if you're on or close to minimum wage it does. Say, for example, you are employed on a low wage somewhere you can commute to with no cost and are then offered a job at a higher wage many more miles away - the cost of fuel to and from that job can more than negate that wage increase.

 

I'm in this position - I could commute to a job half-way across the Pennines that makes good use of my skills, but because it's a biotech position it's piss-poorly paid so it's not worth my time to go there when I can work locally and end up with the same amount of money, more time because the commute is less and less stress because I don't have to take the M62.

 

Spot on. Like most indirect taxes, the fuel tax is highly regressive. While Mr B is, of course, right that a lot of other countries also tax fuel to buggery, there's no doubt that we're talking about a tax which disproportionately impacts people on lower than average incomes. While this may be a good idea for things like alcohol (moderating consumption by artificially inflating the price), fuel tax isn't nearly as clever- it distorts the lower end of the job market (and has a knock-on effect on the middle strata, too), raises the price of public transport (buses are more expensive to run and trains can increase ticket prices while still undercutting the cost of the equivalent car journey) and so on. Is that more beneficial than, say, raising the 20% basic tax rate to 21% and bringing the threshold for 45% tax down to £60k? I doubt it.

[willswitchengage]

After reading the first post of this topic, I made a bet with myself that when I skipped to page three there would be politics, a personal attack, nothing on topic, something to do with "new labour"...

[jonny69]

Both of our incomes are 'adequate' -thanks for asking.

Didn't intend to for that to come across as a dig. It looks like you took offence but none was meant.

[dollywobbler]

Fuel costs what it costs doesn’t it, its no good kicking off about it, yeah there might be a load of tax on it but if there wasn’t that tax would only end up being another sort of tax, the UK’s outgoings already exceed the incomings by vast amounts so theres no way the govt can afford to give up the fuel duties. Fuel is cheaper here now than a lot of European countries, that was not the case 10 years ago.

 

If the money was all going into the pockets of some shitehawks like Amazon or tesco or Direct Line or whatever then by all means protest, but almost none of it is so we’re stuck with it. Soz!

 

Sums it up really. At least the high duty actually protects us from crude oil price rises. If there's naff all tax, you REALLY notice when the base oil price goes up. I'd rather fuel was cheaper, and I'd prefer it if I didn't have to make decisions about visiting people based on cost, but them's the breaks. I do my best my driving a BX turbo diesel. 54mpg and it certainly isn't miserable motoring. I bought the Merc as a bit of rebellion. I doubt I'll use it for many long trips, but when income isn't too bad, it's nice to know I can treat myself to something a bit more soothing than an XUD.

[Spiny Norman]

After reading the first post of this topic, I made a bet with myself that when I skipped to page three there would be politics, a personal attack, nothing on topic, something to do with "new labour"...

 

Nooooo....it's all Maggie's fault, isn't it?

[DVee8]

At the moment we are up in Dumfries&Galloway in one small fishing town we saw diesel at £1.53 ltr and petrol at £1.49.Then a few miles along the road the same company 's station we filled the truck at £1.43 a ltr.So how does that work then

[cort16]

I bought some magic beans off the internet for £500 all I need to do (according to the instructions) is put them in my air filter and pee on them and I'll get over 1000 mpg gaurenteed!

[TimothyClaypole]

Partly why I'm not keeping my van, does bugger all to the litre/"galleon" so using my Astra instead.

 

Doesn't matter what the price goes up to most people need a car to drive to work so other things don't get bought to pay for it.

 

I'd gladly take a local job if one came up and have the 2 hours wasted every day trolling to work back.

[gtd2000]

I work in sustainability so I am well versed with the mechanisms that lead to high fuel prices and, unfortunately for the motorist, the outlook isn't good. So be prepared for this to be an upward trend and the only alternative is to eventually ween ourselves off oil.

 

For my 10 miler and the speed I do, an electric conversion makes total sense. I'm talking about the down and dirty lead acid batteries and sodding great big motor strapped to the original gearbox route. Even with a paltry number of batteries I can easily do my daily distance with plenty in reserve, and a full charge will cost ~£1 on conventional electricity and about a third that on Economy 7. Replace the batteries once a year when knackered, couple of hundred quid, still quids in. Pick a car with the smallest engine to start with for low road tax, do it on a pre-'73 car for no tax goodness - even better.

 

It only makes sense because the supplied electricity doesn't have duties and taxes applied at the level of petrol or diesel.

 

When you look at the whole picture this arguement isn't accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Using petrol/diesel directly into an engine is far more efficient than burning fuel to make electricity, then distributing it (with all the associated costs to provide infrastructure) , not including all the processess and inefficiencies involved in making batteries etc.

 

A simple way to look at this is the smug git driving a Prius - he's probably worse than the guy driving the old Yank V8 engined car. Of course it costs him less to "run" the Prius but thats's only becuase it's not a level playing field.

 

Assuming you could run a car on fresh air - they (The Authorities) would still want to extract the equivalent on at least a fiver a gallon out of your mitts to drive - ever wonder why they are looking at "road pricing"?

[Mr Lobster]

It is what it is. Neither of my dailies likes to break the 30mpg barrier but I like 'em .

 

Fuel won't get cheaper but I'm lucky that I can reclaim VAT and set off mileage against tax so it doesn't end up too bad. Pointless getting worked up about it though as that won't change anything.

[Andrew353w]

I've just heard on the BBC 6 o'clock news that fuel will reach an all-time high at Easter. None of these costs are the result of government taxation changes (although as we all know, H.M.G. take enough already!) so either the demand must have increased or the supply has dropped off.

 

Wasn't there talk of there being a shortage in refinery capacity in the United Kingdom? I'd have thought a refinery would be a licence to print money at the moment, but what to I know? All I know is the pain of filling up.

 

[RANT MODE ON]The "train takes the strain" more and more for my daily commute now, even though it takes an hour longer, but what choice do I have? My pay hasn't gone up in 4 years![RANT MODE OFF]

 

I don't know if any other Autoshiters have tried it, but http://www.PetrolPrices.com lists the prices of garages in a given postcode area. It might help a bit.

[rml2345]

I've got an old Volvo. It does 26mpg on a good week and less if I cane it.

I don't look at pump prices any more...

It's like Mr. Bol said, it costs what it costs and there's no sense making a huge fuss over it. I'm pretty glad it pays for hospitals and shit so that when I break/stab/scold/poison myself whilst mending old chod I can go to hospital and don't have to get bum raped by some fly-by-night health insurance mob that I can't really afford.

Pro's and cons I guess.

[Lacquer Peel]

I think my Xantia does infinity mpg, cost equivalent.

[warren t claim]

I've noticed that the WARCRAFT Micra doesn't seem to be as economical as I thought it would be. Today I've replaced the air filter for a whopping £4 and if that doesn't make a difference I'll have to steal a lambda sensor from the scrappy tomorrow.

[Cavcraft]

Today I ran my car out of fuel on the way home from work. The last time I stopped at a petrol station was 397.6 miles ago where I put a tenner's worth of diesel in as it was running on fumes at the time. Since then it's run on a mixture of free and £1 per litre fuel.

[meggersdog]

I haven't been running on the £1.00 per litre stuff due to the cold weather.That has now changed and people keep stopping me and asking for a bag of chips and a pukka pie for some reason.

[Cavcraft]

Go for it, with diesel in the tank as well it's fine. I've been running mine on mostly waste and new veg oil for a couple of weeks or so recently and it's been no real bother.

[Partridge]

You’re not alone and spare a thought for me. My girlfriend (yes I do have one, and no, she’s not inflatable) lives at the over end of the country to me (she’s in Warrington). Last time it cost me well over 200 quid in fuel to get up there and see her for the weekend.

[Lacquer Peel]

If you can get a source of mis-fuel (diesel and petrol mix siphoned from stricken mis-fuelled cars) to thin your veg oil down it's a winner.

[Partridge]

Big firms like the AA and iirc Halfords have a misfueling service thing. They can’t just throw it away, surely?

[chaseracer]

...I'm pretty glad it pays for hospitals and shit so that when I break/stab/scold/poison myself whilst mending old chod I can go to hospital and don't have to get bum raped by some fly-by-night health insurance mob that I can't really afford...

Enjoy the first bit while you can, because the second & third are on the way unless people wake up to the privatisation of the NHS.

[Lankytim]

No idea what other places do but a guy local to me used to just give away any "contam" fuel he had to drain from dopey motorists who had misfuelled their range-rover. I used to run the Allegro on it. Unfortunately I can't get it anymore as the bloke died last year.

[Richard]

I would think any big organisations would have to dispose of contaminated fuel in an environmentally friendly manner, which basically means paying somebody with the right paperwork to dump it in the sea.