Fuel Price Rant Thread. HOW MUCH???????

[warren t claim]

I'm starting to worry about the cost of unleaded at the pumps these days.

 

Being a self employed person my accountant offsets 40p a mile against my tax which was handy when I was doing lots of business miles and fuel was under £1.20 a litre.

 

The Middle Eastern situation can only mean an increase in pump prices and it doesn't seem long before we'll end up paying £2 a litre.

 

For once in my life I may be forced to buy a diesel.

[Negative Creep]

At £2 a litre this country will grind to a halt. But hey, I'm sure the government will take off 1p in the budget

[RoadworkUK]

Well, I tried owning a diesel just before Christmas. It didn't want to be owned by me so badly that it advertised itself on eBay and made me a thousand quid of profit.

 

If I end up changing jobs and doing more miles then I'll probably end up trying to find a 106 Diesel. Or something. As it is the A4 still gives me 35mpg for my current 42 mile round trip.

 

Shame I don't have space for a third car.

[Shep Shepherd]

If unleaded does hit £2 a litre, I hope that there will be a British Spring, as I think that nothing short of a revolution will sort this country out.

[trigger]

Fuel prices are worring me at the moment now as well, The Esso garage down the road is now charging 141.9p a litre for Diesel, I was moaning when it got to a £1!, Now might not have been a good time to have bought a 2.2 Diesel.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Why are you bothered about fuel prices when you've just splurged several grand on a car?

[trigger]

The cost of a car is irelevant to the price of fuel, i could have spend £500 on a diesel and I'll still be moaning, Oh and it was less then several grand.

[Rusty Pelican]

£1.34 a litre of petrol here ATM , Started using the Imp more as its much better around town than the Beemer , given up the fags to pay for the fuel ( should be in the grumpy thread )

[michael1703]

my cars arent the most economical but the price of fuel is offset by what it costs me to run.

 

I'd rather fill up a thirsty petrol car that i can fix at the roadside with a paper clip than buy a eurobox diesel that is more economical but costs thousands in repair bills and spends more time in the dealers

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I baulk at putting petrol in the SAAB, but I realise that it's not depreciating at all and didn't cost loads of money in the first place, that eases my misery a tiny bit.

A few grand will still pay for a lot of fuel.

[dollywobbler]

That's a fair point - a 2.2 diesel is still much more economical than a 2.2 petrol. That's quite horrific prices though Trig - diesel's cheaper than that here!

 

Still spending more on meat than fuel though - we're really watching the pennies and it seems that it's my animal eating tendencies that are currently the most costly (especially as my 15mpg fuel guzzler netted me profit - a tasty steak is yet to make me a profit).

[michael1703]

I commuted to work in the 3 litre scimitar today and when i came back to work after lunch I came back in my 4.2 mk10 jag

 

Am I rich? No, just a very short commute

[M'coli]

I think the £2 a litre is journalistic speculation to make a story and get us to buy papers. If the price of oil keeps rising then no-one will be able to afford it - demand reduces, market gets oversupplied, crude prices collapse, China buys the fucking lot and sells it back to the west. What else are they going to spend their balance-of-payment money on?

[Station]

There was a protest over some court in Birkenhead today, I doubt there's ever been a protest in this area for at least a decade. Police outnumbered the protesters, and a few were arrested and dragged away (it was 100 yards from the police station). I can't see nothing happening if it does go over £2 (which may or may no happen), in comparison. Everybody seems pissed off at everything at the moment.

Come on you ney-sayers, how can £1.28 and rising not be ridiculous?

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

The prices were similar in 2008, then sank again.

[pogweasel]

A very concerning time indeed.

 

When each time you come to fill the car up it's 5% more expensive is ridiculous.

I am currently doing about 300 miles a week and it's certainly not a fun prospect at the pumps.

 

My old BMW isn't the most efficient car, but it's not a guzzler either, averaging mid-30's on the daily mix of motorway and country roads, and I've started giving careful consideration to alternatives. Can't really use the Galaxy all the time as Er Indoors needs it for Poglet Logistics, and with diesel being more than pez the 45 mpg that does isn't much better.

I -can- afford it, I earn OK money after all (currently massaging figures to keep it under the upper tax threshold so we don't lose the child benefit, which for 4 kids is a good top-up) but we all have to draw the line somewhere. And despite a decent job, I simply don't have the disposable income to buy another car that is super-efficient.

 

Whilst the problems in the middle east are a source of the problem, there are historic problems in the UK that compound it:

The totally ridiculous system of fuel duty (tax) being then subject to VAT (tax) at a rate which is creeping up means that small fluctuations in crude prices are hugely amplified at the pumps, a system that is regressive and unacceptable.

 

Furthermore, rises increase transport costs, pushes up prices, inflation spirals, Dave & pals have to whack up interest rates to try and keep it down (unsuccessfully) and everyones mortgages go through the roof as well. Great!

 

Then you have the piss-poor transport network & it's rules that simply are not integrated.

For instance if I want to go from Poggleswade to St Albans I need to take two trains and a bus. Over an hour and a half of faffing. I thought I had a good idea... two trains then cycle the last bit, easy. Except you can't take your bike on the train. And all those lovely cycle paths - have a look, most of them used to be railways. THANKS, DR BEECHAM. Urban areas are moving in the right direction with tramways, guided buses and the like, but it's the moving BETWEEN urban centres that is still impossibly and irretreivably FUCKED, meaning we have no choice but to either (a) get bummed at the pumps or ( take a local skunga job on £6 an hour.

 

Maybe the peasants will revolt? But that will probably make things worse too.

[Cavcraft]

I think we should sent the SAS into some ropey foreign country then have a bit of a war. That'll a) learn 'em and reduce fuel prices.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

[dollywobbler]

I think we should sent the SAS into some ropey foreign country then have a bit of a war. That'll a) learn 'em and reduce fuel prices.

 

I should think the SAS are currently sitting somewhere looking rather sheepish.

[Negative Creep]

The government wouldn't let it get to £2. Reason being that people would stop driving and they' d lose vast amounts of revenue. Basically they need to keep it as high as they can before people stop driving. Claiming they want people out of cars and into public transport or electric cars is bollocks - they need the cash from fuel duty

[Guest]

Last time I put fuel in the Galant, it was £1.42 or something a litre, I don't really pay much attention to it. Super unleaded, since it was designed for 4-star, plus it makes me feel like one of the "jet set". My MPG is somewhere in the low 20s. Stick £20 in the car, get a nice coffee from the machine. All that happens now is that I might (temporarily) get to have a nice coffee on a Thursday evening instead of a Friday afternoon.

 

I'm on a pretty lousy wage and they could triple it and I'd just keep paying to be honest, I wouldn't even change cars. Same with my other luxuries, if a reasonable bottle of whisky was £60, then I'd be paying £60 for it. Act like an incredibly cheap bastard with stuff you don't enjoy and you can have free reign to throw your money down the drain on stuff you do like. Also, don't have a missus.

[dollywobbler]

Would people stop driving? I'd be very interested to see what people do. Can't see people giving their cars up in a hurry, even if it got to £5 a litre. I'm personally more worried about what happens when the good stuff actually runs out. Even (a fair number of) trains need diesel. The anarchy and chaos doesn't really bear thinking about once transport comes crashing down. No supermarket deliveries, no food. I suspect oil prices will get a lot higher before then though.

 

Wonder if I can convert my 2CV to run on wind power... (hold on, that's leaving me open to a joke or three!)

[Shep Shepherd]

Act like an incredibly cheap bastard with stuff you don't enjoy and you can have free reign to throw your money down the drain on stuff you do like. Also, don't have a missus.

 

Amen to that!

[Negative Creep]

I'm going to buy one of these

 

http://viabtor.co.uk/

 

Then laugh at you all as my fuel consumption drastically decreases

[Station]

Having used pubic transport for the past two weeks, I know I want my car back, and I want to test 1.4 16v efficiency against 3.0 V6.

 

Here are problems with public transport:

 

a) Drivers are mostly miserable and don't seem to like the job at all,

Drivers wants to get back to depot ASAP, meaning bus can sometimes be over 10 minutes too early on quiet, off-peak journeys,

c) Drivers blame 'stopping distances of bus' as reason for going through traffic lights five seconds after lights have changed to red,

d) Price - 2.20 to travel two miles,

e) Drivers never have common sense to stock up on change, meaning producing anything larger than a five pound note is greeted with 'Av you got any less', and in some cases (10.30pm on a Monday night) being refused busride due to driver having no change,

f) Putting up with random rattles on the bus,

g) Seeing patches on windows where people's heads have been (after resting your head in the same patch),

h) Having people in cars looking at you while driving past the bus stop,

i) Giving a bus driver the wanker symbol because he drove past without seeing you (and then not stopping anyway), and then realising you have to catch that same bus everyday,

j) Running for the bus, which leaves before you reach the stop, and you have to pretend you are running somewhere else (with your hand stretched out for some reason).

[pogweasel]

BUS WANKERS.

[Angrydicky]

Act like an incredibly cheap bastard with stuff you don't enjoy and you can have free reign to throw your money down the drain on stuff you do like. Also, don't have a missus.

 

Very well said!

[Shep Shepherd]

BUS WANKERS.

 

Inbetweeners FTW

[seth]

e) Drivers never have common sense to stock up on change, meaning producing anything larger than a five pound note is greeted with 'Av you got any less', and in some cases (10.30pm on a Monday night) being refused busride due to driver having no change,

 

You mean you can actually pay for the bus with actual money?!

[Cavcraft]

Here is THE problem with public transport:

 

The public.