I have been buying fuel since petrol was 2/6 a gallon. In metric money, that’s eight gallons for a quid, or less than three pence a litre. And throughout that time, the price has never been consistent - neither between brands nor localities. And the more expensive fuel becomes, the greater becomes the disparity bewteen cheapest and dearest.
Take my local area, for example. I live in Surrey, just outside the M25, and even among the five cheapest prices in town, thanks to PetrolPrices.com I can tell you that today three pence a litre separates the cheapest (Esso) from the dearest (BP) - and all the outlets are within a couple of miles from each other. Even more confusing is the fact that Esso is both the cheapest and second-dearest, and you could practically spit from one garage to the other. How does that work? Can anyone come up with a plausible explanation?
Having said all that, I never shop around: I simply fill up when the car’s running on fumes. What kind of fuel am I?
