Gas marketing
Apparently American consumers choose gas on brand rather than price. Now i have no idea what the refinery situation is like in the USA but back home in South Africa the different “brands” of fuel is a joke. Every fuel brand advertises amazing technologies in their fuel, such as engine cleaning molecules, increased performance and fuel efficiency, but the reality is that there are only a handful of refineries and most brands sell exactly the same fuel. Some say they put additives in after the refinery and while that may be true the additives are about as effective as using speed-boosting software on your internet connection. Not very.
Here in Ireland I go mainly by price and Tesco is hard to beat. The only time I don’t go by price is when the petrol station is outside of a town or city and looks like some farmer is trying to sell off his excess agricultural fuel.
I just wonder if in America there really is a difference between one brand’s fuel and another.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
I’m driving over here in the US now, and I still go for the cheapest stuff. I asked a few friends here and that was the advice the gave.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Wow, i would *not* have guessed that. Every so often i’ll run into someone who *avoids* a certain brand based on a bad experience with dirty gas at some point in the past, but i’ve yet to actually hear someone express any sort of loyalty *to* a specific brand.
In fact, it’s much more common to find folks driving across town to line up behind the pumps at a cheaper station, most likely burning up the few cents of savings in the process.
Then again, i don’t know anyone who buys higher-octane “premium” gasoline either. Maybe i just hang out with cheapskates…