Bowser Bizarre
Whilst driving with my 17 year old red p-plater the other day, he put my automatic car into neutral whilst cruising down the road at 70kmh. When I asked him why he did that, he said “to save money on petrol”. When I explained that the fuel he would be saving would be absolutely minimal, it got me thinking about our petrol-price obsessed culture.
Nightly news bulletins now feature a “fuel-watch” segment showing consumers where we are in “the cycle” (I still can’t believe there is a cycle). There are apps available where you can lock in a fuel price *, supermarket shopper dockets promising up to 8c off a litre leading people to drive suburbs away from home to take advantage of it. Don’t start me on those European cars that actually switch off the engine at the traffic lights..for some reason that really annoys me..I mean..what’s the point?
I was fuelling up my car the other day and I wondered why it has become obligatory to round the dollars out on the pump rather than just stopping when the pump clicks out. Is it because we feel we’re somehow beating the pump or is it to make payment easier on the attendant?
If the pump cuts out at, say $49.98, if you round it up to $50, you’re effectively getting 2c worth of fuel for the same cost. But if the pump clicks out at $50.03, the payment will be rounded up to $50.05 so you’re getting 2c less of fuel. Not only do I round the dollars out, I continue to put fuel in even when the pump has clicked as full…I’ve worked out that I can usually get an extra $1.50 into the tank after this point.
This brings me to premium fuel vs regular unleaded. I drive a 2011 Toyota Yaris and always fill up with the cheapest fuel on the pump. I can’t see the point in filling up with premium just to get “better performance” which I don’t need when driving in Sydney’s terrible traffic. I doubt premium fuel is going to turn my Toyota Yaris into a v8 HSV and I think most people understand that premium fuel is generally meant for use by high performance cars and most of the cars I see on the road are not high performance
I’m also obsessed with capturing cool numbers on my odometer. The last one I posted was in October. It was 77777..you feel like you’ve won the lottery when you have to be looking at just the right moment.
Have you ever used Premium Unleaded petrol in your vehicle instead of Regular Unleaded? Did it seem to go further, dollar for dollar? Did it have any noticeable effect at all? How do you save money at the pump or do you think the hype around the cost of fuel is just that..hype?
The NRMA says “If your car is optimised to run on Regular Unleaded 91 RON (Research Octane Number), then using PULP may have a marginal effect on the fuel consumption and cost saving.” They recommend going with the octane recommended in your owner’s manual.
