Petrol Price Rollercoaster

Hey Guys
In case you missed it, petrol prices have fallen recently so make the most of it

Petrol Price Drop

It may be going up again soon . . .

Fuel Duty Rise

It's all a scam. The petrol retailers reduce the cost just before they know a rise is on the way. So unfair. Still getting 45 mpg daily from the 500 though. £30 per year to road tax, one of the highest rating cars residual-wise, it's simply a great motor.

Had a conversation about this with a friend the other night. My daily driver is a 1.9 Golf diesel and my 70 mile round trip to work gives me on average 65 mpg. Mainly motorway and a very light foot. I can however get 680 miles on one tank. Point being that although the price of fuel is rising I am filling up less than I did 3 years ago and spending less.
Filling up the Kombi with petrol however is a whole different ball game. ........!

harryhornet wrote:

Filling up the Kombi with petrol however is a whole different ball game. ........!

......... but it is all part of the fun of ownership

I'm still waiting for one of you Aqualot to stick a 1.4 SDI motor in - shouldn't be a massive job!

TimV wrote:

I'm still waiting for one of you Aqualot to stick a 1.4 SDI motor in - shouldn't be a massive job!

Would love a 1.9TDI in mine. Don't think the gearbox would last that long before it rips itself to shreds with all that torque though

TimV wrote:

£30 per year to road tax, one of the highest rating cars residual-wise

Was in the news this week

Two-tier Tax System

Because people are buying more efficient/greener cars, like we were told to do. The goverment are now short of funds so need to screw us over some other way.

Just can't win.

Dought it will actually come to anything though

Aside from more efficient cars paying less, one of the biggest holes in revenue is the increased number of foreign cars using UK roads, far more than there used to be and as they're not registered in the UK they don't pay VED. They 'should' be registered in the UK after 6 months, but unless the owners register them there's nothing the DVLA can do about them, but at least they still have to pay tax on their petrol/diesel use.

Another problem is foriegn lorries (HGV) who fill up with Diesel on the continent before coming to the UK, drive about on UK roads, then leave without contributing anything.

A few years back I worked on a project with Siemens looking at a government tender called 'Lorry Road User Charging'.

They canned it in the end, but not until Siemens and several other organisations had spent a few hundred thousand each, researching and developing plans, processes and technology to manage it.

They weren't best pleased at the time, but I believe this has been talked about again recently - Charging heavy goods vehicles

Up we go again!

Price Rise On the Way

Saw that this morning. Shocking. We'll all be on bicycles shortly and the car will be for weekends only, BraziBays just for holidays.

Screw the petrol companies - go electric.

Makes lpg more and more attractive

Edit: Just booked Sunny in for conversion. Funny how these things happen.

Sunny wrote:

Makes lpg more and more attractive

Does it? I thought the price per litre of LPG was creeping up to the point where that plus conversion don't necessarily make it viable. The Goverment are onto those fuel buyers too.

I think, given the environmental credentials of lpg, the govt is unlikely to narrow the tax differential in the near future, especially as they are trying to reduce pollution targets. But I dare say the lpg price will increase. But it is less prone to the fluctuations seen with petrol. Anyway, I like the idea of filling up for £30

Just a thought. How will you get on with filling up on LPG in France? The British system uses a 'bayonet nozzle' as opposed to the French 'dish nozzle'. I wonder if there is an adapter?

harryhornet wrote:

I wonder if there is an adapter?

There is (already checked)

Here we go again . . .

Up, Up and Away

Might need to plan your journey a little bit more to make every drop count

It's just ridiculous now. Fuel duty is ruining the motor industry and restricting people's lives. The motorist is simply being abused now as the tax can't be drawn from anywhere else now. #scandalous

Hunting High and Low - Are you on the high road or the low road . . .

High and Low

1.349/litre unleaded here at the moment, so their "cheapest" isn't.

Five least expensive towns to refuel:


Town Unleaded price per litre Cost of 60 litre tank (e.g. Ford Focus) Cost per 70 litre tank (e.g. Ford Galaxy)
Torquay 135.90 £81.54 £95.13
Kirkcaldy 136.24 £81.74 £95.37
Plymouth 136.42 £81.85 £95.49
Bradford 136.57 £81.94 £95.60
Wigan 136.64 £81.98 £95.65

Crikey, Wigan's in the Top 5.

Absinthe wrote:

Crikey, Wigan's in the Top 5.

I'd like to say "that's novel" but obviously can't.

There aren't many Top 5 lists that Wigan would feature in - apart from the RLSuperleague of course.