(from Yahoo! Finance)
1. “Good luck finding the best deal.”When it comes to gas prices, most stations are branded—meaning the name of a major oil company hangs out front—and must buy gas from their proprietary company. They can’t shop around. With a lock on sales, the oil companies charge each station a different price depending on various factors, such as the station’s competition and its location. That means a station can pay as much as 46 cents a gallon more than one down the street, and that cost gets passed along to you.
You’d be wise to shop around—with prices constantly in motion, the cheapest gas may not be at the same station every time.
2. “I hate it when gas prices go up.”Stations earn on average between 10 and 15 cents on a gallon of gas. Ironically, they earn the least when prices are highest.
When fuel climbs, gas stations must shrink their profit margin to remain competitive, meaning they earn less per gallon than usual. But another big cost during tough times is something they can’t do anything about—credit card fees, which add up to about 2.5 percent of all purchases. When gas is at, say, $2 a gallon, the station pays credit card companies 5 cents a gallon; when gas hits $3, that fee becomes 7.5 cents—more than half the station’s entire average profit.
“Those credit card fees are miserable for the gas station business."
How do station owners make up for lost revenue? “Prices go up like a rocket and come down like a feather”. For several weeks after wholesale prices drop, stations can earn as much as 20 cents a gallon before retail prices are lowered to reflect the change.
3. “My gas isn’t better for your car; it’s just more expensive.”Oil companies spend lots of money explaining why their gas is better than the competition’s. But today more than ever, one gallon of gas is as good as the next.
True, additives help to clean your engine, but what the companies don’t tell you is that all gas has them. Since 1994 the government has required that detergents be added to all gasoline to help prevent fuel injectors from clogging. State and local regulators keep a close watch to make sure those standards are met.
So, “There’s little difference between brand-name gas and any other."
4. “If you’re smart, you’ll put that debit card away . . .”Your debit card might be a convenient way to pay for gas, but it’s a no-win proposition. When you swipe a debit card at the pump, the bank doesn’t know how much money you’ll be spending until you’ve finished pumping. So to make sure you have the funds to cover the purchase, some stations ask banks to automatically set aside some of your money: That amount can be $20 or more. That means even if you just topped off your tank for $10, you could be out $30, $50, even $100 until the station sends over its bulk transactions, which can take up to three days.
If your funds are running low, you might end up bouncing a check in the meantime—even though you had the money in your account.
Unfortunately, paying inside with your debit card isn’t much of a solution either. Many banks charge their customers between 50 cents and $1 for the privilege of using their debit card in any PINbased transaction. The American Bankers Association estimates only 13 percent of consumers pay these fees, but critics say the practice is on the rise and consumers are often unaware of these charges.
5. “. . . and don’t even consider applying for our gas card.”When it comes to gasoline credit cards, a little research goes a long way. The good deals are great, but the bad deals are really bad. Similar to store cards issued through retailers, gas cards are riddled with drawbacks. APRs are high, starting above 20 percent; many don’t offer rebates on gas purchases; and they often lack standard protections such as fraud monitoring and zero liability for unauthorized transactions.
What about a Visa or MasterCard affiliated with a gasoline brand like Exxon or BP? They often offer lower interest rates and significant rebates, but limit your ability to shop around.
6. “Looking for the cheapest gas in town? Try the Internet.”You can’t actually buy gas online, but Web resources can help you find the cheapest fill-up in town. Among them, GasPriceWatch.com and GasWatch.info help people track pump prices. But the most comprehensive of the bunch is GasBuddy.com, which includes a network of 174 local sites, complete with maps and message boards that tally gas price by ZIP code.
7. “It’s a gallon when I say it’s a gallon.”It’s hard to know if you’re getting all the gas you paid for at the pump. But in some places there’s a very good chance you’re not. The state or county weightsand- measures department usually checks pumps for accuracy, but in some areas it can be years between inspections.
The good news is that it’s often easy to catch the most common problem: Older pumps in poor repair may begin charging you for gas before you’ve pumped it. Check the meter to make sure it registers $0.00 before you begin and doesn’t start charging you before the fuel is flowing.
8. “I might gouge you on a soda, but my coffee’s a real bargain.”With margins on gas taking a hit—in 2006, fuel sales made up 71 percent of revenue but only 34 percent of gross margins—stations are increasingly looking to their convenience stores for income. Given that fact, you’d assume the average Kwik-E-Mart to be a terrible place to buy just about anything. But that’s only partially true.
Stock that usually sits on the shelf does tend to be vastly overpriced, so if you forgot ketchup on the way to a barbecue, you can bet you’ll pay a lot more for it at a gas station than you would at a supermarket.
What about popular beverages? You’ll pay more for a 20-ounce soda at a gas station than you would for a two-liter bottle in a supermarket; water and energy drinks similarly tend to have high markups.
But there are bargains to be had: Some high-volume goods, such as cigarettes and beer, are often competitively priced at gas stations. And a cup of coffee goes for a fraction of what you’d pay at Starbucks.
9. “If you’re having car trouble, you’re in the wrong place.”The days of the local gas station staffed with a skilled mechanic have all but come to an end. Station owners are swapping car lifts for beverage cases and car washes, anything that brings in a highvolume stream of income and traffic.
The more people who pull over for a soda, the greater the chance they’ll top off their tank and vice versa, the thinking goes. Few owners want the hassle of a business like car repair even if it earns the same amount of money as a convenience store.
In addition, repairing cars is increasingly expensive, and the ill will and potential liability from a fix-it job gone wrong are more of a headache than many owners are willing to risk.
10. “You don’t even need gas to run your car.”Cars run on gasoline—but not all cars need gasoline to run. In fact, 6 million cars on the road today (mostly from U.S. manufacturers and built since 1998) are “flexible fuel” vehicles that can run on E85, a fuel that is 85 percent ethanol and only 15 percent gas.
While E85 generally costs less than regular gas, there is some concern that it may grow prohibitively expensive as demand outpaces supply: By 2006 ethanol was not just being used in E85—it also composed 15 percent of every gallon of gas sold.
Supplies of ethanol are likely to grow thin, which could drive up the price of E85. And die-hards say they won’t buy E85 if it starts to cost more than gasoline.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107117/10-Things-Gas-Stations-Won%27t-Tell-You?mod=family-autos
