$1.99

I drove 48k miles last year. It's like a Christmas Miracle.
But, I bought for $1.95 in the morning and 1.5 hours later I was in Beachwood (Cleveland) and the stations were $2.44

Zomby Woof wrote:

NGTD wrote: As far as I am concerned, the price of gas in Canada is subject to rampant price fixing, however there is virtually no investigation or prosecution. The gov't has no incentive - higher gas prices inflate their revenue and the current party has a power base in the West.

It's been like that since I started driving. There's no way to describe it other than price fixing. How they get away with it, I don't know. It certainly has nothing to do with the current government. Anyway, paid $.87 this morning. that's about $2.84/ gallon. Not complaining.

Good Point - this has been going on even back when it was okay for the PM to flash the finger at the public. I shouldn't have implied that it is only the current party.

Price fixing is price fixing.

ggarrard wrote: To NGTD... I could counter that living in North Bay and Northern Ontario in general has other automotive related advantages to your neighbours in southern Ontario.... Like license fees that are 50% less per year (I pay 98$ per vehicle) and no compulsory emission tests at 35$ bi-annually once your car reaches 5 a years of age. There are times that I would like at least a mailing address north of Arnprior so I could save some tax dollars...

Yes we have that advantage but believe me at 14 cents a litre that differential disappears pretty quick.

My point is that price fixing is illegal and no one does anything about it. There have been "investigations" by the Competition Bureau and they always say there is no proof.

NGTD. No argument here... Around here gas prices even vary between the east and west ends of the city, with the west end usually being more expensive.
Cheers Gordon

Just noticed something interesting, what's standard pump gas octane in the us? The photo above shows 87 octane... I feel a little better knowing even our basic fuel is 91 octane. E10 (10% ethanol) is 94, premium is 95 and we also have 98 octane premium at most servo's. Still sucks that were paying 5+ dollars a gallon though.

Also can get 100 octane premium at one chain, though I believe its basically 98 octane blended with ethanol to make up the 2ron difference

In reply to ggarrard:

You forgot hour by hour!!! My brother lives just outside Ottawa. I can't believe how gas starts higher in the am and is down quite a bit by night!

Ngtd, governments rarely take price fixing seriously when they make more revenue when the fuel prices remain inflated. There's no incentive for them to do anything about it when it means they'd make less money as a result.

In reply to daeman:

It depends how it is rated - in NA gas is (MON+RON)/2

In many other areas it is rated by RON only.

Yes, governments have no incentive to deal with price fixing. It reduces their revenue.

and FINALLY it pays off to have a rotary! Or at least it just doesn't cost much more than a piston engine... For gas, I mean... apex seals are still pricey

Right, thanks, that makes sense... Although surely in this day and age we could all just use ISO standards and save the confusion... It appears our 98 is about a 94 in the us... So I'll go back to being jealous of how cheap fuel is elsewhere in the world.

as to the price fixing … it's as rampart here in the US as anywhere … locally the prices in a small sample area won't differ by more than 1-2¢ (name brand fuels) … the cut rate stations will all be the same (1-2¢ difference) but in both cases they're usually exactly the same … move 5 mi down the road and prices will again be within 1-2¢ at each station ….

this can be disregarded if a station is located at an exit from the interstate … then it can vary widely as much as 30 -40¢ higher than stations a .1 or .2mi away

and the same as others have reported, the price will vary as much as 5 -10¢ per gal in other areas of the county …. even within the same ownership

so even the station owners aren't meeting in some basement room and deciding who gets to charge what … it's still price fixing

^^^^^ THIS

IIRC correctly too a few years ago when gas was over $4.00 a gallon there was a couple of states that passed a law to set a maximum legal gas price and all of the stations just rose their prices immediately to that price.

Sometimes you have to drive around a bit to find a reasonable price. I used to live in Chicago and I got into the habit of driving into the Industrial/ghetto area north of Midway airport in Cicero just to find cheaper gas. If you pulled off of the freeway and stopped at the first station you saw near downtown it could be as much as $0.30 higher then a station in the suburbs!

$2.70 in Pittsburgh.