Supermarkets shouldn’t be responsible for cutting fuel costs

Sainsburys did this recently and we took advantage of it, like you say, only 2.50 off but its still 2.50 off something I was going to buy anyway.

The real ploy here though is to ensure that I fill up where I live. Rugby – St Albans, the difference in price per litre is…….

5p!!!

nothing will make me shop in morrisons again though, be it bread/meat/deli/fruit – it’s all way worse than any other supermarket I’ve been to

One thing not mentioned in this article is the Shell ‘Drivers Club’ Loyalty scheme (don’t know whether BP or others do one too). Buy petrol, earn points, get a voucher for a discount. I don’t use my car that often, but my most recent voucher gave me £3.50 off a tank (min 20ltrs) of V-Power – it’s £3.00 off normal unleaded/diesel, with no minimum. A better saving that at Sainsburys or Morrisons for 50ltrs, and the quality of the fuel is better. You will also get vouchers for free coffee etc at their petrol stations, so the savings continue…

If it wasn`t for supermarket fuel stations, the price of a litre now would be heading towards the £2 mark. Everybody should use the supermaket fuel, then the big oil companies, eg. Esso, Texaco would have to toe the line.

the stuff they sell is not that good as I know a golf gti that gets 50 miles less using super market fuel on a tank, also I work on cars and if they use supermarket fuel they are more likly to need a cat for the mot, they are oute to make money. if the fuel was the same as other sellers it would be worth using but right now I wont use it.

Think the fuel offers at supermarkets are great – unfortunately only have a Tesco petrol station in
our nearest town – Sainsbury’s 15 miles away – Morrisons 14 miles- a big help as we have two
big cars (do less then 4000 miles in each per annum now – so still very green!) but the Tesco
petrol offers do help. Don’t see why special deals any different to other special offers at
supermarkets.

Thes spend £40/£50 supermarket ‘offers’ discriminate against the single person household – the pensioner or single mum or dad.
l have written to my MP about this clear discrimination. l live in hope.
This is an issue, this discrimination, is a matter that Which should take up.
Perhaps the supermarkets should cut their prices for all. The profits are there.

I once checked up on a supermarket fuel saver deal. I looked at the fuel price at a filling station close to the supermarket and found that the price at the filling station was only 1p higher. Two or three weeks after the supermarket promotion had finished the filling station price was still only about 1p higher. Is it possible that the supermarkets are raising their price for the period that these offers are on ?

I went to a large Sainsbury’s at Chichester today to take advantage of a 5.00p per litre discount voucher. Their price for City Diesel was 143.9, whereas a small independent locally was charging 139.9. It was not worth the trouble as Sainsbury’s price was clearly not competitive.

The cheapest petrol stations on my journey to work are Asda, closely followed by Tesco. The Shell in the nearest city (24 miles away) is a lot cheaper. However, as a single person I would never manage to spend enough to get the vouchers, yet I have to travel a 58 mile round trip to work every day (have to go where the work is!) so I could really use them. There is a Morrisons close by the Tesco too but I wouldn’t go there to shop and the petrol is usually the same price or higher than Tesco. I see no difference between using vouchers for petrol or for shopping; if it’s cheaper I go for it.

Supermarket offers of cheap fuel when you spend a certain amount in store is all well and good, but when you consider THEY control the price at the pumps through their bulk buying forcing local retailers to be realistic in their pricing or go “to the wall”.As a multi-medium sales force, supermarkets, in cahoots with desperate manufacturers can offer in store deals to boost profits hence offering money off per litre. Once I took advantage of a Sainsburys offer of 5p off a litre, the fuel was substandard and it cost a lot of money to get my car running as it should, Sainsburys response was basically HARD LUCK, prove it, we’re bigger than you! Buyer beware! Supermarkets buy fuel from the spot market, fuel “down the hole” which has not been taken up by major suppliers and therefore become “tired” and probably contains water vapour which can affect modern engines.Once bitten I buy from local retailers and am happy to pay 1p a litre more for fuel that does the job as the £2.50ish you may save per tank can cost you, as it did me, £40 per tank to rectify!!

The day before the budget, our local ASDA increased their Diesel by 1p per litre. Budget NIGHT they took 1p off! The next day it was on again. It has since risen by 3p, and I expect it will rise before Easter in line with all other local Supermarkets and Petrol Stations. It is now 139.9 per litre.
To think that I was upset when petrol rose to 3s.4d (17p) PER GALLON, (about 4p per litre!), when I started driving in 1960.
So much for the Government’s big gesture! I can think of a few more appropriate gestures they deserve!!!

Forget about fuel prices. Look at driving for what it is – a treat only to be enjoyed for a few generations.

Of my four grandparents, a ride in a motor car was a rare treat for two of them, probably never happened for one, and even seeing a motor car was probably a talking point for one of my grandparents.

But, all the experts know that we are running out of oil. We might not be completely ‘dry’ for very many years yet, but I suspect the cost will become prohibitive in the next decade or so. My grandchildren might well view motor cars the way my grandparents did.

Enjoy it. We’re probably the luckiest generation in history.

agree with the comments, but only worth it if you are going to spend £40. And its not just the single and pensioners. There’s two of us, and I bought everything we needed today, including some Easter gifts, and still didn’t spend anywhere near £40. I shop at Morrisons because it’s cheap. More importantly, rahter than petrol costs coming down since the budget its gone up. The best deal is the collecting points on petrol spend which add up to £5 vouchers.

I am glad the supermarkets are reducing costs for the motorists. If they can still make a profit fair play to them. In northern Ireland a litre of Diesel costs £1.35 at Tesco’s. A Sainsbury store accross the road has matched that… but prior to Tesco opening near them their price was the same as any other retailer. Cut price fuel…. thank goodness. Better than paying £1.43 per litre for diesel. But why the government can take more than 50% of that on tax is surely ridiculous. How can that be justified. Also why are there so many post code variations in the price of fuel. Living in the country, there is no altrernative but to use the car. I really do not think it pays to work any longer. Better to stay at home and save the planet! less carbon emmissions!

WIll Mr Hull or any of the supermmarkets comment on the suggestions that supermarket fuel is an inferior grade to retial service stations?

As our weekly (main) shop is usually in excess of the £40 or £50 limits usually imposed by Supermarket promotions we tend always to take advantage of the offers and for my part I usually run my tank slightly lower than normal and fill up very close to the expiry date of the issued voucher. Additionally one of the best ways to save money in my view is to look out for competitive offers at those Supermarkets close to each other as they tend to use petrol as a “known value item” to lure you into the store. I filled up on 21st April at a local Sainsburys at £1.31 a litre and although this was 3p dearer than a week or so ago it still compares very favourably with the £1.40 being charged by a BP garage close to my home. That’s 9p a litre or almost 41p a gallon saving!

If you only buy your fuel from supermarkets, many of the filling stations not attached to supermarkets who are not able to offer this sort of deal will go out of business. With less competition supermarkets will then not be so worried about offering fuel at a competitive price but drivers will have no choice but to buy from them.
I run our community owned filling station as a volunteer. It is automated and sells fuel 24/7. It is in a very remote community in North West Scotland; we are almost two hours drive away from our nearest supermarket. We pay more per litre on delivery than the supermarkets sell fuel at, but we keep our margins as low as we possibly can. Local people and visitors understand how important it is that we keep our filling station and buy their fuel there. I never buy mine anywhere else. Prices today are diesel 1.499, U/L 1.439; that is with a margin of 6 pence added per litre which just covers our costs. If we lose our filling station it is the start of a slippery slope for the community; we will then lose our only grocery shop and PO as people will do their shopping when they leave to get fuel. Our numerous tourists will leave to get fuel and move on elsewhere instead of coming back to spend more time here.
If in Applecross this summer, please fill up at our filling station, we need your support.

Some of the tax should be taken off of fuel and put on alcohol and tobacco, as these have a knock on effect to the NHS and the Police services. More hybrid cars would be good so minimising the use of petrol and good for the environment. Another saving could be giving all MP’s a rise of £2,000 a year and stop them claiming any expenses!

We have to use a car as one of us is disabled and it has to be reasonably large to carry the person and equipment. A full tank now costs just under £65, disgusting.

I do make use of coupons off of petrol when Tesco and/or Sainsbury’s are running an offer.

There are so many reasons for wanting cheaper fuel costs as we all try to balance the cost of general living expenses. I understand the reason behind taxes, but if every government made better use of financial resources to every necessary component of running the country perhap sthe need for high fuel prices would not be needed. Fuel tax is an easy option for raising money. Its about time we in the UK began saying No. we seem to intervene in foreigh affairs much to often. Save money… fire less rockets, drop less bombs. Reduce tax and support the local economy.
I am selling my VW to buy a more economical 60MPG car…… just another economy in life.
As for Applecross……. yep Have been their on the motorbike. Love Scotland… but trying to find Petrol in scotland on a Sunday is a real nightmare!

I spent the required £50 at tesco to get my voucher for deisel. I duly filled up and
used my voucher onl to drive past a nearby filling station to find the advertised price
4p cheaper than tesco,s advertised price. My saving equalled 1p a litre, so much for
supermarket savings. BAH.

How will life seem when we have not only killed off our local shops ,but we have only supermarket service stations to get our fuel from. Why do we seem determined to let these companies dictate how our future will be. Oh! but the good deals may still be around until the Supermarkets have killed each other off as well.
Really, will we all be saving very much when we have to get the car out for every purchase. I can see everybody having to operate as if they live in the Australian outback to make shopping efficient.

Again the price of petrol, where I live – a Scottish Island we have 1 supermarket with no petrol station, is £149.9 Admittedly I am a single person but I would love the chance to have 5p a litre off!
Certainly my main shopping even once a fortnight would be over £40. Diesel of course is about £157.
Surely something should be done about this.!

Tesco Express is our only local supermarket filling station, and it seems they are not prepared to offer any deals. Whenever our other local garage increases it’s price, Tesco do the same, and only give you half the points on your card that they would give you on your grocery shopping, so it’s hardly worth making a detour to fill up there. Why can’t they sell all their fuel at the same price up and down the country, surely they buy it at the same price. They are 5p per litre more expensive than supermarkets 20 miles away.

A few years ago, supermarket fuel was always 2-5p/litre cheaper than local filling stations, although then as now the price varied, sometimes by several p/litre, from town to town with no logical reason other than that is what they could demand. Now that many local filling stations have gone to the wall, frequently there is little or no difference in price; in fact recently in Stratford on Avon the local Shell station was 1p/litre cheaper than Tesco. “Every little helps” said the sign by its filling station, but in this case the help was to Tesco.

On a slightly different tack, why is diesel once again significantly more expensive than petrol? In Europe it is much cheaper.

Increased fuel costs actually help smaller local shops v. the supermarkets as people are more likely to use them rather than travel to the supermarket. This also means less fuel is burnt, making my air slightly cleaner and more healthy. A third benefit is that less driving or slower more economical driving means less likelihood of people being killed on the roads.