The first time I visited the US was in July 1999. I remember the month and year clearly because I was laying on the bed with my future wife in a Best Western near Atlanta airport watching television when news of JFK Jr’s plane crash broke. That evening a bartender looked at me like I had two heads when I asked him to explain something about the baseball game that was on. There was another thing I remember about that trip though. Petrol prices. A few days later when we were in North Carolina, I saw petrol priced at 89c a gallon. Eighty nine cents. Not even a round dollar. Welcome to America.
Like my marriage those days are long gone, but in general America still enjoys cheaper petrol prices than the rest of the world. One of the great pervading myths in the UK is that everything is cheaper in America. My completely unscientific research based on multiple visits is that really only ever held true for petrol and housing (and the latter is catching up) but almost everything else is comparatively more expensive stateside. A few different factors contribute to the discrepancy in petrol prices, but the overriding reason is the amount of tax paid.
In the UK petrol is sold in liters (but we measure distance and speed in miles. Liquids are sold in metric measurements except milk and pub sold beer. Welcome to the UK). At the moment, the average price near me is £1.36.9 per liter of regular unleaded. This works out to roughly £6.23 per imperial gallon (1 imperial gallon = 4.55 liters). But the US uses its own gallon which is smaller than an imperial gallon. This isn’t because when colonial settlers landed in America they damaged their weights throwing them at Native Americans but because America adopted the wine gallon as opposed to the gallon used for measuring ale like everyone else. You’d have thought it would have been the other way round, but this was probably the fault of the Germans because they have beer with breakfast. I’ve always considered them very civilized. Consequently an imperial gallon is 20% larger than a US one, so for you tea microwavers, taking into account the differing volumes and currency conversions that per liter price works out to about $6.58 per US gallon. Pictured below is a screenshot of prices local to me, filtered to show the cheapest first taken from PetrolPrices.com.
A Tale Of Two Tanks
What does all this mean in the real world? The tank capacity for my 2010 Cooper Clubman is quoted at 40 liters. I put about fifty quids worth of unleaded in about every three weeks, which the trip computer tells me should be good for some 350 miles or so; in reality I get about 320 and maybe a little more if I go right into the reserve, which I don’t because I’m not an idiot who likes introducing random elements of high jeopardy into my daily life. That works out to about 8 (imperial) gallons and just under 40 mpg, which is roughly what the car tells me I get. My driving mostly consists of short journeys running errands around town, and my regular RC racing on a Friday night. Depending on what motorways Highways England has randomly decided to shut down for roadworks to bugger up my journey, that can range from a sixty to an eighty mile round trip.
In the US you get three grades of unleaded – regular 87 Octane, which I’m pretty sure I can piss stronger than that after a couple of cups of decent coffee. Mid-grade 89 Octane, so middle of the road big oil couldn’t even come up with a decent name. And she needs premium dude! PREMIUM!’ that could be anywhere from 91 to 94 Octane. Something similar exists in the land of maple syrup, but in the UK, our regular unleaded that most normal cars run happily on is 95 Octane. Our super unleaded is 98. As regular readers know by now I have another, slightly more highly strung car. Take a wild guess which grade that one drinks. Accordingly, super unleaded which usually has a fancy name like Shell V Power, runs about 20p per liter more expensive than normal unleaded. With its continental touring sized tank, empty to brim the Ferrari swallows 103 liters (27 US gallons) of the stuff. My last receipt for the Mondial was £130.75 ($165.85) and because the fuel gauge is at best approximate, that was for a mere 81 liters. For those keeping score at home, 103 times 20 pence equals twenty quid ($25) extra per tank over regular unleaded. Bloody hell.
I Am Not Moaning About Owning A Ferrari, Honestly
I usually get the Ferrari out every couple of weeks or so, because they need to be driven and they don’t like sitting around. The first year I had it, because I was feeling my way in gently reliability wise, I didn’t stray too far from home, totaling only about 1500 miles or so. Last year I was determined to take it further. It repaid my trust on its first long distance trip by spectacularly shitting itself on the way to Brands Hatch. But once repaired, that June I took it to Le Mans Classic in France and last September I took it all the way across Europe for a once in a lifetime trip to the Italian Grand Prix. At the end of that pan-European sojourn I drove home, unpacked and repacked, had a cup of coffee and headed straight back down the motorway to meet up with a used car salesman and a blackjack dealer for an Autopian invasion of the Goodwood Revival. All told, the Mondial did over 2500 miles in nine days. I didn’t work out the total fuel bill on purpose. Sometimes you’ve just got flex the plastic and say fuck it.
It seems incongruous to own an old Ferrari and talk about running costs, but I’m not of means. If I was, would I be working here? I did a lot of research before buying the thing to make sure I wouldn’t be underwater as soon as the first annual service came due and I’ve been a bit clever with a couple of small issues. But seeing as I love driving it, and enjoy other people enjoying it, I’ll take any advantage in minimizing the operating expenses I can get. And when it comes to putting petrol in it, good old fashioned American capitalism as always has an answer.
If you were paying close attention to the price comparison screenshots earlier, you might have noticed an outlier significantly cheaper than the others: Costco. We’ve had Costco in the UK since 1993, although they’ve flown a bit under the radar a bit as that type of big-box membership retail fitted into our twee little island about as well as a full size pick-up. There are 29 locations up and down the country (for comparison at 93,000 square miles the UK is 5000 square miles smaller than Oregon, but a hell of a lot more crowded). Best of all there’s one up the road from me in Coventry. And their super unleaded is priced at £1.39.9, or the same price as normal unleaded at a local forecourt. Perfect. Brim the thing up to the neck and enjoy winding it out past 7000 rpm without a care in the wallet. Just one small snag.
I Don’t Want To Be A Member Of Any Club That Would Have Me
In the US to become a Costco member you have to be over 16 and able to fog a mirror. In the UK it’s more bureaucratic because in an apparent twist of irony it looks like they’re trying to exclude the type of person who would be shopping there; the riffraff. Maybe Costco membership is some sort of badge of honor amongst the great unwashed. Who knows? What I do know is that despite not being a current or retired member of local government, the emergency services, the armed forces (I have few regrets in life; not serving is one), a former airline pilot or a practicing lawyer, doctor or architect, I am in fact a tutor in higher education and a director of my own company. So I qualify for either an individual membership as an education employee or a trade membership as a director, although trust me neither of these are as prestigious as they sound.
Yesterday I filled in the joining form online and paid the annual fee – the princely sum of £33.60. And today I drove to the Costco in Coventry. As usually happens, as soon as I stopped the Ferrari was swarmed by onlookers (well three or four) wanting pictures and could I please rev it up? Membership has its privileges indeed. I took the opportunity to have a look around the aircraft hanger and if I ever want a set of off-brand golf clubs, a pallet of black hair dye or laundry appliances whose price is only revealed online well now I know where to come. Judging by the queues at the self service pumps Costco is a popular location for fill ups, but at £1.31.9 for regular unleaded is only 5p per liter cheaper than the supermarket down the road. At that little difference it would take 660 liters to break even on the cost of membership, or about 16 tanks for my Mini which hardly seems worth the effort. But as promised the super unleaded was £1.39.9, some 20p per liter cheaper than other places.
Unfortunately for me I only filled the Ferrari up last Sunday, so this time it only took 18 liters, saving me the grand total of £1.60. Which would have been enough to buy the famous Costco hot dog and soda for lunch, at £1.50. Except they didn’t fucking have any. So I went to McDonalds in a huff.
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Well my Sam’s business membership was paid for in 3 months using regular unleaded. I do prefer Costco though none are near me.
The great thing about Costco in the US is that they don’t massively overcharge for Premium gas vs Regular, like everybody else does.
My local Shell happens to sell the least expensive gas in the area (surprising, I know), but a gallon of Premium is exactly $1 more expensive than Regular. Which is insane.
At Costco, a gallon of Regular is about the same price as at my Shell, but their Premium is just 20 or 30 cents more expensive.
When I started driving in the late 1990s, I remember only 10 cents separating each fuel grade. An extra 20 cents/gallon to get premium was no big deal. Now it’s 50 cents separating each grade.
North-East Coast is a full-blown dollar difference or close to it most of the time. Used to be less but it keeps climbing, even with gas prices going down.
RON =/= R+M/2
Australian petrol is 91, 95 or 98 octane, although I can’t remember whether the octane definition is the same as British or Us octane, or something different entirely.
There’s a Costco just walking distance from my house, but I have zero interest in a membership because I don’t buy enough of anything including fuel to be worth the membership, and the lines for fuel on the weekends are HORRENDOUS. Fortunately I only have to fill up my own car once a month or less, because it gets very little use – 99% of my driving is in my work van, and I don’t pay for its fuel.
Average fuel prices here fluctuate around the $2 per litre mark – right now a website tracking fuel prices lists the Costco at $1.65 per litre, and the local Shell at $2.19 a litre.
That bit about the different type of gallons made me want to scream.
Join the metric system like the rest of the world guys.
Though I live in California, I spent 3 years working in South Korea near Seoul. If you think Costco in the US is busy, think again. To get into the parking structure, you joined a queue that went around the entire block up to twice before getting into parking. They had people that kept spaces periodically in the queue to keep access for driveways. Once in the structure, there is a sign indicating the number of spaces available on each floor. Lights (green for unoccupied, red otherwise) were above each space.
Inside the multistory building, you changed floors either by elevator or by switch-back moving ramps. I only did this once or twice. My friend, an exec at Samsung, would have his driver drop him off and then would circle the area until he was called to pick him up. My alternative was to shop at E-mart on Sunday mornings, when things were quiet. No gas in Costco near Seoul, at least when I was there (2010-2013).
That sounds like the parking hell in Vegas casino garages.
I don’t use grocery delivery service except for Costco. Thanks to instacart I haven’t set foot inside a Costco in years.
There are so many Costco “tips” but they might not all apply outside the US. Even if you don’t use the Costco gas stations, Costco membership allows you access to the truly epic Costco credit card which is 4% cash back on gas no matter where you buy it. 3% on travel, 2% on purchases at Costco and 1% everywhere else. This is why Costco literally has a blockbuster 1st quarter every year, because all the credit card cash back vouchers are issued in February and you have to got to Costco to get the cash, but most people just spend the money at Costco. A lot of the Kirkland branded alcohol is very good and exceptional deals, especially the French wine, including champagne. And there’s a whole coded language to the price tags (what the ending fraction of a dollar is), which makes every visit a treasure hunt. Oh, and the biggest price differential between Costco gas and the prevailing prices I’ve seen is on Maui, where it’s as much as a dollar cheaper.
Tell me more about this dollar fraction thing.
I have one of those cards and the refund I’m getting back is distressingly huge.
Every price ending is a code. Lots of stuff written about it online, but the basics are:
Prices that end in 97¢: These have been marked down from the regular priced items, which end in 99¢Odd pricing, such as 79¢, 49¢, or 89¢: These indicate specially priced items that Costco got a deal from the manufacturer. Sometimes these can be better deals than at other stores, but not usually better than the 97¢ markdown.An asterisk* on the upper right side of the sign: The item won’t be reordered, when it’s gone, it’s gone.88¢ or .00 endings: Manager markdowns. Sometimes the company uses these to move a product very fast, so typically stuff they only have a few left and they’re trying to clear it out.
Costco? McDonalds? I thought you were British.
Pfft.
All sarcasm aside, I have a Costco a couple miles from my home. I never fuel up there. The pumps are as constantly crowded as the store. Add to that the indignity of living in the only state that thinks I’m too stupid to pump my own gas (the irony being my gas is still cheaper than neighboring states) and you have a recipe for a gas station experience that is much too fucking long, especially since there are never enough attendants.
On the European gas being higher octane bit, Europe just uses a different measurement from the US. The numbers on the pump are different, but the product is basically the same, modulo additives and ethanol, etc.
US uses (RON+MON)/2, Europe uses RON.
RON=Research Octane Number
MON=Motor Octane Number
Surprised I didn’t see anyone else comment this. Adrian, unlike most Brits or Americans you knew that our liquid measurements are slightly different, but not that Octane ratings between the Americas and Europe are??
Tbh in the Slack Thomas mentioned AKI and I ignored it as some kind of Canadianese.
I have a former coworker who is English, and we’ve had great fun talking about the funny little differences. She has lived in the states for a few years and had no idea that the liquid measurement was different, even though her husband kept complaining about how small the beers are!
The best was when she said to a room full of people “say it on the tannoy” and I had to tell her that no one in the room but me had the faintest clue what she meant.
AKI or Anti-Knock Index is just a fancy name for (R+M)/2.
Sunoco (IIRC) used to carry 94 octane, but I haven’t seen that in decades. Unless there’s somewhere else that still carries it, it’s got to be pretty rare or gone. CA only goes up to 91. I forget the reasons for it and I’m too lazy to look it up. I think most other places in the US have 93 available (it’s all I use here in the Northeast). In the mountains, I saw 85. Tried it in my Subaru that ran fine on 87 drunken-piss gas, but that shit was a bridge too far. Add in high altitude asthma on a 130 hp N/A engine (though I think that number was underrated, it was definitely no Hellcat) and I wasn’t passing 25 mph semis on 2-lane inclines without a death wish.
Yeah, theres a few brands around me who sell 85, and almost no one sells higher than 91. I’m in the rocky mountains.
“… damaged their weights throwing them at Native Americans…”
As a lifelong United Statesman I’ve never heard this explanation for our catawampus system of weights and measures, but it makes sense: the official reference weights were used as weapons instead of scientific tools. Cudgels, bludgeons, shillelaghs.
It’s in our heritage to beat things with blunt instruments rather than evaluate them accurately.
It’s probably how baseball was invented.
That would be very difficult as the very first reference kilogram wasn’t made until 1799.
The *actual* reason that US and UK units differ is because some of the original colonies included land taken and purchased from France, Spain, and Holand, all of whom had their own systems
Meanwhile, the British didn’t even bother to create the Imperial system until 1824, which you might note was after we not one, but TWO wars against them.
https://blog.ansi.org/2018/06/why-pint-bigger-in-uk-than-in-us-volume/#:~:text=However%2C%20an%20American%20fluid%20ounce,is%20less%20dense%20than%20water.
I put tires on my Ferrari at Costco – by far the best price on Michelin’s installed and having had many sets put on different cars at this store I find them to be as caring and professional as any other tire fitter I have been to. I never get gas there because the lines are always 5+ cars deep. I save my grocery store points and get a $1 off per gallon at Shell – it adds up quickly when you are getting 20+ gallons
Mine has fucking TRXs.
Yeah that’s a problem – they don’t sell those!
My only regret in leaving urban living for the rural mountains is being so damn far from a Costco, my lord and savior.
You think 87 is low, come out to high elevation and you’ll see 85 octane unleaded. We have to pay extra to get up to 87 (midgrade).
I looked into this once and supposedly they do that because you don’t need as much octane at elevation to avoid detonation.
Yeah, and in most cases it’s probably true. I’ve never had any issues running 85.
Is it a Rocky Mountain region thing? I grew up in New Mexico and it’s 85 there. Moved to Wisconsin and it’s 87. Then there’s Iowa, they’ve got their own weird thing happening there.
In my experience it is. I’m guessing the Rockies are the only part of the US that is at high enough elevation for it to be relevant. Also, you have to drive a long way to get back to lower elevation, versus some other mountainous regions where you might fill up with 85 and then immediately drive to an elevation where it would be a problem.
If you ever wonder about weirdness in Iowa, just assume it has something to do with the corn lobby. In this case they’re pushing ethanol so 89 is frequently cheaper than 87.
Yep, that is the case in Iowa, Big Corn. The extra options always confuse me when I’m filling up there LOL.
Yeah, it’s a Rockies thing. CO, NM, WY, and some of UT (I think) all have 85. Drive east to Kansas or down to Arizona, and 85 disappears. Not sure what the elevation cutoff is for 85, but a guess would be 3500′-4000′.
Do they have pizza there? Here you can still get a whole one for $10.
Do not do this unless your intention is to powerwash your insides and learn how it feels to regrow a gut biome from square one.Hey I bet the UK pizza is great you should try it
UK pizza can’t be better than banana and pineapple curry Swedish pizza:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PizzaCrimes/comments/wc9s49/swedish_bananacurry_pizzawhy/?rdt=49680
My People!
We also put Steak with Sauce Béarnaise on pizza. Mental.
Mental indeed! That belongs in a calzone!
(You might call it a pasty)
I was so disgusted at the lack of hotdogs I didn’t investigate alternative ‘food’ options.
The pizza is better than the hot dogs.
What??? Adrian has joined Costco? This simple act Belies your Gothic roots, attitude and fashion choices!
What next Adrian? Will you be spending your entire weekends at home alone, in the dark, watching EastEnders or Coronation Street reruns? ¯\_༼ ಥ ‿ ಥ ༽_/¯
You must overcome! Don’t be like them! Do not assimilate ! ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
Don’t worry I still have my Cyberdog loyalty card.
Good Man! 🙂
Didn’t know they’d opened one near your old haunts at Lakeside.
The bigger issue for all my older cars is the Ethanol Blend. I generally end up getting 91-93 in my area as that is the only octane ratings without the Corn Alcohol that tends to mess with my carbs. My air cooled motorcycles, even with FI, still seem to live happier with real gas for some reason as well.
You can buy higher octane, but generally it is considered racing gas, and I have only ever seen it sold at one gas station decades ago. Cam 2 was available in 110, 112, and 116 octane leaded, and 100 and 104 unleaded, and was very expensive, like 4 times the price of actual gasoline you could buy anywhere else.
Super Unleaded is either E10 or E 5 (10% or 5%) ethanol. The Ferrari should get E5, but the occasional tank of E10 won’t hurt it.
Interesting. Where I am 88 octane is the best non ethanol I ever really see.
I have traveled one state up, fully a corn state to be honest and at those Casey’s stores the 87 is ethanol free while everything else is E10.
The Hy Vee stations have the E15, E85, and standard E10, but they also seem to be the ones with 91 octane no ethanol fuel as well. it can get confusing for some especially when the diesel handles are not green as they are at other stations.
I have a costco membership but can’t be bothered to get gas there. The lines are always long and my work covers gas in my DD WRX. My MG and Jeep don’t care what you put in them as long as it is flammable.
I thankfully/hellishly live close enough that it’s easy to go in off hours, and even then I only do it when the truck is at 1/4 or lower, meaning I need 18+ gallons and the savings makes some kind of difference. Otherwise, an ex put it very well. After seeing the gas lines on the way in, she said “I’d pay more not to go through that line.”
Costco is the bloody, hungry edge of the knife of capitalism. It devolves into chaos when a hot electronic or toy is 10% cheaper than Walmart, and I get an overriding sense that Costco shoppers are largely the same sort of folks that sit in line for four hours on Throwback Gas Price days, totally ignoring they’ve wasted hours of time and gallons of gas to save $1.30 across 15 or 20 gallons. People become completely selfish and self-absorbed after they’ve made it through checkout – it’s almost post-coital, as they wind into themselves and park up mid-exit to look at their receipts, to block the entire walkway by centering up and slowing down, whether the Red Sea was ready to swallow them whole again is as nothing to – did I buy two gallons of automatic dishwasher detergent? I’d better check. Oh. I did. I can keep walking now, but slowly and with suspicion because if I had a feeling one thing was wrong, even though it wasn’t, that’s a wide open opportunity for something else to be wrong!
So yeah. Costco.
Somehow, folks can’t go to the ‘discount’ place and spend less than $300. I get my membership for free but if I didn’t I would cancel it in a heartbeat.
Yeah, I go to Costco once or twice each month and I’m always puzzled by the people waiting in lines around the parking lot and into the street to save maybe a dollar per tank, especially when some of those people in line are driving Aston Martins or Bentleys. I was told the ‘job creators’ time is precious, which is why we have to give them tax breaks 🙂
Since my DD is a VW diesel that gets about 40mpg city and about 45 hwy I can never be bothered to care what gas (or diesel) costs; I hope it gets to $20/gal soon so less Suburbans on the highway when I’m riding my bike
My Father-in-law was the type of guy who would drive across town and go to 3 different stores to save $1.50 on something. No concept of time and the amount of gas to get places.
Oh god Mother Dearest, before she was housebound, was exactly like this.
I only go if it is really early in the morning or just before they close. Any other times there would be lines.
Drive thru McDonalds in a Ferrari, you ARE American!
Unfortunately my passport says otherwise.
Eh, give it a year or two and you will be chucking tea into a harbor. And spelling harbor without a ‘u’.
…and spelling tyres as tires
And referring to a “bonnet” as an article of clothing
And calling it the ‘trunk’ instead of the ‘boot’.
Fun fact in the studio we used to use American terms when describing parts of the car. AFAIK this is a universal inside design studios.
Fun fact: DLO is an American term and you can’t tell me otherwise and even if it isn’t we’re claiming it because there isn’t a more esoteric car design term.
I don’t care.
Adrian is the English Doug Demuro.
At least in this regard.
I do have a lot of quirks and features.
At least in the US, Costco makes sure their gas is fresh, well filtered and has the best cleaning additives for the lowest price in the area. It helps that their stations are immaculate and the attendants quite attentive. I save a good $6-7 a fillup there putting 93 octane dino juice into my tuned Cruze. I don’t use their gas for small engines since it has ethanol here.
An Atlanta Costco was just in the news for tainted gas.
This why the same vehicle in the US is rated at 20% lower MPG than in other parts of the world.
It weirded me out a little when I watched the episode of “Still Game” when Navid and Tam go to pick up supplies for Navid’s store at Costco. I guess the need for 24-packs of Kirkland toilet paper is universal.
Last night at Costco I got
It was a delightfully eclectic run. The eye dilation made buying the produce a trip, let me tell you.
Welcome to the club, Adrian!
97 octane ?? phooey my Merlin requires 150
Even in the UK they do the stupid 9/10 at the end of the price? And it always bothered me that the fuel gauge in the Ferrari has 4/4, 1/2, 0. Just pick a god damn denominator.
The price per litre (sic) really should have been denoted at £1/8/-.
I can’t even with that stupid system.
If I’ve done my math correctly, it should really be just shy of £6/7/2½ per ale gallon, as Britain had not yet temporarily joined the European Communities at the time of decimalisation (sic).