No one complaining about gas/diesel prices?

[maxtdi]

A little surprising :iono:

Kind of crazy here in Cali, we're well over $4 while Colorado and a few other states are at $3. And this has nothing to do with taxes etc, the gap in price between cali and the rest of the US grew a bit larger as of late.

I am really glad I sold my Jeep Grand Cherokee back in August last year. I was spending $350-400 a month in gas on it. :mad0259:

Anyways just wanted to vent :thumbup:

 

[McQueen77]

Yeah it blows but prices in L.A. have hovered around $4 for over a year now, but the $4.50 i have been paying blows. I don't dive that much in terms of distance and only do about 8k miles a year on the car, so its not a huge blow and it costs me like $120 a month for fuel. If i had to commute long distances everyday, it would start to add up.

 

[danielj1]

I think people are getting used to the volatile prices of fuel that it's not really news anymore. In the Seattle area, a gallon of regular is now over $4.

The worst has yet to come. Oh well, we don't control prices so out of our hands.

 

[Saabstory]

I average about 3000 miles or more per month... I don't even bother looking at the gas price anymore, I just fill the tank 3 times a week and keep going...

 

[tmiw]

It's mostly because of the economy improving and the stuff going on with Iran. Not much you can do about that short of tanking the economy again.

 

[mk6medic]

Yeah, while it sucks, it's something we are used to. Especially in pay-for-good-weather California.

This summer is going to be bad. I'm glad I have a car that gets over 30 mpg but is still a blast to drive! I may be biking more though.

 

[dragon69185]

Unfortunately, as everyone has said, we are kind of use to gas prices increasing at any given time, especially with the issues in the middle east.

Since most places are having/had a mild winter, more people are commuting and with summer along the way, I was already figuring gas pricing to increase pretty rapidly. Lucky for me, gas price is still less than $4 for the most part and I predict by mid summer (June/July) it will get up to $5 (if not more due to what is going on in the middle east). Just how things go...

 

[Stadpad]

no matter what it is i'll buy it. i live to drive.

 

[Bender1]

no matter what it is i'll buy it. i live to drive.

Bingo! I drive 24,000 miles a year and wont change until its over 6 bucks a gallon

 

[NoRegrets78]

That's what the oil companies are counting on.

It baffles me how these companies like Exxon post BILLIONS in pure profit every quarter yet the fuel costs as much as it does.

 

[maxtdi]

Well... your personal budgets will be stretched in more ways than 1.

Oil touches every single consumable on the planet... and prices for everything will follow...

You may pay $20 extra in gas per month but really the other goods will go up by $200-300. That's the scary part.

 

[mk6medic]

Well... your personal budgets will be stretched in more ways than 1.

Oil touches every single consumable on the planet... and prices for everything will follow...

You may pay $20 extra in gas per month but really the other goods will go up by $200-300. That's the scary part.

Bingo. It'll be interesting to see how the economy reacts to this.

Also, I'm not sure at what point I would change my driving habits. I pretty muchbonly drove to work and back and also necessary errands. Guess those would diminish.

 

[maxtdi]

I work for a very large retailer... in 08 when oil prices peaked all kinds of non sense was happening all our vendors were hitting us with surcharges everywhere, frequently making profits by "hedging" against future prices.

Everything started getting downsized (13oz lays were now 11.5oz) to provide the illusion of no cost increases on the same product.

Anyways, the recent jump is pretty troubling, we're almost at 08 levels here in cali again.

 

[balius]

I average about 3000 miles or more per month... I don't even bother looking at the gas price anymore, I just fill the tank 3 times a week and keep going...

Same here. Recently applied for a job closer to home once I realized the 50% of my expendable (after all bills) income was going to gas..

 

[DougDome]

That's what the oil companies are counting on.

It baffles me how these companies like Exxon post BILLIONS in pure profit every quarter yet the fuel costs as much as it does.

It's basically speculative futures trading that drives up the price at the pump. It doesn't necessarily translate to the rising cost of drilling it out of the ground. Since oil is a commodity, the sellers (exxon, bp, etc) sell their oil for whatever the market price is. Because people speculate that either demand will increase/supply will decrease in the future, prices go up immediately.

tl;dr oil companies make lots of money because what it's being sold for is nowhere near what it costs for them to drill.