Informal gas pump survey

Gus_Mahn

Gus_Mahn

Joined
Nov 5, 2017
Messages
277
Location
Great Lakes
I watched a short where the guy walked around the gas station and looked at what was on the pumps to try to understand his community’s financial state. My last trip to the station I did the same. Of the 8 pumps at this station, only two appeared to show full tank fill ups. The rest were $5-$20. What do you see at your stations?
 
Remember that a majority of people in this country can not pay for a $500 car repair without financing it. Those folks are the ones buying 3-5 gallons at a time. My lady friends 25 y.o. grand daughter is a person that falls into that category. Constantly asking Karen for $20 till payday.
 
I always pay attention to what last guy bought, and have been for years. My unscientific conclusion is that in the morning people fill up, because it’s mostly contractors and such, and in the afternoon to evening, it’s small amounts, because it’s younger people, etc. best conclusion I have come to and never much changes.

The demand elasticity of gasoline is very flat, meaning people complain about it all the time, but they still buy the same amount. A better gauge is to look at what people have in the grocery cart at the store because there are trade down options there.
 
I get gasoline solely at Costco in NJ near my work. I suspect people all fill up. At least from my position, I always hear pumps click off around me.

Why? The fuel is cheaper, and, it is slow due to full service ($2.679 and $3.179 87 and 93 yesterday). I try to arrive with my fuel no higher than half. Not worth it otherwise with the time factor.

Costco may not be a good representation of America. It's likely a very leisurely well off crowd imho--it's always packed during working hours. Nobody is in a hurry except myself and maybe 2-3 others as we are on our lunch breaks.
 
How does looking at the pump tell you anything without talking to the person filling up? I drive very little and regularly fill up at 2/3 tank of fuel. It's like $10. Would you assume I was on hard times if you saw my pump?

My scooter holds 2 gallons. I fill up around half tank. If you saw $3 on the pump would you assume someone was destitute?
 
Last edited:
JoelB said:
How does looking at the pump tell you anything without talking to the person filling up? I drive very little and regularly fill up at 2/3 tank of fuel. It's like $10. Would you assume I was on hard times if you saw my pump?
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The way to overcome your difficulty is to first accept that you have fallen on hard times. Next is to reach out for help. There certainly must be soup kitchens where you live.
 
This is a good indicator of who carries cash versus credit cards. Your monthly bill is the same either way, obviously, unless you have severe ADD and go for random drives on payday because you can.
 
eljefino said:
This is a good indicator of who carries cash versus credit cards. Your monthly bill is the same either way, obviously, unless you have severe ADD and go for random drives on payday because you can.
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My credit card is 5% gas cash back automatically deducted on the statement, I'm never going to leave 5% sitting there on the pump. My local shelter does not accept apple pay so I do use cash there.
 
Usually full tanks here, with the occasional $10-20.

There have been quite a few times where I've had to do two transactions due to Shell's fuel rewards capping out at 20 gallons... this morning for example, my second transaction was only 3.4 gallons. So, looking at my pump, you'd only think I bought 8 bucks of gas.
 
Drawing any conclusions here is a fools errand.

I have a car that a full fillup these days is currently running about $15 (running the tank down to 2/3rds empty and filling). By the metric here, I'm not filling up.

My other vehicle has a 36 gallon tank. My last fillup I used rewards that were good for 30 gallons, then topped off in a 2nd transaction for under 2 gallons. By the metric here, I can't afford to fillup...
 
Gas can be $.75 to $1.00 per gallon cheaper in the next county due to my resident county having a high fuel tax. I try not to buy gas at a local station and I buy gas when I’m in the next county. Sometimes I run low and have to buy gas locally and I just get a few gallons. Nothing to do with being short on funds.
 
tburke said:
Usually full tanks here, with the occasional $10-20.

There have been quite a few times where I've had to do two transactions due to Shell's fuel rewards capping out at 20 gallons... this morning for example, my second transaction was only 3.4 gallons. So, looking at my pump, you'd only think I bought 8 bucks of gas.
Click to expand...
You can get 3.4g for $8? I really need to move.
 
Gus_Mahn said:
I watched a short where the guy walked around the gas station and looked at what was on the pumps to try to understand his community’s financial state. My last trip to the station I did the same. Of the 8 pumps at this station, only two appeared to show full tank fill ups. The rest were $5-$20. What do you see at your stations?
Click to expand...
Never really noticed.

I've been known to put $10 in while in IL to get me to MO to buy fuel that is $0.50/gallon cheaper.

I think I did this on Friday. I had a run to Decatur and my next stop was O'Fallon, MO. I did the math and figured I needed about 3 gallons to comfortably get to a Sam's Club on the MO side of the river.

I don't really pay attention to what others are doing. Of course, I get most of my fuel at Sam's or Costco, and folks are filling up there.
 
One would have to do a lot of research to be able to draw conclusions from shards of data as thin as 1) "filled-up or not", 2) cash or credit card, 3) morning or 'post morning' fueling.

Still, there are likely many correlations one can observe at a gas station.
Ha-ha, don't forget to assess the vehicles too!
 
Langanobob said:
Gas can be $.75 to $1.00 per gallon cheaper in the next county due to my resident county having a high fuel tax. I try not to buy gas at a local station and I buy gas when I’m in the next county. Sometimes I run low and have to buy gas locally and I just get a few gallons. Nothing to do with being short on funds.
Click to expand...
Good point - this is the rare scenario when I won't fill up completely. The other is to purge the (presumably) ethanol-containing regular from the pump before filling my gas cans with E0 premium.
 
Generally, I try to keep tanks full on all the vehicles.
If I see a good price on fuel, I stop and fill up.
Only time that I go for smaller amounts is if I am in a higher priced region when I need it, or if I need it when we are in the midst of a Speedway Spike.
 
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