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CHASING CHEAP FUEL
I am trip planning a 3600 mile trip this October and I am playing with various scenarios for fuel stops. Since it is the dues money that pays for my fuel I have to be careful with my money because to be honest there is not much of it.
My route is going to be interstates because my destinations are near them so the obvious fuel stops will be anywhere along the interstates and my window for fuel has to be over 700 miles, but less than 900 miles. Within the 200 mile window I can find a Loves in every instance so for ease of refueling they make the most sense.
Using the Loves location search feature on their web site I can quickly find the cheapest fuel along my route within my fuel window. But that got me to thinking if there was a better (cheaper) way to refuel. So with the aid of sites like GasBuddy I was able to find fuel at local locations for less per gallon. The savings on a trip of my planned length would be approximately $109 based on an average of $23.80 per refueling. I could buy a few Happy Meals for that.
But when I got into the details each off interstate leg averaged 20 miles, and the fuel cost to go those extra 20 miles was an average of $6.70 so my net savings, not counting my time or extra wear and tear was actually only $17.10 on average. Then I realized I neglected to consider the $.10 discount at Love’s so that brought my savings down to a little over $3.00 per fuel stop, and all of a sudden cheap fuel was no longer as cheap as it seemed.
I have fueled the the coach at local supermarket fuel islands and when I thought about the process any savings, even if it was the full $23.80 I first thought it would be I remembered I have to go to the little glass enclosed cashier’s booth, give the cashier a pile of Benjamins or a credit card and then start pumping fuel from a tiny nozzle that would take about 20 or 30 minutes to refill the tank. All of a sudden the interstate price of fuel wasn’t looking so expensive. So I changed tactics and looked for only truck stop fuel that was cheap. There are a lot of locations along interstates cheaper than Love’s but as soon as I consider the discount in the equation the prices were very close if not in favor of Love’s.
The more I played with my options the more evident it was that there really is no serious savings and what has tipped the scales in selecting my fuel stops based on convenience and location is the fact the real value in the Love’s card has little to do with the savings, but a whole lot to do with two main things. The first is that they are moving so much fuel I know I am pumping fresh fuel into the bus. The last time I used really cheap fuel was at a local (dirty, run down) truck stop in OK, and by the time we got to northern NV I had plugged fuel filters. Lesson learned.
But the second main benefit is the ease of use. There is no easier way to fuel my bus than to pull next to the pump, start the pump with my discount card, pump my fuel and drive away.
I wasted an hour today playing with various fuel scenarios and despite the apparent appeal of cheap fuel I have come to the conclusion the onlly way it becomes even close to being considered is if the average savings is in the $.30 to .$35 range. The best I could average with the calculations was an average of $.17 and that really is not anywhere close to enough.
If you don’t have the fuel discount cards, spend some time with your computer doing some trip planning and see if in the long run you would not be far better off enjoying the convenience of the cards and the substantial time savings they provide.
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37 Replies
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Jeeeeesh Jon. I could have easily refueled at Loves with my PC discount and been on my way in the time it took me to read your post.
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convenience has a price… I am willing to pay that price.
I won’t get into stress related to how to save that extra $05 a gallon, dealing with lower volume pumps, and questionable quality of tanks/fuel.
That and I don’t eat at chain fast food or slow food restaraunts. So no un-happy meals for me. I guess I’ll measure my savings in free range meat VS hormone injected tofu.
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Get a Smart Phone Jon!
I use the Love’s App all the time when looking to fuel up. If I don’t find a Love’s in a reasonable distance, I use an App called “Trucker Path” which highlights all the truck stops (Pilot, T/A, etc.) in my vicinity and around the country.
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Cheap fuel just cost us approximately $6700. One of our technicians bought fuel from a cut-rate no-brand station that turned out to be badly contaminated with water and other crap. Tow bill, high pressure pump, cleaning the tanks and entire fuel system, etc… Cheap fuel wasn’t so cheap.
We now have a new company rule. Diesel can only be purchased from big name branded locations like Love’s, Flying J, Pilot, etc.
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I second what Tim said. And locally I only have a Chevron. While I trust their fuel, it takes forever to fill up! I can only get $1000 at a time and then swipe the card again. It’s Loves for me whenever I can. Thanks for the Profit tools fuel card!
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Jon
OMG all I can say is you must have everything fixed and refixed on your Bus and board out of your mind. 🙂
Fuel planning for a trip in october? you know the prices are going to change right? I use the loves app if I have options I will look at price but I am not going to go 1 mile out of the way to save a couple of cents.
Since I got the PC fuel card I haven’t fueled without it.
Bill
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What prompted my premature fuel planning for the trip was a discussion on another site about how many dollars could be saved by avoiding the interstate truck stops and going to the local gas stations. I used the planned trip as the basis because I was dealing with a real scenario.
I know fuel prices will be different several months from now but I was trying to see if there was any truth to the claims because ever since we put the fuel discount program in place I have used the cards exclusively, and only once used other than Love’s.
Even on this site we have had discussions about other truck stops with cheaper fuel so I wanted to see if it would make sense to look beyond the way I have been deciding where to buy fuel. For trips we take it has become crystal clear it makes no sense from a financial perspective to change our refueling practices and if we factor in the risk of buying from a low volume fuel stop cheap fuel can actually become very expensive as I found many years ago, and as was reinforced above.
For those of you who have not taken advantage of the fuel discount program you should give serious thought to participating. After my exercise I described above it is very clear it makes economical sense, is more convenient than any other option, and is likely to protect us from the dangers of bad fuel.
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The Loves app is the way to go.
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Anyone have any comments on Flying J?
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I know Pilot / Flying J has a program via Good Sam’s but I haven’t used them for two reasons. First I need to support our program or it goes away or we lose the ability to negotiate for better discounts as usage increases.
But there is a second reason important to me. Pilot / Flying J is based here in Knoxville so we get up to date news about the company. In about 2013 the FBI descended on the company because for 5 years they had been cheating their customers out of rebates and discounts that they had agreed to with truck fleets being the victims. The affidavit that was posted on line regarding the search warrants included transcripts of how the executives were screwing their customers out of millions of dollars and laughing about it. If you do an internet search you can find the affidavit and how the highest company executives think their customers are stupid and how easy it is to screw them. The conversations were recorded by an executive wearing a wire.
They have paid about $92,000,000 in penalties to make this go away, they have paid the money they screwed their customers out of, and more than a dozen top level executives have plead guilty to crimes, 4 recently cut plea deals in exchange for testimony against the executives that would not plead guilty and who are going to trial this fall. The thievery is rampant through the company and I don’t want to spend a penny with such a crooked company.
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Plus tell them who our Govenor is in Tennessee.
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I thought Jon was downsizing and just needed a place to plug in…
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The convenience of the Loves card cannot be beat…when Jon and Tom were first thinking about it, I remember telling them that I would pay .10 more per gal. just to not have to go inside once much less twice. That still stands. Geo.
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I still go inside to get my receipt for tax reasons and, sometimes, cash-back … but I use it all the time!
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Your receipt should be the emailed Profit Tools statement. That is who you are paying
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