When I was in London I saw a petrol station called Eco Fuels it looks a bit grotty which was selling unleaded at £1.49p a litre it also seems really busy. Is this some kind of majic fuel? Most the fuel stations in London only seemed to be 2p more than what I pay in Manchester.
|
It has always been a little more expensive than other petrol stations :-)
It maybe for the Bristol Cars customers who frequent the showroom across the road.
|
Hehe I stayed in the Hilton above it many years ago. I think this petrol station was towards Hammersmith from the Bristol showroom I cannot remember exactly now, it was probably near the Olympia complex.
I had a good look in the window while I was there but did not dare to wonder in with my cheap primark jeans on I would have been shown the door! I wanted to go in just to ask if they had started using rack pinion steering and disc brakes yet!
|
stayed in the Hilton above it many years ago. I think this petrol station was towards Hammersmith from the Bristol showroom I cannot remember exactly now, it was probably near the Olympia complex.
>>
The filling station is literally across the road ( A3220 Holland Road) from the side windows of the Bristol showroom. The Hilton faces Hammersmith Road.
|
|
|
Whilst I would hate to disagree with someone so well connected as Rattle I must object to his comment about Bristols. My 1948 Bristol 400, the first model they produced, had rack and pinion steering as standard but not disc brakes as they were not available until the fifties (1952 or 53) when the appeared on the factory C type Jaguars at the LeMans 24 hour race.
I believe disc brakes first appeared on the Bristol 406 model in the sixties and can in fact be readily fitted on the earlier versions. In fact the factory does upgrades on its earlier cars - no doubt at a price and has converted at least one 400 to disc brakes.
I'm told that attitude of the Company is now rather different to some time back and with Rattles connections he might not feel out of place.
|
I wasn't refering to Bristols of old, I was refering to the modern ones. I was simply meaning are they still sticking to old fashioned methods such as no ABS because it works or have they now introduced modern stuff?
My comment was slightly tonque in cheek as always :).
Any wealthy family I once had are now burried deeply underneath Brompton cemetery some where :).
|
I have to say my comments were also tongue in cheek but I did think that you could no longer register a new car in the EU without ABS.
That would have caused issues for TVR if they wre still around who I think never fitted it at all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rents, rates, wages in Kensington make Manchester look like a third world country.
|
|
You missed my point, my point was petrol stations near by were only £1.05p a litre, only 2p more than there are here. So why is this one so expensive? There is one in the middle of Victoria which was only 106.9p.
|
|
Rattle, as a Mancunian you fail to appreciate the kudos of buying your fuel in Kensington. You're not just buying fuel but buying into a whole lifestyle of royalty, the deceased Lady Di, etc.
|
I never really thought that posh because my family are from that part of London. My descendants from circa 1830 owned quite a lot of property round the Royal Hospital Road area and the house and if my grandparents still owned the house they did it would be worth well above £1m now. I may be from Manchester but London is a big part of my heritage as my dad is from there and my mums side of the family moved up to Manchester from Chelsea circa 1850.
I still don't quite get why you would pay so much for fuel though, unless it is purely location and people round there are so rich they don't care.
|
I nominate Rattle for the next TV series of "Who do you think you are?".
There's obviously a terrific tale to be told if only his modesty would stop holding him back.
|
|
The answer is quite simple; there are obviously enough customers stupid enough to pay that price. End of story.
|
Yeah there are some shops like that here (Ted will know the sort I mean) lots of junk shops and eco shops charging 2 x times as much for everything.
My London family all moved up here for work, my mums side were brick layers so we suspect there was more work up here due to the all the factorys Manchester were building. My dad simply moved here because he wanted to get away from his parents but ended up living here for most his life so went to poly.
Of course back those days parts like Kensington and Chelsea were not posh they were just decent areas of London just suberbs really. My dad was from Fulham and that was a very ordinary place when he lived there.
So there isn't some kind of majic fuel on sale in London then which returns 3500000mpg and gives off no emissions :(.
|
So there isn't some kind of majic fuel on sale in London then which returns 3500000mpg and gives off no emissions
Course there is son, course there is, who told you that?
Ere tell you what, seein it's you, I know a geezer who's got some as it appens, out the back of his house in a big tank knowImean?
Just up ere, just up ere nah, nah, do me a favour, where you goin, gotcha.
Aa much money you got on you then eh?
|
|
|
|
The answer is quite simple; there are obviously enough customers stupid enough to pay that price. End of story.
Exactly. A fool and his money are soon parted.
|
|
|
|
Rattle, it is im afraid dear boy, just a case of good business. IF people are willing to pay a higher price, you charge them that higher price and make more profit. It is a foolish business person who would do anything else frankly. Selling petrol may be a captive market to a certain extent, but cars are a choice and where you fill up your car is also a choice.
Short answer is 'Because then can and because it works for them'.
|
Viscount Rattle, Earl of Kensington ?
I didn't know we had Royalty on the forum.
I shall now have to modify my behaviour next time I see him, perhaps a little peasant style grovelling would be in order ? :-)
Ted
|
Hehe certainly no royalty just a load of old builders and confectioners. My great great great grandad built a food factory in the Royal Hospital Road area in Chelsea and some small houses. Amazingly the building still exists and in part of it there is a Gordon Ramsey restaurant.
In those days property prices in London were not anything like as mad as they are today. My family were very advanced though, they had telephones in the 1890's and that is something I have inherited! Aparantly even 120 years ago if you didn't have a telephone in that part of London you lost a lot of business.
My grandparents who are the only London family still living (apart from my dad and his brother) sound more like they belong in Albert Square (Eastenders) than Kensington Palace :).
That said it does seem very strange to visit that area which is now full of millionaires to think my family once owned some of them buildings. I only know all this because my dads been obsessed with the family tree for the past twenty years.
When Manchester becomes the capital city due to London being flooded I wonder if people will be saying the same thing about my family in 200 years time :p:.
Edited by rtj70 on 30/09/2009 at 01:05
|
I can remember on the A40 somewhere between Marylebone & Bakers Street, there's a little filling station right next to a NCP underground car park.
AFAIK it's an Esso station, can't remember what the exact price was then but I always thought it was well higher then the UK average.
Oh it only has 6 pumps if my memory stretches but it's quite tight for off-roaders too.
|
SQ
Oh it only has 6 pumps if my memory stretches but it's quite tight for off-roaders too.
Does much off-roading go on between Marylebone & Baker Street? Shame if it's tight for the off-roaders.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 30/09/2009 at 01:33
|
|
ECO is easy to miss ( especially at their prices)
www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1268/28752.php
£125.9 in Nov 2007
www.audi-sport.net/vb/showthread.php?p=451726
According to the DT It was only £1.40 a litre three weeks ago
tinyurl.com/ycfr5t7
|
|
So the only thing special about this petrol station is the price? Wow its quite amazing really.
|
the only thing special about this petrol station is the price?
It's very small and tight. It's just a few yards from a traffic light in a three lane (at that point) one-way. You used to have to go through it in the wrong direction too.
I seem to remember it used to be crowded with taxis too, but perhaps I am confusing it with another of the many small, expensive, inconvenient petrol stations awkwardly placed on major junctions dotted about this town.
I am appalled Rattle that you were at this end of London, just down the road really, and didn't come up to the Gate for some nice Belgian beer. And you a Virgo too.
|
Next time I will have to pop by, I am in London fairly often. I did actually think when I was down there that I am sure Lud lives just the other end of Hyde Park.
What I don't get is that there were plenty of Shell type garages around selling fuel for £106.9p so I cannot see how these indies get away with charging £1.49. There is an indie in the next town from me which charges around £1.06 when the rest are 102 or 103 but 45p a litre is a massive difference.
|
What I don't get is that there were plenty of Shell type garages around selling fuel for £106.9p so I cannot see how these indies get away with charging £1.49.
I think the missing factor here is the humungous incomes of some people in that part of London. I have met plenty of couples from that area where both partners earn well over £250,000 a year, and when you're raking in that much cash an extra £20 or £30 on a tankful of petrol needn't be a concern at all. These are people who do their weekly grocery shopping at Harvey Nicks.
Of course, not everyone in that area is rich, let alone super-rich. But there's enough of them to let that sort of business survive when it would be flat as a pancake in Wigan. Whether their existence is a good thing or a bad thing is off-topic for this forum, but those prices exist because those people exist.
I encountered a similar setup in Dublin two years ago, before the bubble burst. In the only filling station on the city-centre, the price on the pumps said ?1.71, which I assumed was a typo for ?1.17 -- most filling stations were charging about ?1.12 at the time, so a few cents extra seemed likely for the location. But I thought I'd better check, and they confirmed that it was no mistake.
I made a quick exit and filled up outside town, but if that filling station didn't have some customers willing and able to pay a 50% over the odds, they wouldn't have been in business.
|
|
Hehe certainly no royalty just a load of old builders and confectioners.
There, you've just given the game away....you're a descendant of Edward the Confectioner !
Ted
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thats exactly the reason and the garage exploits that fact.
|
|
|
|
|
Rents rates wages in Kensington make Manchester look like a third world country.
How observant DC.
|
|
In our town,there were two petrol stations opposite each other,one was BP,the other was Q8 with prices considerably cheaper.The BP one got all the trade,the Q8 closed.
|
|
|
|
|
Why not I say !!
It seems that even though we are in a severe recession, there are loads of people who dont mind buying and running vehicles that do sub 20 mpg, so I can only conclude that they love spending money on fuel.
So this petrol station is just catering for this fetish !
|
Latest prices at ECO
£1.49 for cheap stuff and 145.9 for Derv
Grab youself a bargin. Evry litle elps!
|
I drive about 40K a year and my observation is that Texaco are ripping motorists off. They always seem to be about 5p more expensive even when the competition on the opposite side of the road.
|
|
Same observation here, I always avoid Texaco. I tend to stick with Shell because they are a lot round here and they tend to the cheapest. My nearest is an Esso with a Tesco Express attached but I avoid it because people park at the pump then do a weekly shop, meaning it can take 15 minutes just to get to the pump.
|
|
I was in Holland last weekend; 1.53 euros/litre for unleaded over there, though diesel is 1.10 so therefore a bit cheaper than ours.
|
Not sure when Google stopped by, but then unleaded was £1.40 a litre.
preview.tinyurl.com/y9cc5zj
I have no doubt that, as has been said above, this is simply a prestige issue. If money is no object, and you need to prove that money is no object, you literally *have* to pay more for everything. In these areas there will always be demand for one place where you can show that you are above worrying about how much stuff costs.
Well that is my observation anyway, from years of living in central London and having people drag me to places where they could be seen to be paying double for everything.
|
I wonder how many of those people still have money now :).
|
|
110.9p this evening in Harrow Road, quite steep enough thanks.
|
|
|
|
|
The only thing I know about economics is that the 'right price' is what some poor sap will pay. There are quite a lot of rich poor saps in Kensington.
|
Its not the fuel they go back for its the pasties and sausage rolls!
|
Stopped off for lunch on Thursday at one of those little bar/restaurants with petrol pumps that still exist in out-of-the-way French villages. The food was excellent but the 98 unleaded was 1.57 euros. That's blinking steep for the natives, let alone for Brits on the vanishing pound.
We sneaked off and topped up the Beast at Carrefour on the way home...
|
Got an older persons deal to stay at the Kensington Hilton next month. Must look at the Bristol Showroom while wearing my (discounted) Bugatti trousers.
|
Hopefully the staff are now nicer than there were when i stayed. Been to a lot of Hotels everyfrom ghetos to 5 star city centre hotels. I never experienced such rude staff in my life, they were all european and just didn't really want to be there.
This was over ten years ago so hopefully it is a lot nicer now. It was being refurbished at the time so we got it cheap, it was also the first hotel we booked online. People seemed impressed that we dare to use such new technology to book a hotel.
Not much fun on a 28k modem though!
|
|
|
|
