At my local gas stations, whenever I go to fill up the tank in my piece-of-trash Nissan, the “regular” grade fuel is always on the left-most side of the terminal. Over the years, I have gotten so used to the “left-most-button/handle-is-the-regular-grade” that I rarely consciously read anything on the terminal. When we were driving out this past weekend, I almost “dumb-ed” myself and almost wasted a few cents (may be a dollar) on the “plus” grade gasoline. Here’s why:
It’s not about the money part …it’s just that this thing amused me. Why would anyone do this? Is it to trick people into buying higher grade? If that is the case, then why stop there, why not put the “premium” grade on the left-most side? :). Or may be it’s just that they don’t prescribe to the concept of “hierarchy”. We humans have a natural tendency to look at things in an hierarchical manner. We like to see price lists sorted in an ascending order, number of positive reviews for a product sorted in an descending order and stuff like that. We are not used to gas stations that shuffle things around.
Humor me for the time being. If I was a shrewd gas station owner who didn’t respect hierarchy, I could resort to any of the following schemes to trick people into buying higher grade gasoline instead of regular grade gasoline. I could display the grades as 91–87–89 or 89–91–87 or…may be keep changing the order with all 6 possible combinations till I drive my customers crazy and till they coax themselves into buying higher grade gasoline :). Or even better, 91–89–out of order (till you buy higher grade gasoline). And by the way this is not “unfair” …everything is fair, I am just shuffling the numbers around.
Some general knowledge: Definitions of Gasoline Grades
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I’ve been hit here by gas stations changing the 87 grade to “Economy” instead of “Regular”. This cost me an extra 10 cents a gallon a few weeks ago because I said “Regular” and the guy filled my tank with 88 instead of 87. 10 cents may not be much, except for all of the people that are used to saying “fill with regular” and don’t think much about it.
Don’t you love the guys from marketing?
When I was in high school I worked at a gas station and I discovered that my boss would make about 2 cents on every litre of 87 octane gas that was pumped (aprox 8 cent/gallon) and nearly 10 cents on every litre (40 cents/gallon) of 91 octane fuel pumped. Obviously these are not spectacular margins when you factor in that you have to cover all of your operating expenses on 2 cents/litre. Like any business owner, a gas station owner will find creative ways to increase their margins…the two methods mentioned above are prime examples of this.
lol… but u gotta admit… they do have smart marketing guys…
i always double check before i press the button (i’m slightly dislexic…) and i don’t want to end up putting disel in my little camery… it might have a heart attack or something
MoneyFwd: Oh yeah…in places like NJ you have an additional factor of “interpretation”…you say something and the guy understands something else. 10 cents is a lot when this starts happening on a regular basis and/or if you are filling your tank with like 15 gallons at a time.
nku and Ambellamy: marketing guys ..I love to hate them
jpostal: yeah I agree, and we are just speaking of methods that are “visible” . I don’t want to guess what goes on behind the curtains about fuel quality and fuel tank quality and the metering systems.
That is so sneaky.
When I buy my gas from exxon, the 87 unleaded pump is always to the right so I know where to find it.
Mixing up the fuel grades should be against the law. Why try to confuse the loyal customers that keep you in business?
Do you remember the gas company name?
I drive an 05 elantra and it has only had non-regular gas once, when the guy I was dating insisted that it should have mid-grade. Needless to say it was his money so I was not going to argue. However, I always buy regular/economy/87 since it gets me from point A to point B just as easily.
I buy gas in NJ before crossing over to NY, so I always make sure the guy presses the correct button when he begins, and gives me the exact amount I ordered.
I always have thought that the button closest to the hose was the highest grade/price because the “dumb” consumer was on the other side of the hose and therefore closer to the higher grade button.
Errr… Maybe just look at the octane ratings before pushing the buttons…?
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