OK Dopers, what’s your criteria for choosing a gas station? I’m sure price will rate pretty highly, but I’m curious how high your value on other perks is. For example, I’ll almost always go to the gas station with the cheapest price, I don’t have much brand loyalty. There are several little quirks I have that overrule the lowest price theory. I have developed a demented little system I run through my head as i cruise down the road looking at the little orange gas pump. It works like this, I’ll go to the cheapest station first, however if I know the cheapest place lacks one of the items I expect then I add a certain number of cents pr gallon extra I’m willing to pay for that perk.
.10/gal for Pay at the pump
.06/gal for a working little clip that holds the handle down while pumping .05/gal if its on the correct side of the street
.03/gal if there is a line
$.25/gal if a hot chick is pumping gas there
If you put a tiny fraction of the effort and time you put into this into the Teeming Minions Fantasy league, you might escape the second tier, you know…
*TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Six months, three weeks, one day, 5 hours, 11 minutes and 58 seconds.
8208 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,026.08.
Extra time with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 12 hours, 0 minutes.
I’ve been on empty and driven past perfectly good gas stations that didn’t have pay-at-the-pump. I won’t go to one that doesn’t have that feature unless I’m in dire need and there isn’t likely to be another gas station anytime soon.
If it doesn’t have “pay at the pump” I don’t go there unless I have no choice. I get the cheapest I can unless I am in a big hurry and it’s too damn crowded.
And if you don’t want to know the answer to “So, am I disturbed?” you really shouldn’t ask, you know.
Hey, I clicked on it hoping it would be a dirty post!
I don’t even look at gas prices. I look for cute guys manning the pumps, so to speak. Then I ask them to do lots (check the oil, clean the windshield, etc) while I ogle them.
because I thought it was going to be a rant or poll about women who pump their breastmilk in public – the idea of which completely creeped me out. So, now who’s disturbed?
I go to whatever gas station for which I have a credit card, of which I only have one. I can never be bothered to carry cash, because I’m too lazy to think and plan ahead most of the time. So I buy all gas on the ole’ BP card and pay the bill off in full each month. Hey, at least I don’t run a balance…
I used to have another gas card at one point, but whichever company it was pulled out of Florida and so I never used it. Might have been Sunoco or something outrageously priced.
Price and features are never an issue with me: I could care less about saving $0.02 per gallon by driving three blocks down the street. My time is just not worth all that. And I can hold the pump handle all by myself without that little prop thingy. I never pay at the pump because, for some reason, my BP card is always demagnetized so after I swipe three or four times, I get over it and go inside anyway. Now I just skip the frustration and don’t even bother with Pay At Pump.
Typically I go to the gas station cloest to my work, since it’s a Safeway (cheap gas, or at least as cheap as I’m going to find without leaving the state) and it’s… um… right there. The only other cheap station on the way home is a Meijer’s gas station and I have to cross traffic to get to it.
I almost never go to Shell, Amoco, or whatever expensive gas stations are around. No need to since I fill up on my way home so it’s rare that I find myself that low on gas that I have to compromise on price. The only times I ever go them is when I need a few things (newspaper, bottle of Snapple, giant sized Twix, copy of Jane magazine…etc) and I realize I need some gas as well. Even then it’s just a few bucks to get me through the next day.
So in short – no brand loyalty except that I keep buying cheap gas from the same station because of price.
