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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.24] on Friday, July 13, 2012 at 20:46:52 :
In Reply to: OT; Help me remember... posted by rick pacholski [75.177.46.144] on Friday, July 13, 2012 at 18:44:42 :
if you needed a valve grind or a ring job, there was a mechanic in the garage who could do it for you.
But here's the difference. When gas was 25 cents a gallon, crude was $2 a barrel or 4.5 cents/gal, so the gas was 5.6 times the price of the crude. These days, crude's around $90 a barrel, or $2/gal, and gas is around $3.50, for a mark-up of 1.8 times. In other words, margins are much slimmer now. If we paid now what we paid in the 1960s, relative to the price of crude, gas would be about $11/gal. At that level of mark-up, I'm sure the stations could all pump your gas, check your oil and battery, wash your windows, give you a free map and give your kid a plastic dinosaur.
We don't want to pay $11/gal, though, so we're stuck with no service, and with stations that make no profit on the gas so they have to make it up on high-margin C-store stuff.
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