BP 10c discounts

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82 posts

Master Geek

#1787253 24-May-2017 08:56

sbiddle:

Z have lost a lot of market share recently, and are still continuing to do so. Across both brands (Caltex + Z) however Z Energy are relatively stable. Their strategy right now seems to be to pitch Z at the top of the market with high pricing and minimal discounting - they haven't run an Airpoints discount for months and have only recently reintroduced FlyBuys discounts as even FlyBuys customers were walking away from them. They're making very, very good money from this because there are plenty of people out there who seem willing to pay significantly more for petrol for absolutely no benefit....

Z's market share will continue to drop whilst they persevere with 91 and 95 petrol, that rules out high compression engines, high pressure turbos, basically, anything with a bit of oomph. They are restricting their market to your suzuki swift/Toyota Corolla/ Mazda 6 drivers. I contacted both Caltex and Z about this and they said they didn't see a need for it with the NZ fleet as it is still predominantly a japanese fleet that is safe to run on lower grade fuel. Which is bogswallop, sure smaller engined cars may be ok on 91, but I bet at 150,000kms those engines won't look as good as the same car run on 95, and I wouldn't want to run a 2L jappa on 91 either. Mind you, the way people drive perhaps it makes no difference if they think that 3000rpm is a little bit dangerous, they are causing more harm to the engine by not stretching its legs than 91 fuel is I guess.

But you just need to look at the amount of euro boxes on the road, more and more with turbos, HSVs, FPV etc, that are immediately eliminated from Caltex and Z's client base, I don't know the percentage, but I bet its a decent amount they are not able to cater to.

sbiddle

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#1787349 24-May-2017 11:20

boflit:

sbiddle:

Z have lost a lot of market share recently, and are still continuing to do so. Across both brands (Caltex + Z) however Z Energy are relatively stable. Their strategy right now seems to be to pitch Z at the top of the market with high pricing and minimal discounting - they haven't run an Airpoints discount for months and have only recently reintroduced FlyBuys discounts as even FlyBuys customers were walking away from them. They're making very, very good money from this because there are plenty of people out there who seem willing to pay significantly more for petrol for absolutely no benefit....

Z's market share will continue to drop whilst they persevere with 91 and 95 petrol, that rules out high compression engines, high pressure turbos, basically, anything with a bit of oomph. They are restricting their market to your suzuki swift/Toyota Corolla/ Mazda 6 drivers. I contacted both Caltex and Z about this and they said they didn't see a need for it with the NZ fleet as it is still predominantly a japanese fleet that is safe to run on lower grade fuel. Which is bogswallop, sure smaller engined cars may be ok on 91, but I bet at 150,000kms those engines won't look as good as the same car run on 95, and I wouldn't want to run a 2L jappa on 91 either. Mind you, the way people drive perhaps it makes no difference if they think that 3000rpm is a little bit dangerous, they are causing more harm to the engine by not stretching its legs than 91 fuel is I guess.

But you just need to look at the amount of euro boxes on the road, more and more with turbos, HSVs, FPV etc, that are immediately eliminated from Caltex and Z's client base, I don't know the percentage, but I bet its a decent amount they are not able to cater to.

I couldn't disagree more. Last time I was discussing this with somebody in the know the market for 98 was around 5% of the market total fuel market. It's incredibly small so they have made the decision to not to bother.

95 is far more common but is still only a fraction of 91 sales. Mobil made the decision to scrap 95 at lots of sites were they don't have tanks and force people who need 95 to upsell to 98. Some BP sites do the same.

As much as you might care about 98 the simple reality is the vast majority of people don't.

nakedmolerat

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#1787427 24-May-2017 13:19

I used to go to Gull / Z / Caltex - whichever is the cheapest or most convenient to me.

Then I find out about the Diesel sold at BP is far more superior than others (no foam). Then they introduce the BPme app.

I just find it much more convenience to just zoom in and out without fumbling with my cards etc!

boflit

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Master Geek

#1787448 24-May-2017 13:41

sbiddle:

I couldn't disagree more. Last time I was discussing this with somebody in the know the market for 98 was around 5% of the market total fuel market. It's incredibly small so they have made the decision to not to bother.

95 is far more common but is still only a fraction of 91 sales. Mobil made the decision to scrap 95 at lots of sites were they don't have tanks and force people who need 95 to upsell to 98. Some BP sites do the same.

As much as you might care about 98 the simple reality is the vast majority of people don't.

5% is still about 190,000 cars though, and they use more fuel so will be visiting the pump more frequently, I don't think it is a portion of the market that should be ignored. Plus its not good for competition either, I have 6 petrol stations within 5 minutes drive of home, I can only use 3 for my car. But I choose to drive 10 minutes to get my petrol because there is competition and a 20c per litre difference in price.

Personally, 91 is only good enough for my mower, I wouldn't use it in any car, and anyone that does use it doesn't care about their car, but that is their choice. However, that doesn't negate the fact if 95 was the new regular, and 98 the new Super, rather than Super+, we would all win. We have some of the best oil in the world and we ship it overseas then import low grade oil and make 91 from it. What a joke, we should have high quality fuel in NZ at every gas station at a decent price.

bonkiebonks

389 posts

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#1787472 24-May-2017 14:25

nakedmolerat:

Then I find out about the Diesel sold at BP is far more superior than others (no foam). Then they introduce the BPme app.

I just find it much more convenience to just zoom in and out without fumbling with my cards etc!

frankv

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#1787526 24-May-2017 16:01

nakedmolerat:

I used to go to Gull / Z / Caltex - whichever is the cheapest or most convenient to me.

Then they introduce the BPme app.

Yup... BPme is a big attraction for me too. No walking in the rain to queue up to pay :)

BP with a 6c discount is nominally the same price as Waitomo, but with the occasional 10c discount and accumulating the savings, it's actually cheaper. And BP has a roof over their Bulls station.

sonyxperiageek

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#1787528 24-May-2017 16:04

Aredwood:

sbiddle:

Smartfuel is just a scam. The sooner it's banned the better off everybody will be.

Fully agree. Other problems it causes is that poorer people can't take full advantage of it. As they normally won't have enough money to spend at once at Countdown or the petrol stations to get the max discounts. And almost certain shops that offer the discounts have to pay a fee to do so. Meaning they will have to have higher prices. Sure by all means use it if you would otherwise have still gone to the same shops and petrol stations and still spent the same amount of money in them. But the money to give you those discounts has to come from somewhere.

A good example is Contact Energy offering 30C per L discount via smartfuel. But their power prices are really expensive compared to Flick Electric.

Near my house there is a Mobil and BP on the same street. Mobil have a standard promotion of 6c off per L if you spend $40 or more on fuel. And they regularly do 10c off per L days. The pump prices are normally exactly the same. So zero benefit of using smartfuel. Then there is Waitomo Petroleum, Far far cheaper. And without any gimmicks as well.

NB the above relates to Diesel prices. Often BP are the most expensive For diesel as well. Have had times when Mobil with the 10c per L discount has been 30c per L cheaper than BP. And that is without any fuelcards as well. My far better method of getting discounts is to carry a 20L fuel container in the van. If I drive past a particularly cheap petrol station, I fill up the van and the container. When the van runs low I tip the container into the van. Often by the time the van's tank starts to get a bit low, It is another 10c off per L day. I wouldn't recommend carrying a container of petrol around though.

I'm pretty sure you can accumulate how much you spend at Countdown up to a week for SmartFuel savings.

I don't know about shops paying to offer smartfuel savings to be honest... If they did, they probably wouldn't bother offering it.

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Aredwood

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#1787838 25-May-2017 00:12

The reason I say that shops would have to pay to offer smartfuel discounts - In the examples I have seen of people who have accumulated $1.50+ off per L of fuel. (not just in this thread). The petrol station would be making a massive loss selling with such a big discount if they weren't getting a payment from a 3rd party to offset that big discount. Also the fact there is a restriction on how many litres you can buy at the discounted price.

Then there are shops like the local fruit and vege shop that sells milk for the same price and often cheaper than the neighbouring Countdown. That shop offers smartfuel points, but excludes milk from going towards your smatfuel spend. Since it is very unlikely that that single little fruit and vege shop has negotiated a cheaper buy price on milk than the whole Countdown supermarket chain. It would be a safe bet that the margin on milk sold by that vege shop would be very low. If the vege shop was able to offer smartfuel for free or for a flat rate. They wouldn't need to exclude items that have low mark ups from counting towards your smartfuel spend. Or they would be able to do things like offer 50c off per L if you spend $10 instore.

As for which grade of petrol to use in your car. The correct grade is the grade it is designed for. If the car is designed for 91 petrol. There is 0 benefit to using a higher octane fuel. The main difference between cars that use 91, and cars that need higher octane is the compression ratio of the engine. Higher compression ratios mean higher cylinder pressures therefore more risk of preignition or detonation. So higher octane is needed to counteract the risks from higher cylinder pressures. If you want to change the compression ratio of an engine, you need to start doing things like changing the head gasket thickness. Or replacing the pistons with modified ones. Either way things that the average driver will never be able to do.

The biggest problem is figuring out what the correct fuel is for your car. Often the easiest way is checking what engine model it has, and looking up the details on that engine. As we have lots of both NZ new and used Japan imports. And lesser numbers of imports from UK, Australia, Singapore ect. And models like the Mitsibushi Lancer, Nissan Pulsar, Subaru Legacy ect. That came out with low performance "nana spec" versions, High performance turbo versions, and in between spec versions. Even the humble Toyota Corolla has lots of different sub models with lots of different engine options. So any list that says model A of car uses fuel X is unlikely to be accurate.

Comparisons with the old "Super" petrol are also pointless, as "Super" contained lead. And leaded petrol quickly destroys oxygen sensors. Meaning almost any car that has emission control systems fitted cannot use leaded petrol. There are used jap imports on the road that are around 30 years old that can't use leaded petrol. Due to them having oxygen sensors fitted. So even if "Super" petrol was still available, There are very few daily driven cars left on the road that can actually use it.

Long term it is highly likely that one of the petrol grades out of 95 or 98 will be removed from the market. As the NOx emissions rules mean that car manufacturers can't make engines that have high combustion temperatures anymore. This has removed the main advantage that high octane fuel offered. Also the price gap between 91 and the higher grades continues to grow. I remember when each extra octane point above 91 equalled 1c extra per L. Both of these things mean that most new cars will be designed to run on 91. So cars that need premium grades of petrol will be an ever decreasing % of the total fuel market.

Now add in lots of petrol car applications being replaced with electric cars. Especially for short trips, as petrol engines use more fuel when cold. But short trips with long stops between trips are the perfect application for electric cars. But there is not yet an effective replacement for diesel for marine, long distance trucking, backup power ect. (How many Tesla batteries would you need to cope with a month long power outage to Auckland Hospital?) So total petrol sales as a % of sales compared to diesel sales are also going to decline. And in say 30 years 91 petrol will probably be the only grade widely available. And even then there will still be alot more diesel only fuel stations.

sonyxperiageek

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#1787841 25-May-2017 00:56

Aredwood:

The reason I say that shops would have to pay to offer smartfuel discounts - In the examples I have seen of people who have accumulated $1.50+ off per L of fuel. (not just in this thread). The petrol station would be making a massive loss selling with such a big discount if they weren't getting a payment from a 3rd party to offset that big discount. Also the fact there is a restriction on how many litres you can buy at the discounted price.

Then there are shops like the local fruit and vege shop that sells milk for the same price and often cheaper than the neighbouring Countdown. That shop offers smartfuel points, but excludes milk from going towards your smatfuel spend. Since it is very unlikely that that single little fruit and vege shop has negotiated a cheaper buy price on milk than the whole Countdown supermarket chain. It would be a safe bet that the margin on milk sold by that vege shop would be very low. If the vege shop was able to offer smartfuel for free or for a flat rate. They wouldn't need to exclude items that have low mark ups from counting towards your smartfuel spend. Or they would be able to do things like offer 50c off per L if you spend $10 instore.

Or maybe, they just inflate their pump price to offset the smart fuel savings. Or maybe both with the local diary situation. We don't know an official answer and I doubt we will get one unfortunately for us.

Sony

sbiddle

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#1787854 25-May-2017 07:31

sonyxperiageek:

Aredwood:

The reason I say that shops would have to pay to offer smartfuel discounts - In the examples I have seen of people who have accumulated $1.50+ off per L of fuel. (not just in this thread). The petrol station would be making a massive loss selling with such a big discount if they weren't getting a payment from a 3rd party to offset that big discount. Also the fact there is a restriction on how many litres you can buy at the discounted price.

Then there are shops like the local fruit and vege shop that sells milk for the same price and often cheaper than the neighbouring Countdown. That shop offers smartfuel points, but excludes milk from going towards your smatfuel spend. Since it is very unlikely that that single little fruit and vege shop has negotiated a cheaper buy price on milk than the whole Countdown supermarket chain. It would be a safe bet that the margin on milk sold by that vege shop would be very low. If the vege shop was able to offer smartfuel for free or for a flat rate. They wouldn't need to exclude items that have low mark ups from counting towards your smartfuel spend. Or they would be able to do things like offer 50c off per L if you spend $10 instore.

Or maybe, they just inflate their pump price to offset the smart fuel savings. Or maybe both with the local diary situation. We don't know an official answer and I doubt we will get one unfortunately for us.

Retailers involed with SmartFuel pay for the discount they offer. This is above and beyond the original 6c which is funded 100% by the fuel company. The selling point of SmartFuel over other schemes was the ability to stack discounts.

At the end of the day the national price of fuel at BP, Z, Shell and Mobile is inflated by 6c to cover the instant discounts. This is why you'd have to be crazy to shop at Z unless you have a FlyBuys card since they no longer offer Airpoints discounts. You're basically just being ripped off.

We've need importer margins soar by pretty much 100% in recent years because these don't and can't factor in all retail discounting the way they're currently calculated. The actual gross margin remain relatively constant and has only risen slightly for most companies, and Z have benefited the most because of their ownership of both Caltex who are aiming for volume with discounting and Z that's aiming solely to drive profits. If you're a Z shareholder that's great - if you're a retail consumer that's bad.

Bung

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#1787876 25-May-2017 08:22

Aredwood: Long term it is highly likely that one of the petrol grades out of 95 or 98 will be removed from the market. As the NOx emissions rules mean that car manufacturers can't make engines that have high combustion temperatures anymore. This has removed the main advantage that high octane fuel offered. Also the price gap between 91 and the higher grades continues to grow. I remember when each extra octane point above 91 equalled 1c extra per L. Both of these things mean that most new cars will be designed to run on 91. So cars that need premium grades of petrol will be an ever decreasing % of the total fuel market.

Looking at replacing our 2.0l car I've noticed many of the options have changed to smaller direct injection mildly turbo'd engines. These are spec'd for 95+. Is this a short term hiccup?

jarledb

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#1787883 25-May-2017 08:46

Love that we have gotten an unmanned Allied gas station right by where we live. No discount vouchers and as far as I can tell they have the lowest petrol prices in Napier.

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boflit

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#1787932 25-May-2017 09:16

Bung:
Aredwood: Long term it is highly likely that one of the petrol grades out of 95 or 98 will be removed from the market. As the NOx emissions rules mean that car manufacturers can't make engines that have high combustion temperatures anymore. This has removed the main advantage that high octane fuel offered. Also the price gap between 91 and the higher grades continues to grow. I remember when each extra octane point above 91 equalled 1c extra per L. Both of these things mean that most new cars will be designed to run on 91. So cars that need premium grades of petrol will be an ever decreasing % of the total fuel market.

Looking at replacing our 2.0l car I've noticed many of the options have changed to smaller direct injection mildly turbo'd engines. These are spec'd for 95+. Is this a short term hiccup?

Or might it be that diesel loses favour first? Look at London, they are trying to reduce diesel use in the emission zone because the particulates, despite DPFs, are still too high.

And surely as long as a car achieves the current emissions level that is what would matter first, not the fuel it runs on. I believe NZ currently does not allow anything less than EuroIV to be imported, as a way of reducing pollution but also reducing the age of the NZ car fleet. Inevitably the next step will be EuroV, and that probably won't be that far off seeing as the EuroIV rule was introduced in 2012. going forward 95 has to be the new norm or we risk not being able to run cars from europe. As far as I know 91 is not a thing not only in the UK, but across Europe too, so I can only assume they don't develop cars to run on 91, or if they do it is retrospectively and engine maps to accommodate for the lower grade fuel.

Sure Japan is still our biggest provider, and Korea is growing in share, and who knows where the Chinese will be in 10 years time, but 95 makes sense as it means you can effectively run anything, give or take, but 91 would severely restrict the market of your medium/high performance engines, and eradicate your high performance ones, all of sudden we'd have no ferraris, maseratis, HSVs, etc because we don't have the fuel for the, save for aftermarket additives, which negates the purpose anyway. I know its only a small market, but surely no government would be so stupid as to remove a fuel from the market that is necessary for certain cars. That's not to say technology won't advance, and perhaps it might be that 500bhp is capable from a 91 fuel, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Oblivian

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#1788304 25-May-2017 18:14

Obviously due for an increase. Or its borderline for some reason and they are actually trying to nab customers.

Aus has been going down down down. And last 2 days Z Main nth (chc) raised it first thing 2.01->2.04. All locals remaining at 2.01

Today it was back down to 2.01, while caltex cranford raised to 2.04

xlinknz

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#1788337 25-May-2017 19:45

We only accumulate at Countdown [we shop there anyway] and the fill up the 50L on a 10cpl off day [after checking Gasspy] that BP price is not higher by an order of magnitude than everyone else otherwise we wait]

We appreciate that being in Wgtn the competition isn't the same as Levin/Foxton where their is a Gull/Allied and or Waitomo etc otherwise we wouldn't bother with Smartfuel

We used to use a Caltex unmanned site that typically had 20cpl off everyone else but they don't anymore. I also suspect we got our diesel bug there but cannot confirm that

We'll go wherever its the most fuel is the lowest all things being considered

As much as Smartfuel is maligned we now highly appreciate AA as they paid most of a $1500 bill for a car repair when it was caused by their faulty battery and without me specifically asking them to do so.

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