ZEL - Z Energy.

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I have not bought petrol there for over 2 years because of consumption , its possible they had a different brew then.

[peat]

I only ever bought 91 at Gull, and there seemed to be a noticeable reduction in how far a tank lasted, compared to other brands.

needs more science
I would call out anyones professed ability to judge 'how far a tank goes'. Even if you make all the notes about times and distance etc the variation in the driving situation will change things to an extent.

With Z pulling its concierge service we are seeing the business response to consumers being all about price.

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I agree with you, and no measuring was applied km/l etc, but after about 4 full ups, not top ups, I actually climbed under my car to check if there were leaks in the tank or fuel line.
Because of the flap type filler, I knew it wasnt being siphoned.

[arekaywhy]

I only ever bought 91 at Gull, and there seemed to be a noticeable reduction in how far a tank lasted, compared to other brands.

Noticed the same at pak and slave, never went back once I found out that they get fuel "seconds"

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thankyou arekay, I'm wondering if it was because of Gulls distribution system whether the fuel was losing its octane rating, by being stored for longer, maybe the Aussies were giving us an underarm brew.

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For what its worth, I was the one who did the tank filling, so I knew I was consistently filling the tank to the brim each time.

[Ahgong]

thankyou arekay, I'm wondering if it was because of Gulls distribution system whether the fuel was losing its octane rating, by being stored for longer, maybe the Aussies were giving us an underarm brew.

There is a simple measure of the fuel "content" and that is its density. Unfortunately, we do not have that when we fuel up. Fuel at the forecourt is sold by volume. But for marine bunkers, it is sold by weight. (Remember that if you pump petrol when it is cold, you get better value but the difference is minor).

I worked for an oil company years ago and had access to complete fuel specifications of NZ refinery output and was able to roughly confirm fuel density and mileage. Other factors include the percentage of aromatics and different fractions to make the octane rating. The refinery can blend fuel to meet minimum specs. Any extra quality you get is a so-called quality giveaway. Sometimes the crude and other feedstock are so good that the refinery has to sell higher quality product as regular gasoline but this is rare and normally happens during transition from winter to summer grades and vice versa. Addition of ethanol reduces the fuel blend's density and hence its lower energy content. So there is little advantage in using an ethanol blend unless the price differential is large.

One thing that amuses me is that the average useage by Kiwis is about 1200 litres (from my old memory). Folks try hard to save a few cents from all the competing offers. I think 5 cents off is pretty good after all the Z flybuys, BP AA smart card and Mobil Smiles etc...Just remember that the basic 6 cents off is simply the new retail price. So the average punter can save about $60 per year by juggling when and where to fill and carry a few extra cards in the wallet.

A 1 cent increase in the share price of a portfolio of 10,000 shares is $100. Buying and selling right by DYOR is far more productive for the majority of forum members who must surely hold more than 10,000 shares of any stock. In fact, I would venture to guess that average must be around 100,000 shares in a mixed portfolio.

In the old days, a 1 cpl price movement in fuel pioces make it to the news headline in print, TV and newspapers and folks queue up to save a cent before midnight!

Don't waste time on the small stuff!

[Clints]

I fill up at Caltex and used to do $40 and then go pay, come out and do another $40. It was the staff at Caltex that told me to just hang the pump up and then add the 2nd and 3rd $40

[Rep]

There is a simple measure of the fuel "content" and that is its density. Unfortunately, we do not have that when we fuel up. Fuel at the forecourt is sold by volume. But for marine bunkers, it is sold by weight. (Remember that if you pump petrol when it is cold, you get better value but the difference is minor).

I worked for an oil company years ago and had access to complete fuel specifications of NZ refinery output and was able to roughly confirm fuel density and mileage. Other factors include the percentage of aromatics and different fractions to make the octane rating. The refinery can blend fuel to meet minimum specs. Any extra quality you get is a so-called quality giveaway. Sometimes the crude and other feedstock are so good that the refinery has to sell higher quality product as regular gasoline but this is rare and normally happens during transition from winter to summer grades and vice versa. Addition of ethanol reduces the fuel blend's density and hence its lower energy content. So there is little advantage in using an ethanol blend unless the price differential is large.

One thing that amuses me is that the average useage by Kiwis is about 1200 litres (from my old memory). Folks try hard to save a few cents from all the competing offers. I think 5 cents off is pretty good after all the Z flybuys, BP AA smart card and Mobil Smiles etc...Just remember that the basic 6 cents off is simply the new retail price. So the average punter can save about $60 per year by juggling when and where to fill and carry a few extra cards in the wallet.

A 1 cent increase in the share price of a portfolio of 10,000 shares is $100. Buying and selling right by DYOR is far more productive for the majority of forum members who must surely hold more than 10,000 shares of any stock. In fact, I would venture to guess that average must be around 100,000 shares in a mixed portfolio.

In the old days, a 1 cpl price movement in fuel pioces make it to the news headline in print, TV and newspapers and folks queue up to save a cent before midnight!

Don't waste time on the small stuff!

In 2013, Gull lost a tax case in respect of their use of blending butane into petrol to reduce the excise. Butane had an excise duty of 10 cents a litre and petrol was at 48 cents a litre.
They were blending in relatively small amounts in but attempting to save the 38 cents per litre in excise duty which saved them $10m in excise.
Customs disagreed and the Supreme Court upheld the Customs interpretation which meant Gull incurred $13m in penalties and interest for a total bill of $23m.

source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...trol-tax-fight

At the time, expert evidence was that the blended spirit wasn't chemically identical to petrol. Butane has an energy density of about 7,700 Wh per litre and petrol is about 9,500 Wh per litre (for reference ethanol is 6,666.6 Wh per litre) so it would not have the same 'energy density.' E10 roughly has 9,200 W-h litre so it can have a higher research octane number (RON) but have less density so relatively the savings from using it are offset by the increased fuel burn.

Disclaimer - I don't know if the blending is still occurring or indeed what brew is live. I'd also say that actually getting reliable and accurate relative fuel economy comparison out of one tank of gas isn't actually achievable unless you have an identical car following you with the other gas, you do a particular long distance run with little traffic and similar driving styles to judge it (or you have the sort of data acquisition and logging you have on a race car) or alternatively do the test under controlled conditions like on a track - believe me I've spent a bucket load of time looking at it in the context of endurance racing - even a variable like tyre pressure, rolling resistance of different tyres, ambient temperature can all play a part (actually it's mainly the driver that makes most of the difference).

In terms of savings from the fuel discount programmes, by judicious and disciplined use of stacking in the Flybuys Z and Caltex Pumped scheme (e.g. buying in $40 increments and stacking), I have achieved an average discount per litre of around 22-23 cents per litre off pump price for all the petrol we have purchased since last August that's equated to about $550 off the pump price. That is across two cars but it represents about 4 times the discount most folk could access but don't because they don't know how it works or don't perceive that there is value in doing so - also $550 after tax is about $820 income pre-tax which for a lot of folk isn't small stuff - even half of that for most folk (say one car) isn't small stuff.

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I feel vindicated by your comments Rep.
The keyword in my comment was 'noticeable.'
I'm not a miser, and as peat correctly pointed out, no science/measuring was applied, so if the difference was only 4 or 5% , I wouldn't have even noticed it.
Variables such as driver, load, routes taken, traffic flows at the time of day were all consistent.
The energy density variance you have pointed out is @19% less.
Anecdotely, as soon as I changed to other brands, I no longer felt someone was pinching my petrol.
Friends at the time said they had similar experience.