Saturday, May 13, 2006
Money Tree Very Pretty
It seemed for a couple weeks that gas prices had stabilized. It was $2.86 for several days at the generally low price stations near work, with $2.89 being about the consensus norm, and sightings as low as $2.74 during that time. I think the high was about $2.94. What it looked like is the blend switching had all been done, and if it wasn’t going down much or at all, it wasn’t going up either.
As of yesterday, $2.99 became the apparent new normal. The self-serve, low cost station near the rotary was at $3.03, becoming the first place I’d ever seen $3+ for regular. The low was $2.94 at another traditionally cheap station. Finally, I saw on my way home that the little full-serve, generic station around the corner, which is often as cheap as anywhere, had gone up to $3.10. Wow. I didn’t go by the stations near the office yesterday, but the other day one of them had gone from $2.86 to $2.91 to $2.99, and the other one had gone from $2.86 to $2.89, but not higher yet. I filled the Sentra with the $2.89 stuff and was sad to see that even though it’s running better and seems to have shaken most of the ill effects of the bad gas it got months back, it didn’t even get 20 MPG. I miss it getting 28 - 30 MPG reliably! Then I spiked it with more dry gas, plus some carb and fuel injector cleaner chemicals. Maybe that’ll help.
Maybe this is the Memorial Day increase, but it seems a little soon for that. I’d be eating my words right now, if I had posted about gas prices stabilizing as I planned to a few days ago.