Originally Posted by
ajax
My calculations don't support this.
Petrol prices are about £1.33 per litre in the UK. This is approximately $2.15 per litre at the current rate of $1.61 to £1. At 3.78 litres to the gallon, this means that UK petrol prices are $8.13 to the gallon. If petrol costs $3.50 per gallon in the US, then $50 buys 14.285 gallons. 14.285 gallons in the UK would then cost $116.14, or about £72.14 - meaning that petrol is about 2.32x more expensive in the UK than the US, not 3.5x as you claim.
This is, of course, assuming like-for-like petrol usage. I don't know what kind of car the OP uses but engines are much more efficient and smaller in the UK than the US - even "medium-sized" cars - meaning that those 14.285 gallons go much further in British cars than American cars.
Well, yes, within reason. If someone lends you their car with 1/8th of a tank and you use it to run to the neighbourhood B&Q, it's hardly on to expect them to spend £60 filling it back up again. And no one whose car I've borrowed has ever expected me to spend £60 under those circumstances.
Sir, I yield to your most excellent mathematical prowess. ^ However, over the course of this now 25+ year sentence in the US, if I average the ratio of UK to US petrol prices, it is almost exactly a 3X difference. In fact, I'm looking at my credit card bill from Jan, and note that I filled up my car at my local Costco for $54 (pre-post-Mubarak days), and four days later filled up a similar car at the Sainsbury's in Wimbledon for $172.
Re/ the refilling of tanks, I always seem to borrow my father's car when the tank is close to empty. Since it's my Dad, I always fill it up for him regardless of how short or long a distance I have traveled, but will do so for others occasionally, since I think it rather cheap to simply add a gallon to a car after someone has trusted you with it. Still, seeing a charge for $172 on a US credit card bill for a full tank is indeed still a mind blower.