Life in Culebrón

Pinoso has lots of community websites. The English language one I tend to look at most often is a Facebook page called Pinoso Community. People use it for a whole range of things from lost dogs and questions about where to find services to checking to see if anyone else is having trouble with their Internet provider or power supply. The other day someone, on that page, commented on the price of fuel in the local filling stations. They weren't really complaining about the high price of petrol but more about the price fluctuations between different garages and even in the same filling station. I thought it might be an interesting blog - why and how the price varies. As I started to investigate I found the information both complicated and contradictory. In fact I decided that to do it properly would be both boring and long. That didn't stop me though. So, if you continue, expect boring and long. And sometimes, simply because of the complexity, I've oversimplified. There is als...

When I had my first cars in the UK, when you could get five gallons of cut price Jet petrol for a pound, there was always someone to serve you. By the time I left I bought fuel in supermarkets and you served yourself. Not so in Spain. When we first arrived nearly all the petrol stations had attended service. I never particularly cared for it. I'm one of those trainspotter type people who keeps records; I like to know how many litres of fuel per 100 kilometres the car is using. The blokes and blokesss at the filling station tend to stop on a round figure's worth of fuel. I suppose it was a habit from the times when people paid with cash. Less change to faff with. Petrol pumps that turn off automatically, as the liquid backs up the hose, and change conscious pump attendants played havoc with my number crunching. There was another reason for my dislike of attended service. Pull up at self service, pump your own fuel, pay with a credit card and the amount of language required wou...

I try to avoid the single petrol station in Pinoso if I can. They aren't ever actually unpleasant but they are a bit offhand. The staff sort of vaguely ignore me or talk across me to another customer. It's common for them to beckon for my credit card rather than ask me for it. Their reasoning may be that very few of we Brits speak any Spanish so it's not worth trying to talk to us but, whatever the reason, I don't like their attitude much. It's not a cheap petrol station either. The diesel cost 1.439€ per litre today and the price comparison sites says that if I'd hunted out the cheapest petrol station in the province I could have saved 13 centimos per litre and got it for 1.309€. According to the reports if I want to save money I should avoid Galp or BP stations where prices tend to be the highest. Repsol stations, which are the most widespread, have widely variable prices and the best bet for lower prices are the independent brands including the hypermar...