Beware ANY petrol bunk in Bangalore!

[DieselFan]

Originally Posted by androdev

cant say the Shell quality is better than others.. apparently.. there is no way u can run a profitable filling station unless u cheat on the quality.. if petrol is to be sold at 'honest' quality, u wont be seeing any petrol stations within the city... they will instead build a nice shopping mall in that place instead.

No I totally disagree with this statement. Based on the volume sold the profits are really high. Yes I agree it is not staggering but decent. People just get greedy.

[FAst 'n furious]

Andro... Shell might not be 100% perfect but out of the rest, This seems to be Good.. Reg the petrol pump profits... My uncle owns a Petrol pump in my native place.. He used to tell us even without cheating they can easily get 1.25 Re/Liter for petrol, little lesser for diesl after all the deductions/tax.. (I believe he wont cheat). Say they sell 5000 ltrs a day.. easily they can get 7 K per day... which works our to 2 Lakhs.. which is far more than our take homes!!! so if they start lurking this 200-800 and all , God , I think they can easily become Millionaires!!!

[DieselFan]

5000 Lts is about 200 Cars on an average. Hence in a average location it is more than 10000 lts of petrol a day. Diesel extra.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by FAst 'n furious

Andro... Shell might not be 100% perfect but out of the rest, This seems to be Good.. Reg the petrol pump profits... My uncle owns a Petrol pump in my native place.. He used to tell us even without cheating they can easily get 1.25 Re/Liter for petrol, little lesser for diesl after all the deductions/tax.. (I believe he wont cheat). Say they sell 5000 ltrs a day.. easily they can get 7 K per day... which works our to 2 Lakhs.. which is far more than our take homes!!! so if they start lurking this 200-800 and all , God , I think they can easily become Millionaires!!!

I am a Shell customer myself.. I have never filled from another brand after Shell started in Bangalore.. I was trying to imply even Shell is not 100% pure but it primises me the quanity atleast. So I am in agreement with what you are saying.. that Shell is better than the most.

If I am an honest business man with a bit of intelligence, I will not be a running a petrol station in the neighbourhood of multistoried commercial complexes.

[ravibhat]

I always used to fill (over 4 years..) @BP Bunk near Basaveshwara Nagar, Bangalore always tank full. From last 1 year I noticed quality has come down either by wrong measurement or bad fuel. This Petrol bunk is one of the best bunks I heard from many people 4 yrs thats why I always used to fill there.

But last year when I noticed FE has come down by 1km with my Swift and pick up is decreased I tried Shell I can see in first fill itself pick up is improved very much and FE increased by 1.

After I baught Innova I used to fill at Shell bunk Mysore road (left side one while coming to Bangalore) but later I changed to BP Petrol Bunk opposite to Fabmall in Nagarbhavi I am very impressed with that Bunk, Its cheaper compered with inside Bangalore City bunks... and FE incerased by 1km (compared with tank full to tank full more than 3 times and shell and BP bunk at basaveshwara nagar..).

Now they offer Auto gas as wel. Owner of that bunk said he is getting very good response now a days and he will continue to give good service.

I recommand that BP bunk opposite to fabmall @nagarbhavi, near ring road construction place for sure.

Regards,

Ravi.

[kamy450]

Most of the petrol bunks does not do fair business. We have to be careful on that part few greedy bunk owners go way beyond and mix kerosene and stuff more then 40% in petrol which is really not good for your car engine. Petrol mixed with kerosene doesnot behave well on your engine parts give more wear and tear mileage is less, pick up goes for a toss and more smoke.

Engine performace goes down so for your engine sake please make sure you visit genuine bunks ! hard to find one though.

[appuchan]

We own a petrol bunk in my native place. With respect to adulteration, there are atleast two ways that can happen. One is at the bunk and one is by the transporters. The second one usually happens with the help of company officials as they need to put the seal back in original condition after mixing adulterants. And this is rampant in many places. Not saying the other one is any less

Regarding profit margins and the calculation above of making "2 lacs per month", let me explain it below.

The margins we currently get are in the range of about 1.25% per litre. Not Re1.25. So that works out to about 55ps for petrol and 40 ps for diesel. There are slightly better margins for other consumables like engine oil etc.
Now, you need to note the expenses including, maintenance of premises, rental/lease charges, employee salaries, power/water charges etc. (power bill alone will come to about 20k per month). This is in addition to having to pay the oil company on the spot on delivery. There is no credit business. So we end up paying lacs for a load and then it will take weeks to recover the money thru sale. So the effective margin works out to about 30ps per litre on average and for a monthly sale of about 50 Kilo litre, the net profit is roughly 15k. (ours is in a semi-urban area). Not so good, eh? The more you sell, the better margins, thats it.

IMO, Shell pumps will be helped by high volumes (above 200Kl pm) and maybe even better margins, being a private co. This should help them to maintain better Q&Q.

PS. Even I regularly use only Shell/Reliance fuel. Dont have faith in govt oil!

[TheDoctor]

Five years back for my first bike used Cauvery BP outlet near Lalbaugh, quality and quantiy were both good, deteriorated now.

The IOC bunk on dr. raj road is decent with the quality.

Shell on vm road and on mysore road are both good... surprisingly though after a new one way near my home started filling up at IBP at seetha circle and mileage has jumped up by 2 km/litr and so has the pick up that too on regular fuel compared to the premium fuels at other outlets.

[dadu]

I saw one more way on TV ...a crude but effective thing in the african countries. The taxi guys there bring a bottle of 2 litre Coke/Pepsi, ask the attendent to fill it up and then pour it in the tank. Crude and cumbersome but cant get cheated .

EDIT: And I hope we dont have to start carrying 5-20 ltr Cans in our cars, gping foprward.

[leodelg]

Originally Posted by dadu

I saw one more way on TV ...a crude but effective thing in the african countries. The taxi guys there bring a bottle of 2 litre Coke/Pepsi, ask the attendent to fill it up and then pour it in the tank. Crude and cumbersome but cant get cheated .

EDIT: And I hope we dont have to start carrying 5-20 ltr Cans in our cars, gping foprward.

We may have to... in bikes, its easier to find out if you are have been short-filled or not. I mean, 1litre less from a 12litre capacity tank is quite noticable. But in cars... its quite impossible. Plus, I have heard that in some petrol bunks, the attendants are instructed not to fill into bottles!

[speedmiester]

Have experienced the same with almost all BP outlets, Most notorious is the one opposite to IBM on Bannerghatta road.
Once on my way to office i went to fill up at this bunk, i said put in for 500rs worth, he set the meter to 200 and set it back to another 300. I moved my car called the supervisor, he started arguing with me saying the fuel gauge is faulty. I stood my ground, shouted at him loudly so other customers would listen and asked him compensate me or else i would just stand there and tell every vehicle who would come to fill up about this. This threat calmed him and apologized and agreed put in the remaining amounts worth.
later i visited the BP website and lodged a complaint against the petrol bunk. About a month later i got a call from BP regarding this, and he said they have received similar complaints from other customers ho have filled from that bunk.He assured that the license will be revoked and a strict action will be taken against him.
Dont know whether this has been done, cause i never venture near that outlet anymore.

[ST7677]

He used to tell us even without cheating they can easily get 1.25 Re/Liter for petrol, little lesser for diesl after all the deductions/tax..

As Appuchan said this is close to 50ps per ltr which is too low for any one to setup a petrol pump, which requires lot of investment and bribe. I guess it is the whole system which helps in this corruption.

With respect to adulteration, there are atleast two ways that can happen. One is at the bunk and one is by the transporters. The second one usually happens with the help of company officials as they need to put the seal back in original condition after mixing adulterants. And this is rampant in many places. Not saying the other one is any less

The other day I saw on TV news channel, where all trucks from a particular company were going to an "adultration shed" based right outside the Company, where adulteration was carrying out, in a queue... :(


All said and done, I am still getting better mileage with the IOC opposite to my house wrt Shell fuel. They attempted to cheat me once on volume, but not after that...

[renamo]

One of the worst pump is on the way to Whitefield from KR Puram, the one on the left side much after the honda show room..

I regularly fill up diesel at Shell on old madras road.. There is no difference in FE, but there is marked improvement in the engine response, vibrations etc.

This is the same for Petrol, and the Shell petrol gives the best engine performance among others. Can easily make out this if you ride a well turned bike,

Interms of mileage, from my experience, reliance diesel gives the best FE. Problem is they dont take credit cards..

[arunphilip]

Does anyone think that the perceived/actual improvement in FE from Shell fuel is due to the fact that you're actually getting the correct amount of fuel at Shell?

Consider a car that gives 10 km/L. With 10 L, you can run 100 km.
However, if you're cheated and given only 9 L instead of the 10 L you asked for, you can run only 90 km. You assume you've got 10 L, so calculate your FE as 9 km/L. On the other hand, at Shell, you're given an actual 10 L, so you run 100 km, and calculate the FE as 10 km/L.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Does anyone think that the perceived/actual improvement in FE from Shell fuel is due to the fact that you're actually getting the correct amount of fuel at Shell?

Consider a car that gives 10 km/L. With 10 L, you can run 100 km.
However, if you're cheated and given only 9 L instead of the 10 L you asked for, you can run only 90 km. You assume you've got 10 L, so calculate your FE as 9 km/L. On the other hand, at Shell, you're given an actual 10 L, so you run 100 km, and calculate the FE as 10 km/L.

ofcourse, this point is factored in the discussion. The basis of getting low FE is this particular reason and secondly the adulterated fuel problem comes into picture.