Anyone know why the price of gas is given in 3 decimal places instead of 2?

 

its two over here

 

I think it's because of the taxes and you know how the government loves OUR money.....

 

well, you are right...
when you pay $1.99 / gallon it's actually 1.999 per gallon (which is actually $2.00) . . . so they make you think that it's $1.99 when in reality it's .001 less than $2 . . . unless you're buying hundreds of thousands of gallons, you will not save anything with the .001

 

 

it's there so that you know what 10gallons costs. It's 1.999 for one gallon and 19.99 for 10.

 

I'm pretty sure that it's for taxes.

 

It's just to fool us in to thinking that it's cheaper than it really is, to get that part of a cent per litre extra. The old Nickle and dime trick.

So, gas is 1.999$ you buy 10 galons, you pay 19.99. If it was 1.99, you would pay, 19.90. 9 cents more for the station and the Government.

MaxedOutOfCash, you are supposed to round down any portion of a cent. You never round up any fraciton of a cent.

 

I think if you go back far enough stations actually competed by charging something less than 1 cent less. My grandpa once told us that his dad bought gas for something in the 30 cent range, it was like the early 70s or late 60, I don't remember. So I think one station could be 30 and 3 tenths, while another 31 and 2 tenths, etc. It's pretty irrelevant now, as is the super vs. regular debate since super has an elastic demand. Super unleaded is so cheap now relative to regular, I just paid 1.819 which was only 7 cents more than regular. That's only 4% more. Back in the day, like 5 years ago, super was 18% more than regular, so running regular in a Maxima was subject to debate.

 

You only get .9 gallons for the listed price. If the gas is $1.79 on the pump, that is what you pay for 9 tenths of a gallon, not a full gallon. Try it the next time you fill your tank.

 

Frank hit the nail right on the money, Pure and simple, back in the day when two rival gas stations where battling it out for customers they would compete by changing the 3rd decimal and it just stuck around since. No other reason.

 

"Greed, for lack of a better term, is good....greed works."

 

It's all about perception and squeezing more money out of you. Same reason banks use a billion decimal places too...

 

I always thought it had something to do with back in the 60's (or earlier) or something, that and inflation.

 

You must not like my reason. Try it and see. It makes perfect sense if you look at the numbers at the station.

 

Man I remember in 8th Grade like 5 years ago gas was under a dollar under Bill CLinton, George Bishhh a$$ comes along and Makes gas go up, taxes up, makes us go to war 2wice, puting us into a trillion dollar plus deficite, and now he wants to take howard stern off the air! Ehh gas is like 2.20 for premium in chicago, it takes me 36 dollars to fill up! Man i hate this!

 

dude, it was only a year ago that gas prices were 99 cents for 87.

 

The good ole days!

George Bush is an oil man. Pure and simple - that's where he (and family) made their money. Cheney & Rice also have an extensive background in oil. Good for them since they got rich off of it. Bad for us since it came/comes at out expense ($2 or $3 for a gallon of of gas - wtf?).

 

BECAUSE THE GAS TAX IS DONE IN "MILS" [a rate (as of taxation) expressed in mills per dollar]

much like the tax millages that we can vote on

 

Yeah, I read on one webpage that the "9/10" that only gasoline uses (no other product sells in fraction of a cent), that arizona alone, is paying like 30million dollars a year for unpaid gas. SO that "rounding error", or 9/10 of a cent, becuase of the fact that you can't have 9/10th of a cent, is costing alot of money, and is a immoral practive. kinda like those 99 cent cheesesburger = 1.07 /w tax. if it was a 99.9999999 cent cheese burger, it might be slightly more... why the heck else deal in "imaginary money"?
It's like saying $1 and 23/9th of a pecos.

 

To put things into perspective, I probably use around 650 gallons of petrol per year. If I am actually always paying $0.009 more than I think, that equates to $5.85 per year. It's not a lot to say the least...

 

The next time you get gas, if the price is $1.65 on the billboard, pump $1.65 into the tank and look at the gallon counter. I'll bet you that it will not be 1 gallon. You will actually pay $1.66 for a whole gallon. There is no such animal as 9 tenths of a cent. It's 9 tenths of a gallon.

 

Think about what you are saying. We agree that when the price posted is 1.659, that's basically 1.66 per gallon. That means for every 16.6 cents, you get 1/10 of a gallon. At about 1.494 or say 1.50, you get 9/10 of a gallon. At $1.65, you will have pumped .994 gallon, not .9 gallon. The fuel is dispensed linearly.

 

Sounds good to me mane. Of course it can differ from pump to pump depending on how accurate it is calibrated.

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