Fuel retailers aren’t playing fair with diesel drivers, says RAC

Diesel car drivers are still being charged an extra 20 pence per liter compared to petrol car owners when they fill up, according to the RAC, despite there being ‘little difference’ in the prices of the two fuels on the wholesale market.

The average cost to fill the tank of an average sized 55-litre family car currently costs petrol drivers £81.40, while those with diesel models have to spend more than £10 (£92.39) each time they take a visit gas station.

The wholesale price of diesel last week fell to just 6 pence more than petrol (121.06 pence compared to 115.48 pence), but drivers of diesel vehicles had to pay 168 pence per litre, compared to just 148 pence for unleaded vehicles.

The motorists’ group says diesel drivers face a ‘massive pump price cut’ within two weeks – although they have reservations that this will only be the case if fuel retailers play fair.

The RAC said retailers are ‘subsidizing’ cheaper petrol by taking a 20p margin on every liter of diesel they sell.

Last week the average UK price of unleaded lead was 148 pence a litre, while diesel cost a premium of nearly 20 pence a litre, from 167.99 pence, on Thursday 23 February.

The automobile group’s Fuel Watch division calculated that if diesel were sold at a fairer rate, drivers would pay no more than about 155 pence a litre, which would make the cost of filling an average 55-litre family car £7 less than now it is (£85.25, compared to the current £92.39).

The analysis shows that retailers are currently taking more than double the margin on every liter of diesel they sell – just under 20 pence – compared to the 8.5 pence on unleaded, effectively declining petrol prices by charging more for diesel.

The RAC is calling on retailers to urgently lower the price of diesel to fairer levels, following the lead of membership-only Costco, which this week cut off 4p on diesel at its UK sites, meaning it is now charges an average of 154.7 pence. – 13p less than the UK average and 11.5p less than the average across the UK’s four major supermarkets.

RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams believes diesel vehicle owners have ‘every right to feel hard done’ over current fuel prices.

The latest government figures show that 17.6 million licensed vehicles in the UK run on diesel, including the vast majority of vans. That is 43 percent of all vehicles on the road.

He said: “While our data shows that petrol is currently generally sold at a fair price at gas stations, drivers of the country’s 12 million diesel cars – as well as nearly every driver of a white van – have every right to feel they are being mistreated “pay a huge premium for the fuel that in no way reflects the lower wholesale cost.”

Mr Williams says the wholesale price difference between the two fuels has been less than 10 pence per liter for almost a month. And in recent times the gap between the two has shrunk to just 3.5 pence.

Yet retailers have kept diesel pump prices ‘stubbornly high’, driving fuel prices down by just 2 pence per liter since early February.

“The fact that Costco, a member-only retailer, was able to lower the average price of a liter of diesel by as much as 4p this week shows what is possible, but we desperately need other fuel retailers to give diesel vehicle drivers fair treatment,” he adds.

While the price of diesel is not being cut as quickly as it should be, the difference between the average price of petrol and diesel has fallen below 20 pence (19.99 pence) for the first time since October 10, 2022.

“If retailers do the right thing now, this should be reduced significantly, helping drivers who rely on diesel save a lot of money every time they fill up.”