How Much You Can Save By Shopping Around for Fuel

Filling up at the right forecourt rather than the nearest one could save a typical driver around £6 on every tank of petrol, based on official UK fuel price data covering nearly 8,000 forecourts across the country.

The national average for E10 unleaded currently sits at 150.7p a litre, but that figure masks a wide spread. The cheapest forecourts are pricing around 144.9p a litre, while the most expensive are closer to 155.9p. That 11p gap does not sound dramatic until you put it against a standard 50-litre fill, where it translates to a clear £5.50 difference in what you hand over at the till. Over a year of weekly fill-ups, a driver who consistently picks a cheaper forecourt could hold on to well over £250 compared with one who never looks at the price board.

Diesel drivers are working with higher base costs, with the national average at 164.5p a litre according to the same official data, so the absolute saving from shopping around is proportionally similar. Whether you run petrol or diesel, the habit of checking prices before you pull in is one of the simplest and most immediate ways to reduce your running costs without changing anything about how or how much you drive.

The practical step is straightforward: before a fill-up, spend a moment checking what forecourts near your route or destination are actually charging rather than defaulting to habit. Supermarket forecourts tend to sit at the lower end of the range, and filling up slightly out of your way is worth it if the detour is short. Drivers who are thinking about their wider car costs, from insurance and finance to the price they paid for the vehicle in the first place, can find useful comparisons and information at Car.co.uk.