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DennisN
Tired Old Man
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 14893
Location: Keynsham
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 Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:40 am Post subject: |
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There are price anomalies all over the place - look at the fuel station at 51.46982,-2.68181, which is signed "Last before Motorway", is less than a mile before arriving at M5 Junction 19 service station and charges 2 to 3p a litre MORE than the service station!
What I'm saying is that from my sightings in over 50K miles a year, generally, Motorway Services are some 10p a litre dearer than off motorway, so don't let your fuel run low when you are somewhere with a cheaper price, even fill up long before you need to so that you don't get caught out in a dearer area of the country. That philosophy applies to every little local village pump - I simply don't go out in the boondocks and into villages without enough fuel to get out again. When I did a delivery to Dounreay power station last year, I made good and sure I had more than enough fuel before I entered Scotland. My local cheap garages are noticeably cheaper than some other parts of the country, so I try to make sure I leave with enough fuel to get me back home (say 550 mile round trip), or fuel up with the bare minimum to get me home from somewhere expensive. I never, ever, considered letting TomTom fuel prices advise me otherwise. And I see no reason to do so for petrolprices.com - driving 15 miles each way will cost me £5.40 to offset against 5p a litre. Same hypothesis as doing a ten mile round trip to my local supermarket to save a few pence on my beans.  If the 5p a litre saving is available as I drive past, fair enough. But when I'm on a delivery, I need to get to the destination, not wander about the countryside looking to save a few coppers on fuel prices which may not be accurate anyway.
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Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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spook51
Lifetime Member
Joined: Mar 26, 2004
Posts: 548
Location: East Midlands
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:42 am Post subject: |
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| There's a 4p a litre difference in the cost of diesel at filling stations near me. I've just calculated I would have spent a minimum of £19.84 more in the last month if I hadn't shopped around for the cheapest - and that's for just one of our three cars. |
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WackyRaces
Banned
Joined: Aug 04, 2010
Posts: 172
Location: Banned Member Using New ID
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| Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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It seems all the more odd that TomTom should be giving up on fuel prices when Garmin have just launched such a service as part of their equivalent of the Live Services (nu Link Real Time Services) that actually works.
From this website's own review of the new Garmin Nuvi 1690 at:-
www.pocketgpsworld.com/garmin-nuvi1690-review-jm815.php
| Quote: | | The prices for my local stations were accurate and it also informs the user of the date the information was last updated. The cheaper prices show in green whereas the more expensive ones are in red. |
I wonder who Garmin's petrol price supplier is? It would be embarrassing if it was Inrix and/or OPIS and the faulty TomTom petrol price data was purely down to the inability of TomTom's Navcore to handle it properly. |
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aerotec
Regular Visitor
Joined: 27/07/2003 22:05:35
Posts: 130
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:05 pm Post subject: |
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This is a real shame, I would have hoped they would have changed data supplier rather than ditch it. And for those of us paid up for a year do we get an extension or a refund?
Now as for the data quality, ok it wasn't always relfective of the real time price but it gave you an idea of who was likley to be cheaper.
If Station A showed 125.9p/litre and Station B showed 122.9p/litre but when I turn up Station B is actually 125.9p/litre there is a good chance Station A was now 128.9p/litre so I still saved money.
I don't go out my way for the few pence but if I am on a route and I see a station on my route or max a mile off it is a good bit cheaper then I will pop in. 3p saving with a 60 litre tank covers my coffee in the McDonalds Drive Thru  |
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Seamaster
Frequent Visitor
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
Posts: 331
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| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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| This "service" has been comically bad since day one. Do you remember when the original x40 range was advertised on the basis of how much one would save you in cheaper petrol? Laughable. |
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WackyRaces
Banned
Joined: Aug 04, 2010
Posts: 172
Location: Banned Member Using New ID
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 12:36 am Post subject: |
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| Seamaster wrote: | | This "service" has been comically bad since day one. Do you remember when the original x40 range was advertised on the basis of how much one would save you in cheaper petrol? Laughable. |
The fact that TomTom have found it acceptable to round down the petrol price to the nearest whole penny when most petrol is priced to an 0.9 of a penny per litre is a sign of their basic total lack of understanding of what the customer actually wants. Firstly they shouldn't have rounded at all and should have shown the exact prices as Garmin's new fuel price service does (how hard can it be when they have huge wide screen to show the price on) and if they did round at all they should have followed the normal well known maths rules of rounding up if a price was 0.5 to 0.9 of a litre and rounding down if it was 0.0 to 0.4. Secondly they should have been brave enough to show the last date on which each price shown was collected and thirdly this would then have put them under pressure to resolve all the petrol stations that screw up your search for the cheapest petrol by showing a price that is weeks and weeks old. It is not exactly rocket science to not include a price in the list of cheapest stations in your area if that price was collected more than two days ago.
A look at www.opisnet.com/transportation.asp suggests that OPIS (TomTom's fuel price data supplier as listed in the copyright screen of each Live services unit) is all about providing accurate fuel prices and they say "don't let 1 penny per gallon cost you thousands! In tough economic times like these, you can't afford to lose even a half a cent per gallon to your competition". Yet somehow TomTom has turned their data in to a petrol price feed where you can be directed to a petrol station billed as cheapest but where that station has either closed down for a refit or for good or alternatively the petrol station never existed at that location at all or it does exist but is now showing a price 10p per litre higher than the one shown by TomTom. Given Opis's marketing pitch I can't believe that they are no good at collecting fuel price data so surely it is TomTom that is screwing up the data when it downloads it from Opis by having broken data links etc in their database for certain petrol stations.
Last edited by WackyRaces on Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Darren
Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40
Posts: 23848
Location: Hampshire, UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:53 am Post subject: |
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| aerotec wrote: | | This is a real shame, I would have hoped they would have changed data supplier rather than ditch it. And for those of us paid up for a year do we get an extension or a refund? |
It's still operating, those that paid for it will likely keep it until their renewal.
I would expect TomTom to give notice of its retirement.
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Darren Griffin |
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Darren
Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40
Posts: 23848
Location: Hampshire, UK
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 8:57 am Post subject: |
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WackyRaces, can I issue a plea for some brevity in your posts?
Forums are not the place for lengthy missives and any valid points you may have to make are being lost as readers do not want to read a single reply that takes nearly a whole page.
You are clearly passionate on the subject, but the length of your posts are not doing you any favours.
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Darren Griffin |
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Seamaster
Frequent Visitor
Joined: Jun 05, 2006
Posts: 331
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:44 am Post subject: |
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| Darren wrote: | | WackyRaces, can I issue a plea for some brevity in your posts? Forums are not the place for lengthy missives and any valid points you may have to make are being lost as readers do not want to read a single reply that takes nearly a whole page. You are clearly passionate on the subject, but the length of your posts are not doing you any favours. |
Speak for yourself. I enjoy his posts. |
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DennisN
Tired Old Man
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 14893
Location: Keynsham
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| Seamaster wrote: | | Darren wrote: | | WackyRaces, can I issue a plea for some brevity in your posts? Forums are not the place for lengthy missives and any valid points you may have to make are being lost as readers do not want to read a single reply that takes nearly a whole page. You are clearly passionate on the subject, but the length of your posts are not doing you any favours. |
Speak for yourself. I enjoy his posts. |
You should get out more!
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Dennis
If it tastes good - it's fattening.
Two of them are obesiting!! |
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WackyRaces
Banned
Joined: Aug 04, 2010
Posts: 172
Location: Banned Member Using New ID
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 12:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Seamaster wrote: | | Speak for yourself. I enjoy his posts. |
Thanks for your support. 
The bottom line is that most of the features that TomTom's marketing people most heavily used to push the x40 and x50 series apart from HD Traffic don't seem to work properly (and some would debate how well that actually works even if it is less bad than any of its competitors). This includes not only the Live fuel prices but also the originally heavily marketed supposed live sharing between users of new mobile camera van positions and all too frequently Google Live Search (where Google finds your destination but you are then navigated to a location where there is no sign of the company, shop or whatever you thought you were being guided to)
The Live units have a data connection yet simple things that would not cause abuse of the amount of data used but be very useful like the nationalrail timetable website (yes many of us do drive our cars to a train station each day) or a directory enquires website are not provided.
So while I will run this unit for two or three more years when it comes up for replacement I will definitely get a Smartphone with an HD Traffic or similar App on it but will definitely not buy another standalone TomTom navigation device. |
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Andy_P
Pocket GPS Moderator
Joined: Jun 04, 2005
Posts: 19991
Location: West and Southwest London
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 9:48 pm Post subject: |
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| WackyRaces wrote: |
The bottom line is.....etc. etc. |
There's the problem, in a nutshell.
You have made some very good posts and you've obviously done quite a bit of research, and you've maybe even found an answer for an important ongoing issue; but almost every post then turns into a general rant about TomTom the company, the products, and their shortcomings.
You've said how you feel, and very eloquently, but you REALLY don't need to repeat it over and over, because then any new point you want to make will just get missed. |
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andy-c1
Lifetime Member
Joined: Feb 05, 2005
Posts: 1039
Location: East Sussex
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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sorry I missed all that can you repeat it all
honestly I will miss it ..it has gotten me out of a few jams in the past ..yes I know there is a poi etc ..I do think they should keep it but perhaps just use it as a nearest petrol station and do away with the pricing..As being a company car I don't care about price I just want fuel
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WackyRaces
Banned
Joined: Aug 04, 2010
Posts: 172
Location: Banned Member Using New ID
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| Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| andy-c1 wrote: | | As being a company car I don't care about price I just want fuel |
So doesn't your company care how much it pays for the fuel you use then. 
I suspect it is the attitude of company car drivers such as your good self that is primarily responsible for the ripoff level of fuel prices charged by motorway service areas. 
However I assume that when you are out in the sticks you might none the less still find it useful for your TomTom to know the opening hours of petrol stations so that when you are running low you do not end up driving to one that proves to have closed at 6pm. As TomTom seem to find it so difficult to maintain fast moving petrol price data perhaps they could at least replace them with this rarely changing data instead.
Last edited by WackyRaces on Fri Jan 28, 2011 12:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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WackyRaces
Banned
Joined: Aug 04, 2010
Posts: 172
Location: Banned Member Using New ID
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| Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 12:05 am Post subject: |
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| Andy_P wrote: | | but almost every post then turns into a general rant about TomTom the company, the products, and their shortcomings. |
I never seem to rant about my Miele Washer/Dryer or Neff Dishwasher, Fridge/Freezer or Oven because all of them have just worked for 20 years without a single visit from a service engineer.
Can I take it that you expect me to regard a TomTom as being like a Hotpoint washing machine or a Rover motor car and that on that basis I have no right at all to expect it to do anything else other than to cause a regular stream of problems and difficulties for the end user?  |
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