Beat the fuel rip-off

Motorists may now be able to save 10c a litre on petrol by using a new online tool that advises drivers when to refuel.

From today, people in mainland state capitals will be able to use the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission website to decide when they should fill up their tanks.

This is the first time that the consumer watchdog has offered buying advice. "We are trying to be more helpful," chairman Rod Sims told CarsGuide. Drivers are currently paying as much as 10c a litre more than they should because of a failure to pass on at the bowser sharp recent falls in the wholesale fuel price.

ACCC analysts will, wherever possible, recommend whether to buy or postpone buying fuel, allowing motorists to buy closer to the low point of the fuel price "cycle".

The gap between the high and low of a price cycle can be as much as 20c a litre. "Even if you get it half right and save yourself 10c a litre, that's an enormous amount," Mr Sims said. The online tool covers only mainland state capitals because there is no price cycle elsewhere, he said. But the ACCC won't try to say where the cheapest fuel is.

Mr Sims said that this was too difficult to do accurately, and on a given day the price difference between stations was typically only 2c a litre. Mr Sims explained the ACCC had no ability to control petrol prices but it was "monitoring" trends in bowser prices, particularly in rural areas, since the dramatic decline in the price of wholesale fuel.

"All we can do is comment on it, to put pressure on," Mr Sims said. The online tool is based on figures from Fueltrac, which are obtained mainly from sales recorded on fleet companies' petrol-purchasing cards.

Until June, the ACCC had bought pricing data from Informed Sources, which runs MotorMouth, a website and mobile app that also offers advice to consumers on when and where to buy fuel. But in August the ACCC launched Federal Court action against Informed Sources, alleging that it and major petrol retailers had been sharing fuel pricing information in a way that substantially lessened competition.