TT Fuel Prices USA Feedback?

[soderinde]

Does anyone have subscription and feedbacks on TT Fuel Prices USA and its usefulness??now that (west coast) Gas Price is getting almost out of hand? And for some of us daily (30+ miles one way) commuters, one or two fill-up at the wrong Gas station can cost even more than $14.95 in two weeks or so.

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[Michael Quinlan]

I've been looking into this and have some concerns about its usefulness. Accoring to this article at GPSReview.net, both Garmin and TomTom get their data from the same place - OPIS. When I last used MSN Direct on a Garmin, a lot of the data was 1 or two days old, and some was 5 or more days old.

You can also get MSN gas prices here. As you'll see, the list of prices includes 30 gas stations, sorted by price in ascending order. At the time I'm writing this, the data for the first 7 entries (the 7 lowest prices) is 1 or more days old. The prices at any of these stations could now be easily higher than the #8 station that has price data from today.

According to the above-referenced article:

TomTom says that “60% of Stations will report Regular Fuel price updates every 48 hours”

If the data was a snapshot - meaning that all of the data was two days old - this wouldn't really be much of a problem, as the station with the lowest price two days ago probably has the lowest price (or close to it) today, regardless of what has happened since then. But it's not a snapshot. Some data is from today, some from yesterday, and some even older. With the way prices are changing these days, a mix of data from today, yesterday, two days ago, etc. is virtually useless.

What would be much more helpful is some sort of approximated snapshot - show me the data for the stations as of yesterday, so I can compare apples to apples, instead of todays oranges to yesterdays apples. If some stations reported today, but not yesterday, estimate their "yesterday" price based on historical data for that station.

I still may try it myself, but it's not so much the $15 subscription I'm concerned about, but the added cost of being directed to a higher priced station due to stale data.

I looked into the possibility of scouring the MSN site or the GasBuddy site to develop a POI list for my own use, but the prices that appear on the web sites are all displayed as images (not text) - apparently to prevent people from doing just that. While it may be possible to decypher what they are doing, and obtain the pricing, I'd much rather spend $15 and let somebody else to it.

If I do decide to try it I'll certainly post back here with some sort of review, at least as it applies to my area.

 

[soderinde]

Thanks......I guess I will stick to MSN & GasBuddy updates as suggested for now...knowing that these updates may as well consist of certain margin of error or real time validity......

 

[Michael Quinlan]

I should also point out that I called TomTom support the other day to see if there was a free evaluation period available for the Fuel Prices. I was told no, but that this was being discussed internally. Whether they are in fact doing so I really can't say.

 

[soderinde]

Interesting.........I guess such free evaluation period may come up soon depending on if the feature proved unpopular or not (with low subscription)?.Its yet to be seen?but I?m open for free evaluation period even if its for a couple of weeks or month.

 

[Trancebear]

I feel it is well worth it, especialy paying $4.50 a gallon for my biodiesel. I can get back my $14.95 in one fill-up. I have found in Denver the prices listed are darn near perfect.

 

[hitus]

I live north of Boston and drive into Boston daily. The service works quite well. I do not have a phone connection, but on the days i need to get fuel, i connect my 920 to a computer and it pulls the latest prices from TomTom.

I have run into a wrong fuel price once, but that was the day it jumped 35 cents a gallon.

 

[Michael Quinlan]

Although skeptical about the fuel prices service, I couldn't resist seeing it with my own eyes, and subscribed today. Unfortunately it failed to download and install twice, which led to a removal and re-installation of TomTom Home while on the phone with TT Support.

I took a ride down a heavily travelled section of a nearby state highway today, for about 9 miles, passing 10 gas stations along the way, and comparing TomTom Fuel's prices with the prices listed at each station. One station wasn't listed in the Fuel Prices. For (4) of the stations, TT's price matched the actual price. For (1) station, the actual price was 18 cents LOWER than TT's price. The other stations were 10, 25, 21 and 20 cents higher than TT's price.

There's obviously no way to have real-time data, but there's no indication in the listings regarding the age of the prices, so it's hard to judge the validity of a particular price without actually visiting the station, or comparing to another source.

TT offers several choices for displaying the pricing data:

• Find by distance (from any search point valid for POIs - such as POI near you, POI in city, etc)
• Find by price (I don't know what "filters" are used, but the list is sorted by price)
• Cheapest on route
• Cheapest nearby (unspecified range)
• Cheapest in area (a broader, yet still unspecified, range)

One sign of stale data was that the cheapest in area for me was $2.66 per gallon. The last time I saw a price that low was months ago, at a station that was closed for renovations. Another sign of stale data was that the entire list of (24) stations shown for cheapest in area, all had prices that were lower than the lowest price for NJ listed on wwwGasBuddy.com.

I'm certainly not ready to make fuel purchase decisions based on TT's Fuel Prices, but I'll keep checking up on it to see if I see any patters (i.e. certain brands or areas having more accurate information).

For those waiting for free trial I say "don't hold your breath". As it is right now, if what I found today applies nationally, TT's only hope of making any money on this service is to NOT offer a free trial - as anyone seeing its accuracy first hand is not likely to buy it.

 

[cputrdoc]

Okay, yes; GasBuddy is more accurate. ...but what the subscription does offer is where to find a gas station where the typical markup is low. Most gas stations near freeway exits usually have a pretty high markup. Even with gas prices as outrageous as they are, they've become so accustomed to the margin that they can't afford to bring their prices down.

If someone creates a GasBuddy plug-in for TomTom, I'll be *so* all over that. Until then, being able to search for low prices near my planned route does get me a relatively low gas price within about $0.04 of the amount published. I can deal with that.

 

[soderinde]

Wow MQ ...Excellent R & D…

I think TT should consider you for one of their TT beta Tester role…..
http://www.clubtomtom.com/general/we’re-looking-for-beta-testers/

Anyhow, based on your findings, it seems this feature will be more successful if TT provides subscribers with update Fuel Prices feature like we currently use TT Map Share (and call it “TT FUEL PRICE SHARE”) then subscribers can update TT server via TT Home or Bluetooth …which I think is a way to the future….I think GasBuddy is similarly dependent on the general public for frequent updates (I guess I’m kind of dreaming right?.... LOL!). On the other hand…..TT can workout a deal with GasBuddy for daily data or feed or Plug-In (as most gas station prices only changes 2 to 3 times per week).
On the issue of near real-time price accuracy, I guess it will be based on demographics of cities/metropolis with high proportion of TT user with this subscription.

Overall for some of us currently contending with fuel prices hovering around $4/per gallon for regular gas…..I guess we have to be vigilant by checking GasBuddy.com & visiting Costco and that known local low price gas station for now….

 

[cputrdoc]

Based on an error messages I've been getting from TomTom HOME 2.4, it seems like they've made some changes to the service. The error message I get is that based on the filename (FuelStations.1) it can't determine the fuel type.

Have there in fact been visible changes to the service? Can you tell how recent a fuel price is?

 

[dhn]

Gut feeling is a bug in the software. TomTom is notorious for changing names of files just slightly from release to release .. and screwing up functionality as a result.

I'd call TT Support. It may not be as I surmised. Please report back.

 

[cputrdoc]

Gut feeling is a bug in the software. TomTom is notorious for changing names of files just slightly from release to release .. and screwing up functionality as a result.

I'd call TT Support. It may not be as I surmised. Please report back.

There have indeed been changes.

http://www.tomtom.com/support/solution.php?GID=1&PID=1959&SID=0&CID=217-2046&Language=4&FID=6722

Question
Does Fuel Prices offer a choice of fuel grades?
Answer
Yes. When subscribing to the service on HOME, the application will ask the subscriber to choose a fuel grade:

* Regular
* Mid-grade
* Premium
* Diesel

Users will then download gas prices for that specific type of fuel. Fuel type can be changed at anytime.

 

[bearly1227]

Long distance drives make Fuel Prices . . .

Does anyone have subscription and feedbacks on TT Fuel Prices USA and its usefulness??
snip

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By and large I feel the service is worth the $19.95/year. My van has a 24 gallon tank, and I frequently drive over 20 miles through various pricing zones (as much as 65 cents per gallon variance on 'Regular', more on 'High Test'. And when traveling between Southern New England and Florida, I can "look ahead" to see where the cheaper prices are. ( I get about 400 to 420 miles per tank.)

And I have been pleasantly surprised at some 'lower gas price' locations.

I do not commute to 'work' anymore, so I can 'commute' to my playgrounds. <LOL>