PREMIUM GAS, COSTLY PRICES
What's a luxury car driver to do?
SOME CHANGE DRIVING HABITS; MANY JUST SHRUG
By Matt Nauman
Mercury News
As the price of premium gasoline soars past $3 a gallon, owners of high-performance luxury cars are changing their driving habits, complaining about rising costs or, more likely, just responding with a shrug.
The $3 gallon, the $50 tank, what's a driver to do?
``I need the gas,'' Saratoga real estate agent Azita Alaverdi said Monday afternoon as she pumped unleaded premium into her Mercedes-Benz CLK500 convertible at a Chevron station in Los Gatos. ``What are you going to do?''
Alaverdi drives from home to home, so her car is crucial to her job. And she's a loyal Chevron customer, so she didn't even take notice of the price -- for the record, $3.019 a gallon. Alaverdi paid $41.22 for 13.654 gallons.
AAA of Northern California said the price of premium reached an average $3.01 in the San Jose metropolitan area Monday. That compared with an average of $2.78 a gallon for regular unleaded and $2.96 a gallon for mid-range gas. Premium was even more expensive elsewhere in California: $3.02 in the Oakland area, $3.09 in the San Francisco area, and $3.03 statewide.
Premium gas is most likely at a record high, said AAA spokeswoman Jenny Mack, although the organization officially keeps records of only the highest prices for regular unleaded and diesel.
A month ago, according to Mack, a gallon of premium cost $2.80 in the San Jose area and statewide. A year ago, unleaded premium was $2.19 in San Jose and $2.25 statewide.
Nationally, the price of regular unleaded reached $2.61 a gallon last week, a new record.
Sev Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute, said gas prices for all grades would probably go up an additional 5 or 10 cents before Labor Day, the summer's last big travel weekend.
Brian Battisti, a Los Gatos hair stylist, said rising gas prices have prompted changes to his business and his personal life. To shorten his commute, he moved his salon from Cupertino to Los Gatos last fall.
His in-laws, who were sitting inside a Honda Odyssey minivan as he pumped in $45 worth of regular unleaded, are about to change what they drive.
Marie Louise and John Bradley are moving to Rio Vista in the Sacramento Delta in search of more affordable housing.
But today, they'll be selling their BMW 745 sedan. The car, with its poor fuel economy and $80 fill-ups of premium unleaded, is ``killing us. It's absolutely killing us,'' Marie Louise Bradley said.
They want to buy a small, more fuel-efficient Mini Cooper, which they hope to fill up for only $30. That car also requires premium unleaded fuel.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn't keep a count of how many models require their owners to use premium fuel. But spokesman Dave Ryan said, ``Only a small percentage of cars require premium.''
The agency's www.fueleconomy.gov Web site identifies which type of gas each model of car and truck requires.
Of the 99 2005 model-year small cars listed on the site, only 18 require premium fuel. Of 75 luxury sedans listed, 69 require premium unleaded fuel.
Mack said nine of 10 cars run fine on regular unleaded.
``By all means, if it doesn't call for it, don't spend your money on it,'' she said. But ``if your owner's manual says premium, you should stick to your owner's manual.''
Nationwide, as the price grows, there seems to be some move away from premium. According to the governments's Energy Information Administration, demand for regular unleaded grew 4.7 percent during the first five months of 2005, but demand for mid-range unleaded fell 5.0 percent and for premium unleaded fell 5.6 percent.
Here in California, during the same five-month period, demand for regular unleaded grew 7.5 percent, demand for mid-range fell 5.6 percent, but demand for premium increased 3.3 percent.
Based on actual consumption, relatively few drivers opt for higher-level grades. This year through May, Americans used 46.7 billion gallons of regular unleaded, but only 3.7 billion gallons of mid-grade gas and 5.9 billion gallons of premium.
Robert Jones, who pumped premium unleaded into his Audi A4 wagon Monday, remembers how everyone ``freaked out'' when gas passed $2 a gallon. Over the weekend, he paid $3.13 a gallon in San Francisco, so the $3.01 he was paying in Los Gatos felt ``cheap.''
He'd never consider putting a cheaper grade of gas into his car, which requires premium fuel.
Nick Rodoni, a student at West Valley College, put 2.394 gallons of unleaded premium into his 1985 BMW 318 sedan Monday. He paid $7.23.
``I told myself when it went over $3, I wasn't going to buy gas,'' he said.
But he did because he was out of gas and on his way to work. ``It's way too much,'' he said of the price.
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