MDL fuel prices.

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Nigel52

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Sadly another run in with MDL today. Filled up with diesel expecting to use some of my 279 Otium points and was told the following:
1. I don't have any points, rang the office who confirmed i have 279. Attendant who I'm not naming then found 58 points somewhere and said the rest of my points cannot be used for fuel.
2. I said this was wrong and to put it on my account to query later.
3.Attendant would not let me leave unless I paid.
4. He eventually rang Kelly the marina managet at Home to agree put it on my account to sort out.
5. Just received an invoice for the full amount.

Also he said the £1.54 litre
was the 60:40 price. This has never been my understanding.

The office agreed with me. But still invoiced for whole amount at £1.54 /litre.

It now seems MDL are saying all their diesel pump prices are 60:40 and no further discount. Yarmouth is circa £1.30 60:40, Cowes £1.28 60:40. MDL Plymouth £1.31 60:40.. Cobbs Quay/MDL is chaotic, charging some berth holders double for electricity and services. Can anyone recommend other fueling points in Poole Harbour and the 60:40 price. No wonder Cobbs has 80 free spaces circa £1/2m of missing income.
 
Our "club" is charging £1.00 a litre at the mo. to club members.. Strictly on a 60/40 rate only.
The club will only supply at the 60/40 rate, want something different ie. heating only, you will go elsewhere to fill the tank.
This was purely due to some folks taking the p***

A long overdue audit on electricity recently, revealed our "standing charge" has not been increased for years possibly decades , it has just about had to be doubled.
 
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If you had your phone with you, couldn't you log into MyMDL and show them? Port Hamble always displays the fuel price on the pontoon.

I don't use Otium Points to buy fuel since you then lose out the 16% points value when buying it with cash/card thus diluting the value of those points.

Login - My MDL

If nothing else to spend it on at full price with a partner (restaurants, services etc) then you can use it to pay your electricity or berthing fees (only 5% effective loss for the berthing).
 
wonkywinch said:
If you had your phone with you, couldn't you log into MyMDL and show them? Port Hamble always displays the fuel price on the pontoon.

I don't use Otium Points to buy fuel since you then lose out the 16% points value when buying it with cash/card thus diluting the value of those points.

Login - My MDL

If nothing else to spend it on at full price with a partner (restaurants, services etc) then you can use it to pay your electricity or berthing fees (only 5% effective loss for the berthing).
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Not sure why logging into MyMDL would have helped. Fuel price of £1.54/litre displayed.and the office confirmed I had 29 points. The attendant said computer said no points. Hence my issue. I certainly will not be filling up there again.
 
Alicatt said:
Filled up 2 weeks ago, no 60/40 split as marked diesel is forbidden for boats here, we paid £1.012/€1.20 per litre for 618 litres of non bio diesel, a big saving compared with road diesel which at that point was €1.59/£1.34 per litre
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Nigel52 said:
As said above; yes of course. However, previously they have taken the published price and applied the 60:40 discount and then allowed me to use points against this price.

I think we should close this post now.
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I filled up from MDL Port Hamble last week and they told me the price displayed was now the 60/40 price.

You'd be more gutted to then be charged more if you weren't eligible for 60/40 or commercial discounts.
 
We only hold around 15,000litres each time , would assume that MDL must buy in far greater amounts than that.
Cannot see how MDL are charging at cost, we make a (tiny) profit on £1.00 per litre, simply to cover cost of repair/replacement of tank and pumps.
Filled up twice this month around 800 litres.
 
Nigel52 said:
I guess you are not in the UK where they milk boaters
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I guess that was for me, yes I'm not in the UK, I'm in Belgium and I fill up across the border in The Netherlands where diseasel is cheaper, they still milk boaters here.
Today I learned I can get a 25% - 33% discount on consumables for my Perkins engines at the local auto parts dealer, Way cheaper than the boat dealers offer the parts at :)

The diesel I got in The Netherlands is from a dealer that supplies commercial barges, so our 618litres was just a drop in the ocean for him.
 
Alicatt said:
I guess that was for me, yes I'm not in the UK, I'm in Belgium and I fill up across the border in The Netherlands where diseasel is cheaper, they still milk boaters here.
Today I learned I can get a 25% - 33% discount on consumables for my Perkins engines at the local auto parts dealer, Way cheaper than the boat dealers offer the parts at :)

The diesel I got in The Netherlands is from a dealer that supplies commercial barges, so our 618litres was just a drop in the ocean for him.
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Always useful if you can find auto parts for marine engines.
 
Nigel52 said:
Always useful if you can find auto parts for marine engines.
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Well it is truck parts, my father had the similar engine, a Perkins 6.354, in one of his trucks back in the late 1960's wasn't fast but it pulled like a train and quite economical too compared with his other trucks. it was the largest one we had and it returned about 30mpg where as the smallest truck with a 1.6 litre smaller engine, a Morris 4.2litre, returned only 16mpg.
Boat has twin HT6.354M so each about 30hp more powerful than the truck engine.

I'm now looking to replace the old rubber hoses, one between the gearbox oil cooler and the raw water pump collapses under the suction from the raw water pump, still flows plenty of water but seeing it collapse is not good., I've replaced 4 hoses on this engine alone, the other engine has had the hoses replaced comparatively recently.
 
Economies of scale.
Your average commercial road transport motor factor will have hundreds of customers through his door every day, as the que to get served in my local factors proved,when collecting a couple of FF5070 fuel filters recently. Even they had no stock, none at Fleetguard main warehouse either and had to order in a couple of (more expensive) clones from elsewhere.
Chandlery open on a Sunday, when you urgently need that small vital item to get you under way and prepared to pay a kings ransom to get it.

Recently in the market for a couple of spare Yanmar impellers ,genuine Yanmars over £100 a pop, bit worried about cheapo impellers, so perhaps a pair of Johnson 1028 would do the job but not cheap either .

An internet search produced a new pair of Yanmar items in sealed packaging at a very sensible price, arrived a few days later, open packing to check contents. In the Yanamr packaging are Johnson impellers..

Internet prices.
Johnson 1028 £60.00
Johnson 1028 in Yanmar packet. £110.00.
 
oldgit said:
We only hold around 15,000litres each time , would assume that MDL must buy in far greater amounts than that.
Cannot see how MDL are charging at cost, we make a (tiny) profit on £1.00 per litre, simply to cover cost of repair/replacement of tank and pumps.
Filled up twice this month around 800 litres.
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The problem with the expression 'at cost' is that it's open to a number of different interpretations, even when the seller is completely honest.

The customer might believe (with some justification) the seller is saying 'I charge what I paid for it'.

Seller A might be charging what he paid for it plus direct costs, such as the electricity to power the pump, the wages of the pump attendant, the extra insurance for the fuel berth over what he would pay for insuring the rest of the marina, etc.

Seller B might charge all that Seller A does, plus an allocation of general business overheads for office staff, computer support, general insurance, yard wages, you-name-it - in fact all his costs just not adding anything on top for his profit.

So when MDL or anyone else promises us something 'at cost' it leaves them an awful lot of wiggle room.

Incidentally, if BMC had sold their Minis 'at cost' the price to the dealers would have been higher than they actually paid, as by all accounts BMC were selling Minis at a loss.

Moral: Better not to rely on 'at cost' but do a price comparison.
 
madabouttheboat said:
I am involved in purchasing red diesel and selling it to boaters at cost. For 60:40 it is currently 1.16 per litre, and that is genuinely the cost of the fuel and the duty on 60% of it and not a penny more.
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Very kind but you need to make a profit as why do it. So say it was £1.20/litre as your volume went up and cost price went down you could split the profit. Anyway how do boaters in Poole avail themselves of this price?
 
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