Category Archives: Parts and Accessories

Expect lower gas prices this July 4th weekend

June 29, 2023GMC, New Cars, Parts and Accessoriesbuick, colleyville, dallas, fort worth, GMC, grapevine, new car, new truck, southlake, Used Car, Used TruckOzzie

Travelers will likely encounter packed highways this 4th of July weekend. But the good news is that gasoline prices are cheaper this year.

The national average price of gas was $3.55 per gallon on Thursday, down from $4.87 one year ago, according to AAA.

“Gasoline prices are about $1.30 less this year compared to last,” AAA Northeast Senior Manager Robert Sinclair Jr. told Yahoo Finance Live (video above) on Thursday. He noted that “demand for gasoline is down 4.4% so far this year, and 20% below 2019.”

Sinclair said that while car travel is still popular, travelers have less money for non-essential driving due to inflation.

“People for the holiday, they will be traveling, but for the rest of the year, they’re pulling back a bit as far as the road trips are concerned,” he added.

The decline in driving fuel costs comes during a downward trend in crude oil amid concerns of a recession. West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) was trading just north of $70 per barrel on Thursday versus one year ago when it closed at $109.78.

“Economic growth, particularly in China, has been disappointing year-to-date, and this has weighed on oil demand,” Peter McNally, global sector lead for industrials, materials, and energy at Third Bridge, told Yahoo Finance.

Oil prices could tick higher into the second half of the year as US strategic petroleum reserve releases are scheduled to end this month and additional output cuts announced by Saudi Arabia are scheduled to start July 1.

“A key factor remains consumer health. Improving consumer sentiment and a still solid labor market should support demand into the fall,” Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle, told Yahoo Finance.

Even with lower gas prices, the holiday weekend is expected to be busy, Sinclair said.

The majority of travelers — 85% — will be driving to their destination for their July 4th holiday, according to AAA. While about 4.1 million will fly to their destination this year, a whopping 43 million drivers will hit the road.

Expect most of the traffic on Thursday and Friday in what will likely amount to a five-day holiday through Tuesday, July 4.

Ines is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @ines_ferre

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Oregon ends its 72-year ban on self-service gasoline

June 26, 2023GMC, New Cars, Parts and Accessories, Uncategorizedbuick, colleyville, dallas, fort worth, GMC, grapevine, new car, new truck, southlake, Used Car, Used TruckOzzie

Seattle Sounders FC fans taunt the Portland Timbers during a 2011 MLS match in Seattle in 2011. (AP)

BEND, Ore. — If you’ve visited Oregon (as I am currently), you have likely had the moment of cognitive dissonance in which you hop out of your vehicle at a gas station to fill your tank just as you do anywhere else, then discover (or remember) that you must yield the pump handle to an earnest or sometimes surly gas station attendant who intercepts you and really doesn’t want you stealing their job.

That’s about to change. Oregon lawmakers last week gave final approval to a bill that ends the state’s ban on self-service gas pumps, a prohibition that has been in place since 1951. The change will take affect ASAP after Gov. Tina Kotek signs the bill into law. The Oregonian newspaper says this leaves New Jersey as the only state remaining to require gas station attendants.

Having pump attendants at the ready is a vestige of the days in which most gas stations offered the option of “full service,” even if there was another line of pumps offering self-service. (In those days, the attendant might do more than pump the gas; he would wash your windshield, check your oil, maybe even inflate a tire.) Pumping a flammable liquid was thought to be a bit dangerous for the average motorist.

Oregon’s clinging to the law also had to do with preserving entry-level jobs; that said, in an economy that is enjoying near-full employment, stations have had a hard time filling these jobs, causing motorists longer waits as a few attendants flit between several pumps. As a result, the oil companies have wanted the law changed. The Northwest Grocery Association argued that allowing self-service wouldn’t cost jobs, because understaffing had caused them to shut down half the available pumps anyway.

Autoblog’s Cheap Gas Prices Near Me finder

As a smaller matter, the present system is just plain clunky for motorists, even when staffing is solid. I filled up the other day, and the attendant was very nice; she asked what grade fuel and how much. But then she had to ask if I was in a gas discount plan, and she entered my phone number as I relayed it to her. She then took the credit card. But after all the number-punching, she had forgotten what grade and how much and had to ask again. Did I want a receipt? A car wash? There’s a lot of data entry involved in pumping gas these days.

House Bill 2426 does not do away with pump attendants; it requires at least half the available pumps to be available for customers who value the assistance. (At home in Washington, I once had to show an older woman visiting from Oregon how to operate a pump; she hadn’t a clue.) But the bill allows the other half of the pumps to be self-serve, which restores the old two-tier system most of us grew up with. Best of all, the bill restricts station operators from charging a higher price for full service.

Oregon has been chipping away at the self-service ban for a few years now, in 2015 allowing self-serve pumps at night in some rural counties, then in 2017 in all of them, and then in 2020 during emergency situations like wildfires.

The current bill also does away with some language allowing coin-operated pumps — assuming there ever really were such a thing at stations. The pumps supposedly took $1 coins, and as the Oregonian points out, at today’s prices you’d need pockets bulging with Sacagawea dollars to fill a tank.

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I-95 bridge reopens, less than two weeks after tanker explosion [UPDATE]

June 23, 2023GMC, New Cars, Parts and Accessories, Uncategorizedbuick, colleyville, dallas, fort worth, GMC, grapevine, i-95 bridge, I-95 bridge reopens, new car, new truck, southlake, tanker explosion, Used Car, Used TruckOzzie

The Interstate 95 bridge in Philadelphia destroyed by a tanker explosion less than two weeks ago reopened to traffic in the noon hour today (Friday), with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro presiding over a press conference this morning and workers putting final touches on a temporary span.

Construction of a permanent replacement bridge to get traffic flowing again on the East Coast’s main north-south highway is expected to take months, so the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT) elected to construct temporary lanes in both directions to allow traffic to return to the freeway while work on the adjacent span is underway.

PennDOT created an information portal on its website for updates on the repair efforts. On Thursday evening, the agency posted an update saying that travel restrictions on streets surrounding the overpass should lift on Friday as three temporary lanes will open in each direction on I-95. The new lanes are in place, and PennDOT finalized median and barrier placement this morning before allowing traffic to re-enter the interstate. Temporary repair efforts were hampered this week by wet weather, which made curing asphalt and applying lane markings difficult. Pocono Raceway and NASCAR stepped up, providing one of its jet dryer trucks to aid in drying the surface.

The Philly mascots were the first to cross the reopened I-95 bridge.

What a city.pic.twitter.com/l5xzzEgSvgd

— Barstool Philly (@BarstoolPhilly)
June 23, 2023

The bridge collapsed early on June 11 after a fatal gasoline tanker truck crash started a massive blaze beneath the bridge that thoroughly compromised its structure. State transportation officials said the driver, who was killed, lost control around a curve. There were no other deaths or injuries.

The closure of an important commercial artery snarled traffic in and around Philadelphia and forced cars and trucks to detour around the area. State and federal officials pledged quick action to minimize the economic impact and inconvenience.

To get I-95 operating again as quickly as possible, workers used about 2,000 tons (1,814 metric tons) of lightweight glass nuggets to fill the underpass and bring it up to surface level, then paved over to create three lanes of travel in each direction.

The 24-hour construction work was live-streamed, drawing thousands of viewers online.

President Joe Biden joined Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on a helicopter tour of the site a little more than a week after the collapse and praised the design as “incredibly innovative in order to get this work done in record time.’’

“Based on the tremendous progress these crews made over the weekend and the time it takes to complete the remaining steps, I can now say that we will have I-95 back open this weekend,” Shapiro said Tuesday afternoon. “We have worked around the clock to get this done, and we’ve completed each phase safely and ahead of schedule. That’s all due to the incredible coordination with our local, state, and federal partners – and thanks to the hard-working men and women of the Philadelphia Building Trades who are making this happen.”

Permanent repairs are projected to take months with an estimated cost of at least $30 million, PennDOT said.

The Philadelphia disaster echoed a similar situation in Atlanta, where an elevated portion of Interstate 85 collapsed in a fire, shutting down the heavily traveled route through the heart of the city in March 2017. It took authorities there 43 days to replace it.

In Oakland, California, a collapsed highway ramp was replaced in 26 days. And an I-5 bridge in Washington state collapsed in 2013 when an oversize truck hit a bridge truss; cars and their occupants were thrown in the Skagit River, but no one died. Two temporary prefabricated structures were put in place and the interstate reopened in 27 days.

To view live video of the construction work via the state Department of Transportation, go to: https://www.penndot.pa.gov/RegionalOffices/district-6/Pages/AlertDetails.aspx

Includes reporting from the Associated Press.