A warning has been issued to anyone who buys fuel at supermarkets including Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and more.
New analysis from the RAC suggests drivers are being denied a further 10p cut in petrol prices due to major retailers hiking profit margins.
The RAC said the average price of a litre of the fuel in the UK fell by nearly 7p to 162.9p in September as oil prices plummeted.
RAC fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “Drivers really should have seen a far bigger drop as the wholesale price of delivered petrol was around 120p for the whole month.
“This means forecourts across the country should have been displaying prices around 152p given the long-term margin on unleaded is 7p a litre.
“In stark contrast to this, RAC Fuel Watch data has shown margins to be around 17p a litre – a huge 10p more than normal.”
RAC urges UK drivers to ‘shop around’ for fuel
Supermarkets normally charge around 3.5p per litre less than the UK average but are currently only around 1.5p cheaper.
Mr Williams noted that Morrisons is offering discounted fuel for customers who spend a certain amount of money in store.
This is a type of promotion which “tends only to be seen when supermarkets are benefitting from lower wholesale prices”, he explained.
He urged drivers to “shop around for the best deals” rather than “simply assuming” supermarkets are the cheapest fuel retailers because they have been in the past.
The average price of a litre of diesel fell by 3.5p to 180.2p last month.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here