GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It’s Tuesday, which means we are talking about gas trends around West Michigan and the best day to fill up to save some extra money.
“We don't generally see cycles as often because there's reduced demand for gasoline and because we switch over to that cheaper winter blend, so it doesn't create quite as much volatility,” GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said.
As drivers may have noticed, summer prices, generally speaking, cycled every two weeks, meaning they dropped over two weeks before spiking back up. Typically, prices this summer would cycle back up to the $3.39/gallon mark. However, as we switch to the winter blend, De Haan expects the number of days between cycles to increase, resulting in longer periods of lower prices.
“I would expect that probably sometime around September 20 to September 25, most stations will start switching their underground tanks to this winter gasoline,” De Haan said.
While drivers will see prices trend on average toward below $3/gallon as temperatures cool off, diesel users will see their prices climb during the winter months. That’s because of a surge in demand for diesel, as home heating oil demand also increases. While the winter blend of gas is cheaper to produce, the winter blend of diesel is more expensive.
As far as when to fill up to save some extra money this week, prices will continue to fall into the weekend, so if you can wait to fill up, that’s your best bet to save at the pump.
