£228 Asda, Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury's warning to petrol and diesel drivers

Drivers filling up this week have been issued a warning about buying petrol or diesel at Asda, Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsbury’s.

Breakdown experts at the RAC are warning drivers that fuel prices are still high across England, Wales and Scotland this month, despite wholesale prices having come down. 

The RAC warned in its latest analysis that all drivers are paying an average of 5p more than they should for petrol and 8p more for diesel, which is £3 per fill up more for petrol and £4.40 for diesel.

Taken across a weekly fill up for a year, that means diesel drivers are overpaying by £228.80 and petrol drivers by £156.

And drivers buying at Asda face the highest prices on average, which also had the dubious honour of having the widest gap between its cheapest and dearest petrol prices, at 18.2p.

The cheapest Asda forecourt was 133.7p per litre, and the most expensive was 151.9p.

Tesco was the cheapest overall at 141.1p average with the smallest gap too, just 7p difference between its priciest and dearest.

Morrisons sold petrol for 141.2p average, with a 10p gap between highest and lowest prices, and Sainsbury’s at 141.6p average with a 9p difference between dearest and cheapest.

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: “It’s disappointing to see fuel prices remain far higher than they should be, especially after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced at the end of July that drivers were overcharged by an astonishing £1.6bn last year. 

“With our analysis clearly showing margins are still significantly above the long-term average, it seems like nothing has changed and drivers continue to lose out despite all the ongoing scrutiny from the CMA and the Government.

“It must be incredibly galling for drivers to see the UK average price of petrol stubbornly static at 145p when the wholesale cost merits lower pump prices – something clearly demonstrated by the fact those in Northern Ireland are paying 5p less. For diesel, things are even worse as the price difference is 8p.”

The RAC urged the government to bring in its hotly anticipated Pumpwatch scheme and bring with it official price monitoring - with the power to punish overcharging retailers and help bring prices down.