Points or No Points on Your Petrol

Recently, because of D’s move to Japan, we got a Jiffy II. As some of you know, Jiffy is the name I give my cars because I simply love the name Jiffy. I love it so much, if a car maker were to name a model Jiffy, I might very well buy it.

To be honest, I hope Honda uses it because Honda has a fun image, and it’s also an image the company has been pushing. Jiffy is an apt name because:

1) it sounds cute and fun;
2) it means fast;
3) users can say “I’ll be there in a Jiffy” which means “I’ll be there in a very short amount of time” that can convey the idea of a small but powerful car and at the same time, they are literally in a Jiffy!

So Honda, if you see this and decide to use the name, please give me one Jiffy because I’ll write about it and it’ll be viral and thus, you get publicity! And please do it before anyone else steals the name. I would really hate it if some other brand uses it because it would sound silly to call my Stepwgn a Jiffy then, just like someone calling their Prius a Leaf, or their Civic a Crown. Oh yes, I’m driving a Honda Stepwgn now so, much love for Honda.

My first Jiffy was a Nissan though, because it was in the green I liked though I have since grown out of green cars.

So after the long grandfather story, D and I had been wondering which petrol kiosk (or what Americans call “gas station”) would give us more bang for the buck. I had always thought going to Eneos is more worth it since they award T-points I can use to buy food unlike the Shell station near our place. However, I recently found that forgoing the points make more sense (or cents).

Case in point: I recently went to gas up our Stepwgn at Shell because they were charging 143 yen to the liter, while Eneos was charging 148 yen. For 47.5 liters, which was the amount we pumped, using Shell would cost 6,793 yen while Eneos would cost 7,030 yen. Every 200 yen spent at Eneos gives you 1 T-point, so 7,030 yen would get us 35 points. 1 point is equivalent to 1 yen so that would make our expense at Eneos 6,995 yen, which is still more expensive than Shell.

So, don’t be fooled by the points. But because petrol prices can vary from region to region, if you’re gassing up your car, do calculate the costs yourself.

Eneos is pretty expensive, at least around Yokohama.