Anyone Or Their Family Own & Operate Gas Station

[M3-ADDICT]

Do any of you own a franchised gas station or have a close family that do? I'm trying to see what is their true real life cash flow and end of year income. This would be for a gas station with

1. A few Pumps
2. 3 Bays - Inspection, Oil Change, Mechanical Repair
3. Small Convenient Store - Including Register Inside.
4. Maybe one automated carwash.

I know you don't make much money on the gas it self. Also the bay area, for the Oil Change, you pay up to 100-700 per week for a person to do that. Inspection bay, you divide profit and for mechanical bay, I figure that's a fixed weekly costs just like the oil change bay. Since I have no true figures, I can't deduct. I want to know per month, or year complete revenue.

[Razzy]

Yes, my dad owns a gas station. A franchise called Canadian Tire. Only in Canada(duh). I dont if i can be of any help, but We have 8 pumps, a decent size kiosk with a convenience store, and we also have a propane tank(big one), where we refill, and sell/trade refurbished tanks.

Well cash flow wise my dad makes approximately above 100,000 that is at the least yearly just from the gas station itself. he has other businesses but i guess that doesnt really have any significance to this thread.

[Maestro]

A good friend of mine had owned stations, he started out with one station and over 5 years grew that to 7. He did not own them all, some where owned by the oil companies and he leased the property from them. As you said you do not make much off the gas, maybe 2 or 3 cents a gallon, on a few rare occasions he made 10 cents, usually when prices were going up and he bought and fill all his tanks when the price was low.

The most profitable part is the C-store and car washes. That is where all his profits came from, car washes were $5 to $8 and cost him about $0.50. The other big money making item were cigarettes, however, it did require him to get a wholesaler license to really make the money.

He would also tell you the Bays and doing repairs did not make money these days, liability is too great if the mechanic screwed up, your insurance costs are high to begin with having a self serve station, having a mechanic or someone working on someone car is even worse.

The other down side he use to talk about is the share fact the employee's always stole. Everyone who worked for him never knew he was the owner, they use to think his was the manager, this is how he found out who was doing what, since he use to walk in grab a drink or cupcake and eat and so they thought he was one of them and told him what they were doing.

Today he no longer owns the stations, he sold them and bought into a gas distribution center. This is where the real money is money, he now is responsible for getting the gas form the pipelines to the stations.

Lastly, those 7 stations generated about $9M in revenue and his take was less then $100K, however most all the incoming was being put right back into the business for renovations and upgrades.