Accuracy of fuel pumps in different garages

[Pleng]

They set the retail price, or the base price? It seems somewhat strange for a capitalist economy to be setting retail prices.

[Condoking]

ive also heard temperaure can play a part in how much fuel you get at certain times of the day but that was back in europe where temps differ a great deal in a day ie morning minus 4 and late evening plus 4

This is certainly true; I work in Aviation and the system on a large aircraft that measures how much fuel you have onboard measures both volume and density for this very reason. This is important as you need to know how much the fuel weighs so that you don't overload the aircraft and the fact that the energy that you get out of it is directly proportional to it's mass, not it's volume.
It's not unknown for an airliner to be fueled up to it's maximum capacity in the middle of the night and for it to start venting fuel if it's left standing in the sun during the day. This get's the airport fire brigade very excited as they have to interupt their snooker tournament!

This is correct and is why Petroleum Fuels accounting is in Standard litres, i.e. corrected to the standard temperature of 15 C, and this measurement is used for calculating excise duty and VAT etc. However Flow meters in Station forecourts and airports all measure in litres ambient irrespecitive of the temperature, you ask for 50 litres and the nozzle gives you 50 of its calibrated litres. Airports may have an in line Thermoprobe which will continually monitor temperature thereby automatically converting to Standard Litres to charge the aircraft companies, but Forecourts rarely do. In reality as the forecourt tanks are underground there is little variation in temperature delivered throughout the day. However, in the main distribution terminals where there may be long lengths of exposed pipework from Tank to truck loading bay, there can be significant differences in the temperature of Gasoline loaded onto the truck throughout the day.

[PeteC]

They set the retail price, or the base price? It seems somewhat strange for a capitalist economy to be setting retail prices.

The announcements you see always say..."PTT announces prices to + - tomorrow". The other suppliers always seem to follow suit. My neighbor is a PTT manager here in Rayong and he says the company always runs the + - announcements by the government for their stamp of approval before they do it. Diesel is capped and subsidized by the government. LPG, NVG and whatever other boot tank gas they sell is also. PTT has not been private that long, again to my knowledge, about 10 years? They still seem to have strong ties to the government. Pete