It was hailed as the miracle app set to save drivers a pile at the pumps. And then all hell broke loose in the Middle East and all the prices went up anyway.
But as petrol prices seem to be going up every day, sometimes more than once per day due to soaring oil costs, maybe now is exactly the time that we should all be going out of our way to find the cheapest possible fuel in the face of a growing cost of driving crisis.
On Sunday, I let out my first gasp of disbelief of this new petrol price premium period. Driving past my local Shell petrol station, I did a double take - a litre of diesel was priced at a staggering 161.9p per litre.
Taken aback, when I got home I punched my postcode into Fuel Finder UK.
Fuel Finder is the new service launched in February following a law change. The new rules say petrol stations must provide live, real time prices online. The theory is that drivers will be able to use this information to search for the cheapest fuel near them, and then save money, thus also keeping prices lower due to increased competition.
When I logged on and used it on Sunday, I found that my local Morrisons just a couple more miles down the road was still selling diesel for 143.9p, a full 18p a litre cheaper than Shell.
Buckling my lad into the car with the promise of some Morrisons cafe fishfingers, we headed down to Morrisons to make a saving.
My 2.2L diesel Mitsubishi has a 60-litre tank, which means my Morrisons fill-up saved me £10.80 on the cost of a full tank. That’s a 12% price difference. At Morrisons, the fill up would cost £86.34 at that price from completely empty to completely full. At Shell, it would be £97.14.
Alarmingly, prices have already spiralled since then. That was Sunday morning, today is Thursday.
According to Fuel Finder, That same Shell garage is now 168.9p and the same Morrisons is 155.9p. That makes the same fill ups £101.34 at Shell and £93.54 at Morrisons today.
Government advice last week was that drivers ‘should not change their refuelling habits’, translation: don’t panic buy.
But if I’d waited for three more days, I’d have paid a whopping 12p a litre more at the same Morrisons.
Fuel Finder, then, is a fantastic tool - but nothing beats planning ahead and buying petrol when the warning signs are flashing.