Palm Trees in southern Florida

Monday, August 11, 2014

The bottom line

I was in the Flying J truck stop and noticed LED light bulbs. I use 12 auto light bulbs in my RV house for all the 12vdc lights, LEDs use a lot less electricity than standard bulbs.... worth a look I thought.




I really wanted the one I use for a stove light, it's always on but that was not there.
I did find a bulb that would fit in most of my sockets, I decided to give it a try.
They were spendy, $12 for a single bulb or $20 for a 2 pack. I had a 20 dollar bill so I bought a 2 pack. 
They work alright but not great, too directional and not bright enough to replace a reading lamp.
They do work ok for a night light.

When I opened the pack one of the two bulbs did not work, at $10 each I took it back.
The guy at the Flying J took another 2 pack off the wall, opened it & gave me a new bulb, then put my bad bulb back in the package he took off the wall, and he sealed it back up.

I left wondering what kind of profit margin Flying J has on those bulbs? I wonder what else they could have done with a single bad light bulb?  I wondered about the corporate culture of Flying J, how important is the bottom line at Flying J....

>>On Monday, the US Department of Justice announced that Haslam’s Pilot Flying J, the nation’s largest chain of hybrid convenience store-gas stations, cut a deal to avoid criminal charges. As part of the settlement, Pilot Flying J will pay $92 million in fines, and make whole the more than $56 million its customers lost as part of the company’s diesel fuel rebate fraud.<<

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/07/14/jimmy-haslams-pilot-flying-j-cuts-deal-to-avoid-prosecution/

I went to get gas for the RV last week, the Flying J was $3.19 & the place a block down was $3.22 ... I thought about (what seems to be) the corporate culture of Flying J,  then I spent the extra 3 cents a gallon down the street.
I don't really trust what the Flying J will do for it's bottom line.

I won't always have that option but I did this week.


11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. How about putting a location label on your header pictures? I really like the one today. Where was it taken?

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    1. That picture was the Terlingua - Big Bend area spring of 2013.
      I'll see if I can't figure out how to put location headers on the road pictures...

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    2. It looked familiar. That is the road south from Persimmon Gap Ranger Station. Looks like milemarker 10 which is close to my favorite campsite in the park. That is an excellent photograph.

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    3. My wife took it with her Nikon, I'll pass along the complement, thanks!

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  3. Using my 1141 bulbs has never caused me any battery troubles. My experience is that the led bulb assemblies fail way before they pay for themselves. The price difference is just tooooo much for me to pay.

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    1. This was my 1st experiment with store bought LEDs & I have to agree about the price difference.
      I'm an impulse buyer... what can I say?

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  4. My rig has those short tube fluorescent bulbs. They put off a lot of light and so far, I have never had to replace any. I have no idea how long they last, but I am pleased with them.

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    1. The florescent over the sink stopped working, something in the electronics went bad. I pulled the guts and used some self sticking leds off a reel I'd bought from ebay, that works great!
      I'd heard about that fix on the "To simplify" blog.

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  5. While I do not own an RV, I have paid the big bucks for the new curly light bulbs only to have them fail on me when they advertise they should last an unreal number of years...like 9.1 years...who comes up with these numbers?

    I too would have been perplexed in the manner that Flying J handled the situation...so buyer beware!

    Glad you bought gas from another gasoline station.

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  6. I have to agree with Barney...that picture is superb.

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