I used to work for ARCO, back in the days when its was still ARCO. BP took over in 2000 and in 2012 sold the Carson Refinery and the southern half of brand to Tesoro, which is now self renamed to Andeavor (who came up with that name?). BP still has marketing rights starting somewhere north of Bakersfield and kept the old ARCO Cherry Point Refinery in Washington.
After they blew up the credit card around 1984 ARCO became a bottom tier gasoline and sold only on price. The additive package was a general basic package and they did not attempt to compete with Chevron, Shell, Exxon, etc, who had premium packages (Techron) and sold hard price, price, price. ARCO went for low price period. Volumes went up per station to multiples of what a Chevron station would sell in a month.
We were quite profitable, though a trip to an ARCO station could be an interesting experience, and the stations were always full while the Chevron across the street would have a car or two.
They were not big on fancy stations and there was a big deal with California when they tried to close the restrooms. When the employees would complain about the stations to the marketing guys we got told "you are not our customer". The executive's wives would go to Chevron stations. While I was in Southern California, I would generally fill up at a Chevron or Shell.
When they got rid of the credit cards, they also got rid of the employee discount and also the incentive to put up with the stations., But I did get about $500 to compensate me for lifetime loss of the discount. Though when I worked at the Harvey Tech Center (now just a bare lot taken over by a car wholesaler) we had our own gas station (the only ARCO Station in Chicago) and would get a good discount. Even more if you went on a test program. I got free gas for a year while they tested the impact of methanol blends on GM's new gas tanks. They took my gas tank off my car and installed a prototype from GM. When the program ended, they put my old tank back on.
I miss the old ARCO - I worked in Refining and we had the best people in the industry and a management that would let them do their jobs.We mostly ignored what the marketing guys were up to. When BP took over it turned into a massive bureaucracy and they ended up selling the Carson Refinery and the SOCAL marketing because they basically ruined the business (in my view).
As far as I know, the target market has not changed with the multiple changes of hands. So if you are looking for 'top tier", its not an ARCO station.
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