But some customers are choosing to pay full price for the carwash and fill up at a cheaper station.

"Sometimes at Smith's, you get a discount with groceries," said Ron Day, who was waiting for a car wash at Slim Olson's on a recent Monday.

For gas stations in southern Davis County, profits were squeezed when Smith's Food and Drug and Costco began selling gas about 15 cents cheaper than traditional stations, Olson said. Traditional stations struggle to compete with chain retailers, which have advantages of being able to sell a diversity of products and more easily absorb losses in gas sales.

Bill Douglass, chief executive officer of Douglass Distributing Co. in Sherman, Texas, told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in prepared remarks that the average gas station makes 1.5 cents per gallon and sells 4,000 gallons of gas a day.

"This means we generate about $60 in profit per day at the pump," Douglass said. "On average, convenience stores/gas stations in 2007 saw an (annual) average pretax profit of only $23,335 per store, which includes both profits at the pump and inside the store."

Credit-card fees on average are 7.9 cents a gallon, said Douglass, former chairman of the National Association of Convenience Stores.

The cost of buying 9,000 gallons of wholesale gasoline has jumped 26 percent to $27,432 since 2006, according to the Oil Price Information Service.

Slim Olson's is a 70-year-old family business. The company gets income from real estate, which right now is subsidizing the company's gas losses.

"No one ever talks about quality anymore," Olson said.

A spokeswoman for Smith's was unavailable for comment this past week. An executive in charge of gasoline for Costco Wholesale Corp., based in Issaquah, Wash., did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Judy Dugan, research director of Consumer Watchdog, a nonpartisan foundation based in Santa Monica, Calif., said a number of factors contribute to a gas station's success.

"It depends on their suppliers," she said. "It depends on how well run the station is. They're not going broke, most of them, but it's the oil companies that are making real money off $3.50 and $4 gas. The oil companies own some of the largest stations."

But major oil companies own only 3 percent of gas stations, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

Other gas stations tend to be "at the complete mercy of their suppliers," Dugan said. "We don't see service stations closing left and right, but it's true they're not the ones getting rich off of high gas prices."

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