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Barbara Huff today will have to find another gas station where she can not only fuel her car but also get her oil and windshield washer fluid checked.

Sobona's Exxon, the independent, full-service station that Huff, 65, of Cranberry, has been going to for service for the last 15 years, ceased operation at 5 p.m. Thursday.

"You could ask questions there, even call them on the phone -- the other stations do not help you with anything," Huff said. "It's just like the mom-and-pop stores, which are no longer around."

Now, the nearest full-service station is in Zelienople.

Owner Rick Sobona said reduced profit margins for gasoline is the main reason he closed the station his family has operated for 17 years.

Profit margins for independents like Sobona are razor thin even with high gas prices, which this week rose another 5.2 cents to an average of $2.218 per gallon for regular fuel in Southwestern Pennsylvania, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.

In 1988, Sobona started to lease the station site at the corner of Route 19 and Freedom Road from Tri-State Petroleum Inc. in Wheeling, W.Va., a gasoline distributor and owner of dozens of Exxon and BP stations. Tri-State could not be reached yesterday.

"The math is not there for a dealer to make a living," said Sobona, who is 59 and has run Exxon stations for 35 years. "It's the downfall of the locally owned, independent service stations. We have been fighting the market and fighting Exxon."

Exxon officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Twenty-seven independent service stations in the Pittsburgh area have been closed in recent years, said Hugh Campbell, owner of Campbell's Sunoco in North Huntingdon and president of the Petroleum Retailers and Auto Repair Association of Pittsburgh. The association represents about 350 service station owners in Western Pennsylvania.

The biggest threat to independent operators comes from the companies that supply their major retail product -- gasoline, Campbell said. Independent service station operators see their businesses as endangered species, like family-owned hardware stores and drug stores, he said.

Sobona said the number of company-owned gas stations has increased along Route 19, including a GetGo -- a combination convenience store and gas station owned by Giant Eagle -- across from his station. A Sheetz gasoline/convenience store is down the street.

"Profit margins are bad on gasoline because competition has forced down the retail price of gasoline," Campbell said.

Wholesale pricing favors the company-owned station -- sometimes by 4 to 10 cents a gallon, which makes it harder for independent dealers to maintain the minimum volume set forth in the franchise agreement, Campbell said.

Campbell's association went to Harrisburg last month to lodge a complaint against Giant Eagle's GetGo stations and the chain's fuelperks! discount program that it claims could be illegally selling gasoline below cost, violating the state's Unfair Sales Act. Under the program, customers get a 10-cent-per-gallon discount on gasoline at GetGo convenience stores for every $50 they spend at Giant Eagle grocery stores.

Giant Eagle has steadfastly maintained that it doesn't sell fuel below cost and that its program complies with applicable laws. The state attorney general has not yet decided whether to intercede on behalf of the Petroleum Retailers and Auto Repair Association, a spokeswoman said.

Sobona, who has sponsored Little League teams and floats in parades over the years, and even had live tigers on the site as a promotion, does not know what will become of his station. He also has no specific plans for himself.

Carolyn Keefer, 65, of Cranberry, said she will miss taking her family car for servicing at the four-bay garage Sobona operated at his station.

"At one time when my daughters were younger, we had three cars," Keefer said. "Our cars were never new, so I was there (at Sobona's) all the time -- I think we were treated very fairly."

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