Best gasoline?

Have been told that there are certain brands of gasoline that are much more engine friendly to fuel systems because of detergent action that is an aid in maintanence. My question is, first is this myth or fact, and second does it make sense money wise to buy cheap brands and deal with the fuel system costs. I understand that there are differences in ethanol content,etc. but are some brands worth 20-30 cents a gallon extra? Whadda you say?

 

What kind of engine do you have? How do you drive? There seems to be all sorts of variables, but I usually run the highest octane along with a good additive. Others advise will vary. In the end, you'll really need to experiment and find what works for you.

 

Over here in the valley Conaco still has gas without the ethanol at some stations.

I refuse to run Arco as I've had cars that wouldn't pull a sick whore off the pot when they ran it. Even though it ran ok on it the 250 in my 48 lost 2mpg on Arco.

My brother in law delivers gas and he says That Costco takes extra effort to make sure that their gas is clean including not letting the drivers stick the tank.

 

Not interested in Arco at all. Since you mentioned drivers rules, do you know why Chevron, for example does not always have Chevron rigs delivering fuel? I know nothing about this business, just seems odd not to have the brand on the side of the truck.........

 

A lot of fuel vendors will come up with something that sounds cool and charge you more for it. Nitrogen enriched fuel? That's a scam. The air coming through your air filter is 78% nitrogen. You're burning the 20% that's oxygen. The nitrogen is not part of the chemical equation.

I drive 100 miles a day to work and back. I spent a year experimenting with different fuel vendors, different octane ratings and different additives in my OT, high tech, high compression engine. The old SBC in my truck is not this sensitive but I saw as much as 5mpg difference from one vendor to the next and up to 2mpg jump for every next higher octane.

IMHO fuel mileage is the key. The higher your mileage, the more efficiently you are burning the fuel. The more efficiently you burn, the less you need detergents because you are leaving less behind.

The two worst vendors in the study were the two most expensive: Chevron and Diamond Shamrock. Both claiming to have detergents.

I use Phillips66 but you really should experiment on your own. I bet every engine responds differently.

 

I've seen the delivery trucks from all the local vendors lined up waiting to get fuel at the same holding tank in the morning before the sun comes up. When I asked how they all claimed something different from their fuel and they all get it from the same place, I was told that they add the additives once it's in the truck. I was told that the stuff in the holding tank is pure gasoline.

In a remote area like this, it's cost effective to pipe it to a holding tank and contract out drivers to mix and deliver it for you. There are only about 6 Chevron stations here. That driver could service other stations the other four days a week.

 

I have been told to change to different brands once in a while
because different co put different additives so each brand will clean different particles in the engine
also like the others say you just need to try different ones to see what works the best for you

 

Nah, blends are made when the gas is produced at the refinery, they don't add anything in the truck, that's BS.

I found in my later model beaters, which were built for 87 octane fuel, they lose about 10% of the milage on 10% ethanol fuel. One of the local stations now offers gas without it, but it's only the super, I've tried it for a few tanks and I don't know if it's worth the expense.

But in an older car with a carb, you probably should try to run it because the ethanol is so destructive to rubber and so forth in your fuel system. The higher octane won't hurt anything.

 

87 octane? Nothing of mine will run on such crappy fuel. I will only use 95 or 98 octane premium...definately no ethanol blends either as I get at least 10% worse mpg.

 

I have heard fuel truck drivers say the additive package is added when the tanker truck is filled.I have heard the major brand names claim their fuels have a better additive package than the off brands.I heard that here in Western NY all the fuel brands come from the same storage tanks.
But it's only what they tell me.

 

I used to drive tanker trucks.Never put additive in the tanks.Also used to load at one depot with one brand and deliver to other brand of gas station.
While in the Merchant Marines,on a tug and barge unit leased to BP,we would deliver to Shell and other different competitors while loading from a BP depot.
Appears to me that the only difference in gasoline is the octane rating.The higher the rating the better the engine will run.

 

A long time ago like say '70s or '80s I knew a guy that drove a tanker/delivery truck. I was eating with him one day and noticed that his truck didn't have a brand name on the tank or the cab so I asked him about it and he rattled off the list of competing brands that he delivered to and they all got the same gas from him. So the one that used to advertise the extra special additives to clean your engine while you drive got the same gas as the other company that advertised different better additives.

I avoid off brands because around here the cheapo cheapo brands usually have old dirty storage tanks. other than that I just try and find what is affordable, if there is a shell on one coner and a conaco on the opposite corner and the conaco is cheaper that is the one that I buy. There is no local gas without ethanol any more so it is not a concern when I am looking for gas.

Now as for etanol I am wondering how they are going to work that in the comming year. The drought here in the mid west has pretty much wiped out the corn crop and what is still standing and producing is needed for livestock feed. most of your ethanol comes from right here in the mid west. Hmmmmmn.

 

I'm sure they will find a way to say that the shortage of corn and the subsequent shortage of ethanol will cause the price of gas to go up!

 

Wow. I can't believe I missed that when I was experimenting. I avoided filling while they were offloading the truck and stirring up crap on the bottom of the tank. And I checked the off brand fuels. I never put any thought into the condition of the tank itself.

Now that you mention it, the Chevron and the Diamond Shamrock that I used are on the main strip in '50s style service stations converted into convenience stores. The 60 year old tank could be the culprit - delivering dirty fuel. The other "better" fuels came from stations built in the last 10 years. Hmmmm

 

Right now they are using the refinery fire in Richmond as an excuse here and we don't even get fuel from California.


A few years ago when Hurricane Katrina wiped out the gulf coast they used that for a reason to jack up natural gas prices, my natural gas comes from Kansas. Gas companies are like sailors its any port in a storm.

 

Not to say the driver put in the additives,but it was all the same basic fuel and was "adjusted" to suit the brand name just before filling the tanker truck......This is what they tell me

 

I don't live in New Mexico, is that very close to "around here"?

 

I worked in the service station industry in my younger years and there was one pipeline that fed most if not all of the bulk plants that drivers hauled out of in a specfic area. The person working the desk would receive a confirmation on the time that thier fuel was coming in to fill the storage tanks, one of the lines had a site glass in it and the fuel would have dye to tell the person when to divert the gas into the storage tanks and also how much has flowed and when they got there amount they would turn the valve so that the gas would flow on down the line.

 

As far as price goes, I wont drive around the block to save 2 cents per gallon also, there is no reason not to use the higher octane rated fuel with average fill up around 15 gallons only adds $1.50 to $2.00 to your bill. You will make up for it in performance and mileage. Most stations here in OKC still sell gas, not corn by-product.

 

I was having a problem with my old Triumph Bonneville backfiring and running rough. A friend that has been working on them for years suggested getting some ethanol free fuel. I got some 93 octane from a small local airport and the bike is running like new again....it' not cheap, $4.80 a gallon!

 

---------------------------------------There ya go, that's always been my understanding.

 

Or you could just tune it to run on etahnol and avoid getting slapped with fines and or imprisonment by the Fed.

There actually is a marina here in town that used to sell gasoline. A list that shows places that sell gasoline still has it listed as selling gasoline. I went there when I first got on the HAMB and tried to buy gas for my galaxie, they said that it was for off road use only, I guess a lake is about as off road as you can get, and would not sell it to me unless I filled boat tanks with it.

 

Ethanol has done nothing but raise the price of gas, ruin engine parts, make Iowa farmers rich, burned up more of our taxes(farmers are subsidised) and raised the price of corn!!

 

Really? Do all your cars have over 8 1/2:1 compression ratio and detonate on 87 octane? No place around here I know tyhat doesn't sell ethanol blends.

 

I haven't researched this, but it would be nice if someone was to post results of a field test on gas. 3 types of vehicles, driving the same route each day and document the data. I would bet that if it got any attention the gas companies would be all over it.

As for octane....if you have an older engine and its carbed. Octane matters more to you than to someone with a computer controlled car. All new cars have knock sensors and will adjust timing accordingly to prevent detonation and/or preignition. My 72 C10 does not . Yes you will lose a little performance. But how much? Is it noticeable? How much does it change your mileage? There are many variables in the equation. But as a general rule 87 octane for 8:1, 91 octane for 9:1 and 10:1 is the max for 93 octane. Again there are people that are living outside those rules, this is just a general guideline.

I run 93 in my C10 because the motor is just under 10:1, and I run the cheap stuff in both my newer vehicles. I have noticed no performance issues or mileage changes in my newer vehicles. I always try and stay away from older run down looking stations. Older, dirt filled, condensation filled tanks.....I try and fill up at newer name brand stations.

My system has always served me well. But it would be nice to see some sort of field test, that wasn't "influenced" by any big company.

 

I use aviation gas in my full house 8ba and it runs great. The stuff is blue in color. A friend of mine is a pilot and has a small plane. Its the same gas he runs in his plane. In NY we can get high octane gas with no ethanol.

 

I think most of it is the same as anyways, but my grandfather was obsessed with marathon gas stations because the had the stp in it. I know it doesn't really do shit, but there is a marathon in my neighborhood that sells non oxygenated premium with no ethanol so I use that in the galaxie. Our daily drivers and my truck all get gas at Costco because it cheaper and I see the tank being filled very often so I assume it goes gas and isn't siting long

 

There is a lot of info out there on this subject, search top tier gasoline. Informed people who own Oldsmobile Aurora, Caddy Northstar and Shortstar anything, and the older Chevy 454SS trucks and anything GM using Multec 4 injectors should and mostly do know about the crucial mandatory use of detergent gasolines to avoid frequent and expensive fuel side repairs. GM issued a directive to dealers in 2005 to inform these vehicle owners to use only top tier for the stated reasons, and at once BP threatend lawsuits to individual dealers reporting the directive to owners. We never got the directive on our 1996 Aurora, which will piss me to my dying day, and cost me a whole lot of money in repairs:

http://acdelcotechconnect.com/pdf/tsb/tsb_05D-105.pdf


http://www.toptiergas.com/retailers.html

Where I live only Shell has top tier gas available, their V-power premium being the best and highest performer in this regard. What I noticed at once when I got hip to this was this gas smells and looks like gasoline used to look and smell. The junk I was buying at Pilot screwed up our driver cars twice before I got angry and started looking in to it. Their gas smells like a sour solvent, not gasoline, and like all of you the use of it has resulted in corrosion and hard hot start problems in my cars with carbs and mech fuel pumps, lastly the cheap gas becoming unusable in a short period of storage even with stabilizer added.

I can tell you in my 1952 Oldsmobile cars, the fuel system corrosion specifically the internal carb corrosion has been completely eliminated since switching to top tier gas this summer. No more hard hot start trouble either. And I don't know if top tier continues to have a higher concentration of alcohol but regardless, the problems have stopped without adding any stabilizer. The plugs also look better, it is my guess that cylinder carbon build up is less now. I run the V-Power Shell in my 8-1 Oldsmobile, obviously more octane then needed at 93, but I can push the timing up to where it just starts hot, and the engine loves it. The guy above who mentioned cost is correct, it's only about $4 more per fill up. You see radically increased fuel economy, so you don't lose money anyway. This isn't cruise nite BS voodoo, we are seeing the improvements and elimination of problems with the switch to top tier others have known about for some time.

I'm not sure why tanker drivers would not know the facts, but it is true and can be verified with even a little digging ALL retailed motor vehicle gasoline in US is dispensed from the same local terminals to any and all retailers in a given area. It is a matter of economy and safety, and the refiners trade distribution credits back and forth per region to save costly and dangerous over the road movements of tailored brands, such as Shell V-power discussed above. The tailoring of the gas happens at the terminal internally before loading to truck tank, it is not like salts being poured in to a bath. The operator at the terminal knows the additive package he is adding, and further must consider what is already in the intended tank at the retailer and compensate accordingly. A buddy of mine in NJ is a retired Exxon chemist and reports the manufacturing of gasoline is very much like baking a cake: all cakes start as flour, eggs and sugar, and all motor vehicle gas is essentially the same cracked chain of complex hydrocarbons, then made specific when formulated for delivery for a certain brand or intended use. The exception is avgas, which has very specific mandated guidelines for production, not tailored locally.

Read up, there is plenty of source based info on this topic out there.

 

I lose about 3 mpg in the car I drive for my job when I have to use gasoline with ethanol. My old Harley doesn't like the ethanol blend probably because I don't ride it every day. It's getting harder to find stations that sell pure gasoline anymore. Tulsa's Holly Refinery had a small fire the other day and prices shot up 11 cents per gallon over night. How convenient, huh.