Got a link to this video in the comments.
It's 22 minutes of, basically, repeating the same thing over and over about each of the bad brands. Tedious delivery of good advice.
The bad brands listed are:
#11 Safeway
#10 7-Eleven
#9 Sam's Club
#8 Circle K
#7 Murphy USA
#6 Speedway
#5 Love's Travel Stops
#4 Amoco
#3 Pilot Flying J
#2 Sunoco Regular Grade
#1 Unnamed bulk suppliers, very unhelpful inclusion
Good brands:
#5 Chevron with Techron#4 Shell#3 Exxon Mobil#2 Costco#1 BP-Amoco Ultimate (Isn't it odd that Amoco is the #4 worst, but this sub-brand is excellent?)
I'm a devotee of the Top-Tier Brands, so this wasn't a shock to me.
The Lovely Harvey did an, unplanned, experiment with our 2002 Civic and got it to run like garbage because she'd fill up at the closest, handiest place like she had to WALK to get gas and carry it in red Solo cups. The car got carbon build up something fierce and we managed to correct it by putting Sea-Foam in the tank for several tanks.
I've two friends with Corvettes and both buy gas from 7-Eleven and it makes me twitch every time they get gas.
The local Shell stations are on my shit list. They're normally 5-10 cents more per gallon anyways, and they ALWAYS charge 10 cents more to pay at pump. Worse, their loyalty rewards program changed from 5 cents to 3 cents.
A nearby 7-Eleven, though, has Mobil gas and doesn't play games with the prices.
Gas is a highly regional thing and formulations for a given brand are not guaranteed to be the same nationwide. In fact some places like California mandate different formulations, sometimes even different ones for different times of the year.
ReplyDeleteSomething a lot of people around Austin don't know is that the majority of the gasoline sold in the area comes from the same distribution point - Dover Fueling Solutions. They have a huge terminal that I believe is at the end point of a pipeline down to the gulf coast. I know a guy who works in IT there and from what he describes, fuel trucks show up at the terminal, select the brand and type of fuel from a kiosk at the loading station and then it mixes the specific brand and grade of additives and blends the gas to the desired octane from the bulk fuel tanks and pumps it into their tanker trailer. According to him the additive formulations are the big differentiator between brands, and a lot of the companies use the exact same base bulk gasolines for their blends, particularly the store brands that don't operate their own refineries.
Now this all as I said varies a lot based on location. They may do things differently down in Houston for example because the refineries are all there within driving distance. Places way out in the boondocks like Iowa for example there may be even less differentiation between the formulations sold by different brands.
-swj
That's how Port of Tampa does it too. Base fuel is all the same, brand specific packages and additives are added at the terminal.
DeleteSome of the small stations, occasionally, get the left-over fuel in a tanker from the better companies, but it's nothing to count on.
Yeah, I think that is the way it is anywhere near oil producing and refining areas, so much of the gulf coast on all sides for that matter. I actually watched the video and they cover a lot of that -- the fact that one day the gas at "no telling" stations may be fine, and others it may be marginal at best.
Delete-swj
The only gas I worry about or test is for the drag boat. But 114 is usual pretty good.
ReplyDeleteIf 114 isn't good, you've got a case to have them fix your motor. We ran that in our race Charger.
DeleteYou should only need 114 if you have 14:1 compression or higher or you are running a lot of boost. Of course a drag boat motor is a special case especially if it is running both fairly high compression and boost.
Delete-swj
The hemi was running 12:1 and boost IIRC. I'd have to ask my dad and we're not speaking. He could also tell me which class we were running too. Last time I looked at the NHRA rules our car wouldn't fit into any of the available categories and there were fewer categories than when we were running in the early 80's.
Delete114 makes sense for 12:1 with boost. The drag strip I run at usually has 117 and 119 as well, those are pretty much only needed for big blocks with roots type superchargers and high compression. Some of the IHRA events they run there those kinds of cars show up. Oh, I forgot there are also some drag bikes that need it too.
Delete-swj
I've never noticed a difference, myself, but around here I usually hit Casey's.
ReplyDeleteYou won't notice the difference until you do.
DeleteWhat less detergency gets you is a slow accumulation of carbon on the valves until, one day, a hunk of that carbon keeps a valve from closing, or works its way up the stem and ruins a valve guide or seal.
That gets you runs like shit and or burning oil.
Then there's your injectors getting gooped up...
Driving a little out of your way and paying a few extra pennies saves a lot of aggravation.
Occasional use of low detergency gas maybe can be mitigated by occasional use of some kind of injector cleaner additive. Maybe not the best idea.
Delete-swj
How do I know which are good and which are not?
DeleteStick to the list on this webpage: https://www.toptiergas.com/gasoline-brands/ and you won't go too far wrong.
DeleteHonda and General Motors (and maybe others) strongly recommend sticking to Top Tier brands. The Vette had a warranty warning about not using Top Tier fuels in the owners manual!
I used to fill up exclusively at BP/Amoco until the brand sold off their local stations to Chavez. Since then it has been exclusively Shell. Shell affinity card always gave me 5 + 5 cents (10 total for math challenged) off the posted price. They tried to do the 3 cents gig but because I fill up exclusively Shell and always pay my card early, it jumped back to the normal 5 cents within 4 months. Unless they are being assholes in FL, by sticking with them for all fill ups on both cars, it stays ten cents off total. If I were still driving a 67 VW bug, then it would be the cheapest vendor at any time anywhere, never made a whit of difference what the quality was. Now with DFI (note, not DEI but who knows) bad gas gets real expensive on those injectors and buying SeaFoam to fix it also gets expensive. Carrion.
ReplyDeleteThe local Shell stations are all owned by dicks. Except one who doesn't do maintenance on the pumps so 3/4 of the time the pay-at-pump reader fails to read the card.
DeleteMy two go to stations are either Exon-Mobil or BP. They are close and the Exon-Mobil station is always 5-10 cents per gallon cheaper than the local stations.
ReplyDelete