Insane1

What brand and grade of gas is everyone using? Are the name brands that much better then the Mom and Pop corner station brands? I have been running Mobil but was thinking about trying Citgo or Chevron and even our local discount club brabd of gas (Costco).

LT1CORVETTE

I have been buying Exon since mobil took them over. I have heard it is the same fuel and it usually is a little cheaper. But if I ever stumble by a place that has 93. It is time to fill up.

vader86

Amoco gas when possible for me

vetteseniorcit

Here in Henderson, NV I use Mobil @ 91 octane; all that is available unless you want to buy "racing fuel" at a ridiculously high price. I used to run Chevron, but had a bad experience with it, perhaps it was the station itself. Anyway, switched to Mobil at a brand new station and it's closer to home anyway. All of our gas comes from CA though the pipeline; it is all the same; additives are added at the depots. I am a bit leary of "off-brands" whose pedigree is somewhat of a mystery. "Rebel" stations here, buy their gas from Mobil, but I don't know what has been added or subtracted. A few pennies per gallon cheaper doesn't attract me if I'm not confident of the quality.

George Dickel

Back in the late 70's my Dad drove a tanker truck making gasoline deliveries to gas stations. He had a handfull of coded cards that were used like a credit card when he filled up the tanker with gas at the terminal. If he was delivering Texaco gas he inserted a card into the reader, hooked up the hose to the tanker and filled up. Same if he was delivering Shell or whatever, there was a card he inserted into the reader for that brand. The funny thing was that all the gas came out of the same hose at the terminal. When he asked about this he was told that the card contained the information telling the computer what additive to put into the gas. Each brand had it's own formulation of additives. Same basic gasoline, just different additives.

comp

heard same thing

-=Iron Mike=-

A buddy of mine works for Shell. Where I buy it from makes no difference.

I do like to be loyal to a couple of stations though. Freindly faces .

Nathan Plemons

Heh, I haven't actually been into a gas station for the purpose of buying gas in forever, the pay at the pump is just too handy.

I always run Keystop gas in my car, it's just the convienent station on the way home. Should I be on the other end of town I'll go somewhere like Citgo or Marathon. I refuse to pay $.10 more per gallon from Shell or BP for the same gas.

JCD

Speedway, Citgo, but the Flying J between Louisville and Frankfort (it's in Waddy) has the best prices in the region.

SilverBeast

Me, too. Ten cents a gallon difference for 20 gallons is only $2, so I get it at my local Shell, friendly faces, cold soda, BS.

F1Fan

I live in Louisville, KY and if I drive just a couple miles into Oldham County, (I live in Jefferson Co.) I can buy non-reformulated gas.

Frankly, I'm not sure if there's any real benefit to that though...

Chevron's premium (and to a smaller amount the lesser grades) have their Techron additive in it, which I've seen Consumer Reports do studies on their gas with it vs. gas w/out it, and the difference is amazing. The Techron stuff does a helluva job of keeping the deposits off the valves/injectors/pistons. This was a few years ago, and other brands may be pretty close in their additives, but I don't know that for sure. The belief is that you also dont need to run the Chevron supreme all the time, but put a full tank of it in once in awhile and the Techron does it's thing.

jabez

I use Shell or Union 76. I would choose Chevron but they are too far away.

hngacurv

I usually rotate every couple of tanks between BP, Shell, and Chevron. That way if one additive doesn't clean things maybe one of the others will.

Insane1

I live in San Diego county and as most of you know gas out here is among the most expensive in the country so I want to get the best bang for my buck. Last time I filled up I put in the membership store regular gas at $2.08 a gallon. I am running a stock '85 with only the throttle body bypass being the only mod. I had the performance switch on the TPS since someone said that does more harm then good? After the racing season is over I am gonna put my big valve, ported and polished heads with screw in studs/guide plates on the car. Maybe do a couple other things at that time like the AFPR and 22# Ford/Bosch pink injectors instead of the yellow 19# ones I have now.

rws.1

Gasoline is not one product but a mixture or different boiling point hydrocarbons that come out of a refinery.
There are government specifications of what and can't go into gasoline.
Quality as measured by "drivability" varies from refinery to refinery based on what the crude source is, the catalyst system used in the refinery and finally the additive packages the refiners use for detergency and supplementing octane.

As many have written there are a lot of product swaps that happen, so Exxon may be selling Shell produced fuel in one region of the country, Amoco in another and their own in a third.

If you notice a difference in performance, starting, cold stumble, that's related to driveability. Find the brand that works best for drivability in your region.
Secondly is additives. You want a brand that exceeds the minimum federal requirements for detergent to keep you engine clean. One of the reasons that major brands charge more is that they have higher quality standards for driveability and engine cleanliness. ( translation... they spend more money both on research to study and improve and on the additives themselves)

The raw gasoline at depots has the federally mandated minimum requirements for the grade of gas (octane and detergency)

That's why the tanker truck drivers carry the mag stripe cards. At each depot each oil company has their "secret sauce" the mag stripe card tells the computer which gasoline additive is to be injected in the raw gasoline.

Mom's and pops don't have a "secret sauce" nor do many of the off brands.
So you can either pay now and get an enhanced detergency gasoline or pay later and add fuel system cleaners or injector cleaners or pay even more and have your mechanic do a power system clean.

While I stick with only major brands for my cars, and will interchange,
Right now both Amoco and Shell are promoting the fact that their premium grades have enhanced additive packages. Shell's new V Power claims it has 5 times the minimum required detergency.
Currently I am using exclusively Shell V Power in my '88 Vert.

SilverBeast

rocco16

Here in SoCal, I use Chevron Supreme exclusively.

Larry

Nathan Plemons

What I'm curious about in this case is the affect such fuels have on power. Octane rating is a great example of this, a higher octane fuel actually makes less power in a low compression motor than regular will. Do these additives burn as efficiently and create the power that pure fuel will?

I'm betting that although some of these may keep your engine spotless, it's not making the power that it could becaue the fuel is less potent per unit measure. It could be that the additives are actually more powerful than the fuel itself, I just don't know. What I do know is that I get no improvement in gas mileage / performance by using the name brands.

I've had my engine apart a lot and I can tell you it's very clean even with the cheap gas.

I know that since I've owned my car I've pumped 1982.72 gallons of gasoline through it. By not using Shell and any of the high dollor brands I've saved $198.27 during that time. Now that doesn't sound like a whole lot over the long term, but that buys a lot of injector cleaner!

JCD

The fact that you know the volume to the hundredth of a gallon would worry me if you were driving anything other than a Corvette.

jabez

It may be coincedence but I never had a problem with my car until Shell V power was put in my tank. I am going back to Chevron, no matter how far I have to drive for it.