shopdog

In the Southeast, in particular the metro Atlanta area, all gasoline sold by stations is obtained from Colonial pipeline. If you go over to their tank farm, you can watch trucks from all the brand name filling station chains lining up to fill up from the same million gallon tanks. The only difference between brands is the Kool Aid sized packets of additive each driver puts in his tanker load. The EPA requires a minimum amount of detergent be added to all gasoline, but some brands use more. In particular, Top Tier stations use more.

Now Colonial buys gasoline in bulk from whichever refinery has the best availability and price that day in order to keep the pipelines full. In other words, there is absolutely no fixed correlation between the brand of the filling station where you buy gas and the refinery which produced it. One day, your Chevron gas may have come from a Marathon refinery, the next it may have come from a 500 Platolene refinery, the next from a supertanker off-loading from a Venezuelian refinery, the next from a refinery in Kuwait. Etc.

Gasoline is a commodity product, differentiated only by octane rating. The pipeline companies put a slug of kerosene with a radioactive tracer between shipments of different octane gasoline. The different octane grades are then routed to different storage tanks at the tank farm. (A little kerosene winds up in the tanks too, but the dilution factor in a million gallon tank means it doesn't really matter.)

EHS

No, it's not bad for Corvettes.

coolcat

My C6 coupe has been on a high octane diet since day one. Nothing but the best will do. Sunoco 94 Ultra.

Another Yellow

In New York, the Sunoco 94 Ultra has been reduced to 93 octane, the same as all the other premium gas sold.

black783

Living in the NW we get our gas from only a couple of refineries from what I understand. So based on the posts it sounds like the octane rating is really what matters and outside of that there probably isn't much difference if any.

If any one uses ARCO on a regular basis and has not had a problem let me know. The reason I'm interested is that this is the easiest station for me to go to.....

John George

I didn't find Mobil or Amoco listed.

GMability web page

Where can Top Tier Detergent Gasoline be purchased?
The Top Tier program began on May 3, 2004. Chevron, QuikTrip and ConocoPhillips, Shell and Entec Stations, Inc. have met the Top Tier Detergent Gasoline standards and are offering this product in all octane grades and in all their respective marketing areas.

Top Tier Gas .com

TOP TIER Gasoline Retailers:

QuikTrip
Chevron
Conoco
Phillips
76
Shell
Entec Stations

Chevron Texaco

SAN RAMON, Calif., Jun. 17, 2004 -- ChevronTexaco Products Company today announced that it is the first U.S. gasoline marketer to have its gasolines approved as meeting new performance criteria set by BMW, General Motors, Honda and Toyota for "TOP TIER Detergent Gasoline."


All Shell Gasolines Meet 'Top Tier' Gasoline Standard Introduced by BMW, General Motors, Honda and Toyota

Distribution Source : PRNewswire

Date : Monday - December 06, 2004

Shell Press Release

HOUSTON, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- While the majority of gasolines on the market today contain only the minimum amount of cleaning agents required by government standards, some companies say that isn't enough. According to Shell, gasoline meeting only minimum requirements can leave harmful deposits on engine parts. Additionally, four leading automakers, BMW, General Motors, Honda and Toyota, are so concerned with declining gasoline quality, that they recently introduced a higher standard called "Top Tier Detergent Gasoline." Shell announced today that its Regular, Plus and Shell V-Power(R) premium-grade gasolines all meet the "Top Tier Detergent Gasoline" standard.

Zig

if it's a clean station and the tanks are still new / in good shape, not alot of sediment build up, and the pump filters a kept clen then no it's not bad for your car.

any station, even top teir stations can dispense bad fuel by having bad or leaking or sediment filled tanks and not keeping the pump filters clean. each gas pump has a filter (about the size of an oil filter)_in them. these filters fill with crude and what not. if the filters aren't changed regularly then, well you know what happens.

one way to tell if the filters are getting full is how fast the gas dispenses. the slower the fuel rate the fuller the filters are.

always get the highest octane though, just for the fun of it, it really is just a tad better. the mid grade is a mix of low grade and high grade.

also don't fill up at any station right after the truck has dumped his load, all the seidment in the tanks are stirred up by the filling action. wait two days then fill up.

John George

Adobe PDF format Top Tier presentation

caveat emptor

KoreBoomer

Around here, different tanker trucks line up at the same gas storage tanks to get their loads for delivery. So you tell me what the difference is?

KoreBoomer

Interesting. The only one of the above we have here in the NE is Shell. Along with Sunoco, Exxon, Mobil, Citgo, Hess, Gulf, and Getty.

crabman

Yep, this had come around before and someone in the buisness posted on the thread, very informative. At any rate gas is a commodity and everyone from all the brands get it from the same places where it is divided up only by octane. Once they fill up the truck they then pull out a little packet and dump it in, this is the individual brands addative package and the only difference between any brand of gas.This is why you see many trucks from different brands all filling up from the same tank.

need-for-speed

This agrees with my understanding. We deliver gasoline to the West Coast (we were in the news last summer when our pipeline in the Phoenix area was down). However, I'm on the Natural Gas side of the business.

When I was in college, my Organic Chemistry prof had worked for one of the refiners for years and said what has been said here, which is all of the gasoline marketers buy and sell from each other. The only difference is in the additives. All that being said, I still only buy from name brand stations. Contaminants in the station's tanks and tranports is still an issue, although I agree that one could possibly buy all of their gas from Stop and go and never have a problem.

Also, when we visisted a products pipeline station, they did pump different products in the line, but they separated the batches with spheres, or "ball pigs" as we call them. The transitional portion was always put in the "regular unleaded" tanks

One more thing: WRT California paying more for regular unleaded than other areas pay for super, thank a tree hugger for the reformulated blends specific to your area that you are required to use.

NoThugs

We know. Just wish I could find that Tree Hugger!

catbert

And get our gas in AZ from Cal - mostly. If you go to the tank farm in Phoenix you can see the trucks lined up at the distribution point - all getting gas from the same pipe. The gas companies alledge that they add their own detergent package, but I've never seen them add a darn thing before they pull away to go directly to the gas stations. Some of you may live where there may be a difference - I'm jealous.

BKNIMKR

Had a friend that worked for Unocal, and he mentioned to me that ARCo tankers, along with others would p/u their loads from the same refinery here on SoCal. For what its worth ARCo is now part of British Petroleum.
The thing I would watch the most, is not filling up a station that has a tanker making a delivery. I here that when they do this, all the sediment that has settled at the station tanks gets swirled around and that crap could end up in your tank.

martin

MitchAlsup

And the water in the gas pipelines themselves. Water in pipelines is so bad that gasoline is pumped through the pipelines and enters the distribution stations before any ethanol is added to the gas. Ethaol gets trucked around the country!

JFTaylor

Name change is warrented to 93 Ultra

JFTaylor

Great info John. Appreciate it. Guess my Exxon doesn't cut the mustard.

IllinoisCorvette

I do know for a fact that Shell "V" Power marked on the pumps is a Top Tier fuel ao thats what im using now. I used to use BP AMOCO and it worked well also but its not on the T/T list so I stopped using it for now.

rm50

I have owned 4 vettes over the last 10 years. I have never given any thought to where I buy my gas. It is always the most convienant place around. I have never had any bad gas or had any loss of performance because of the gas. Am I lucky or is all gas basically the same?