What kind of gasoline do you use?

[StuLax18]

Sorry "Shadow", but you are wrong. While Octane rating is specific among all brands and is regulated by the government, the actual refined quality of the gasoline and the detergent additive package differ widely as do the internal company controls regarding the storage of the finished product at the distribution point.

The original classification of "Tier One" gasoline was developed jointly by BMW, GM, Honda and Toyota with the goal of providing a standard higher than what the government recommends for additives and detergents to ensure people would recieve adequate detergent mixes to keep their engines running optimally and provides for better performance, fuel economy and emissions.

Currently the list of "Tier One" fuel companies is: Chevron, QuikTrip, Texaco, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Entec and MFA Oil and several other smaller brands including some Canadian brands. Together these companies only represent about 40% of gasoline sold with the rest falling into "Tier Two" which is most other name brand fuels and "Tier Three" which are considered non-name brand fuels.

Of all of them, Chevron and Shell are generally regarded as the "best of the best", but you can't go wrong with gas from any of them as they all meet the enhanced minimum standard of "Tier One".

For what it's worth, a friend of mine tunes cars for a living and I don't mean he changes spark plugs. His name is Frank Smith, world renowned tuner, www.tuningtechfs.com. He is the go to tuning guy for Ferrea, AEM, FAST,for testing new racing parts. He ran some back to back tests on his personal Corvette and found that using Shell gasoline he baselined his Vette at 478whp. His next fill up he switched to Lukoil and re-dynoed. He found he had to pull the timing back several degrees to prevent detonation and could only manage 457whp. That is a 21whp loss simply through a gasoline change in a highly tuned car. If you have a performance or turbo car, you really should be using "Tier One" fuel to ensure optimal operation.

Did he repeat this test a few times to leave out any outliers? Otherwise all he's proven is that on that given day, at that given station the gas at Shell was better than the Lukoil on the other day and at the other station. Never even heard of Lukoil, but I see it's Russian, so they probably lied about the Octane and that's why he had to pull timing to avoid knock, since octane is resistance to knock.

 

[shadow191]

I said that - did I not mention that the only difference is in the additive and detergent package? Neither of those impacts the octane which is what your car cares about with regards to performance. If the additive increased octane, that would be another story, but they don't.

I went to school for this sort of thing and almost took a job in the oil industry a long time ago. The company I works for now owns oil refineries along with pipelines and ethanol plants. You realize that for the most part, refineries and pipelines are separate from the final product. So Chevron, Shell, BP often get their gas from the same base as say Costco, Wal-Mart, Citgo, and any number of discount gas retailers. It's the same thing at the start, then the Top Tier guys add their additive/detergent blend to meet Top Tier. The discount guys add a different blend which is effectively the same. None of this impacts performance.

So the Chevron gas you get this may be the exact same gas that is being sold at Costco. Also keep in mind that while Chevron may keep tight control over their big distribution points, the end point can be sketchy. They're owned by independent retailers who just buy Chevron gas and slap the name at the station. Often times these stations can be very old and the tanks all kinds of dirty. That is going to have a bigger impact on quality than Top Tier and whatnot.

And your friend's car could have gotten a bad batch of gas. Or more simply, it could just be different temperature or something like that. I've had my old car make 15whp differences on the dyno same day. One run it was great, next one we had to pull timing. Same tank of gas, but there are a ton of factors involved. My friend used to have a 1200whp Supra. It would make 100whp difference on the dyno sometimes during the same tuning session. It ran VP from the same barrel. He didn't blame the gas. And my other car is a tuned 335. I run different gases in it all the time since I'm too lazy to pick specific stations. No matter what gas I put in, so far the logs have always been the same.

Sorry "Shadow", but you are wrong. While Octane rating is specific among all brands and is regulated by the government, the actual refined quality of the gasoline and the detergent additive package differ widely as do the internal company controls regarding the storage of the finished product at the distribution point.

The original classification of "Tier One" gasoline was developed jointly by BMW, GM, Honda and Toyota with the goal of providing a standard higher than what the government recommends for additives and detergents to ensure people would recieve adequate detergent mixes to keep their engines running optimally and provides for better performance, fuel economy and emissions.

Currently the list of "Tier One" fuel companies is: Chevron, QuikTrip, Texaco, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Entec and MFA Oil and several other smaller brands including some Canadian brands. Together these companies only represent about 40% of gasoline sold with the rest falling into "Tier Two" which is most other name brand fuels and "Tier Three" which are considered non-name brand fuels.

Of all of them, Chevron and Shell are generally regarded as the "best of the best", but you can't go wrong with gas from any of them as they all meet the enhanced minimum standard of "Tier One".

For what it's worth, a friend of mine tunes cars for a living and I don't mean he changes spark plugs. His name is Frank Smith, world renowned tuner, www.tuningtechfs.com. He is the go to tuning guy for Ferrea, AEM, FAST,for testing new racing parts. He ran some back to back tests on his personal Corvette and found that using Shell gasoline he baselined his Vette at 478whp. His next fill up he switched to Lukoil and re-dynoed. He found he had to pull the timing back several degrees to prevent detonation and could only manage 457whp. That is a 21whp loss simply through a gasoline change in a highly tuned car. If you have a performance or turbo car, you really should be using "Tier One" fuel to ensure optimal operation.

 

[Exotich]

Did he repeat this test a few times to leave out any outliers? Otherwise all he's proven is that on that given day, at that given station the gas at Shell was better than the Lukoil on the other day and at the other station. Never even heard of Lukoil, but I see it's Russian, so they probably lied about the Octane and that's why he had to pull timing to avoid knock, since octane is resistance to knock.

LuKOil has over 2000 stations in 13 states in the US. That last part didn't make much sense, unless you have someway to substantiate that.

---------- Post added at 11:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 AM ----------

I said that - did I not mention that the only difference is in the additive and detergent package? Neither of those impacts the octane which is what your car cares about with regards to performance. If the additive increased octane, that would be another story, but they don't.

I went to school for this sort of thing and almost took a job in the oil industry a long time ago. The company I works for now owns oil refineries along with pipelines and ethanol plants. You realize that for the most part, refineries and pipelines are separate from the final product. So Chevron, Shell, BP often get their gas from the same base as say Costco, Wal-Mart, Citgo, and any number of discount gas retailers. It's the same thing at the start, then the Top Tier guys add their additive/detergent blend to meet Top Tier. The discount guys add a different blend which is effectively the same. None of this impacts performance.

So the Chevron gas you get this may be the exact same gas that is being sold at Costco. Also keep in mind that while Chevron may keep tight control over their big distribution points, the end point can be sketchy. They're owned by independent retailers who just buy Chevron gas and slap the name at the station. Often times these stations can be very old and the tanks all kinds of dirty. That is going to have a bigger impact on quality than Top Tier and whatnot.

And your friend's car could have gotten a bad batch of gas. Or more simply, it could just be different temperature or something like that. I've had my old car make 15whp differences on the dyno same day. One run it was great, next one we had to pull timing. Same tank of gas, but there are a ton of factors involved. My friend used to have a 1200whp Supra. It would make 100whp difference on the dyno sometimes during the same tuning session. It ran VP from the same barrel. He didn't blame the gas. And my other car is a tuned 335. I run different gases in it all the time since I'm too lazy to pick specific stations. No matter what gas I put in, so far the logs have always been the same.

I know you will never duplicate dyno numbers even on the same day given the same conditions. I agree with a lot of what you have said in regards to refineries and how gas is distributed and purchased. I know a little about gas since my family owns multiple gas stations. The refineries mix a base blend of whatever octane rating they are mixing that meets the basic government standards. They then pull batches and mix the additive package specified by the retailer (Chevron, Lukoil, Shell, Amoco, etc.). Name brand stations always carry the blend from their parent. Off-brand stations and large chains put out to bid and buy their fuel based on cheapest available that week or whatever they bought in their futures contract. The blend could be a name brand blend, but 9 times out of 10 it is just the refinery grade base mix. Even if the refinery is a "Chevron" refinery, not all the fuel they produce is Chevron retail grade.

When you buy at a non-brand location, you never know what you are getting. For instance, Wawa in the mid-Atlantic had a contract with Sunoco to buy Sunoco retail grade fuel. It became common knowledge in the car community in this area that Wawa was using Sunoco brand fuel and sold it cheaper than Sunoco stations. However, when that contract expired, Wawa switched suppliers and this was no longer the case. If you want consistent "good" gas you have to buy it from one of the Tier One retailers that were listed earlier.

I mentioned the tuning issues earlier and it is actually the issue of batches of fuel having lower ethanol concentrations then what was tuned with that's a problem, particularly in turbo cars. The ethanol burns cleaner and helps prevent knock which allows you to run higher boost and timing. If you tune for maximum power on a 10% blend and then the next fill-up you get 5% blend, the car won't run as well and will run like crap on 0% or pure gas.

 

[meme405]

You guys are both arguing completely different points.

This is basically what you guys are doing: Shadow is discussing how swedish berries are the best gummies out there, and Exotich you are arguing how kitkat is the best chocolate bar.

Sure you are both discussing candy but you are talking in circles because one is targeting gummies and the other is targeting chocolate bars.

All I am going to say about gas relates to us here in Canada, and yes we are completely different from you guys in the states on gasoline. If you live in canada, NA engines should pump shell premium, and FI engines should pump chevron. The higher octane rating in chevron here in canada is beneficial to forced induction engines, otherwise without FI Shell is a better all around fuel. Now with that generalization said, on any given day its the luck of the draw whether you get good or bad gas from any gas station, there is simply too many factors affecting a stations supply to definitively say which stations have better gas.

Everything from last delivery, to what tanker,to the pump can affect the gas you are pumping.

If you pump immediately after the delivery of gas at the station, the tanks have had all the sediments stirred up, etc. etc.

Basically there is too many factors affecting fuel for anyone to say anything definitive about fuel. Everything is generalizations...

Here in canada we do not have imports of off-brand gasoline, so I won't speak to it, but in general I would be surprised if it was any different than other types of gas (regardless of the bullshit advertising about chevron with techron and all that jazz).

Truth be told if you buy into the gas companies marketing you are truly being a sucker, gas is gas, detergents or not the refinement of the crude is what impacts it, everything else is just smoke and mirrors.

Take it for what you will, but this comes from someone who works in oil and gas (as I know Stu does as well). I have built refineries, worked in the Oil sands in Alberta, I worked in Oman, worked shutdowns on oil rigs, etc.

TL;DR - Do you really buy a specific brand of soap because you believe it cleans your hands better? If so you are an idiot and there is nothing I can do to help you, if you don't then why would you worry this much about your gas?

 

[shadow191]

No, I would say we're arguing the same point in different ways. He says Chevron is the best because OEM's use them for testing and they're Top Tier. I just bring up the point that Top Tier has nothing to do with performance and is only about detergent blend which does not impact octane. That individual gas stations have more impact on fuel quality than brand does. So we agree on the basics, but disagree about one brand being better than another.

---------- Post added at 10:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------

Ethanol blend won't impact octane, it still has to be what is listed. So if they're blending up to 10% ethanol, if they use less, it still has to meet the octane requirements. It's blended at the fuel depots before they load the tanker trucks. They test octane a lot and most states require testing so it doesn't vary much. There is a good amount of quality control.

I mentioned the tuning issues earlier and it is actually the issue of batches of fuel having lower ethanol concentrations then what was tuned with that's a problem, particularly in turbo cars. The ethanol burns cleaner and helps prevent knock which allows you to run higher boost and timing. If you tune for maximum power on a 10% blend and then the next fill-up you get 5% blend, the car won't run as well and will run like crap on 0% or pure gas.

 

[StuLax18]

LuKOil has over 2000 stations in 13 states in the US. That last part didn't make much sense, unless you have someway to substantiate that.

I was just throwing out claims like you have done after bumping a nearly 2 year old thread.


It's kind of funny to think that companies spend all this time and money to come up with a certain blend of gas, and then it's up to the truck guys and stations to actually deliver a quality product. I'm guessing the two latter parties don't care near as much about the end quality of the gas, and neither does the majority of the population. I wonder how often the tanks get mixed up and the octanes aren't correct? As long as it's not diesel in a gas tank I don't mind as much.

 

[Exotich]

I was just throwing out claims like you have done after bumping a nearly 2 year old thread.


It's kind of funny to think that companies spend all this time and money to come up with a certain blend of gas, and then it's up to the truck guys and stations to actually deliver a quality product. I'm guessing the two latter parties don't care near as much about the end quality of the gas, and neither does the majority of the population. I wonder how often the tanks get mixed up and the octanes aren't correct? As long as it's not diesel in a gas tank I don't mind as much.

Lol STU, I had to bring this thread alive again! I wouldn't be tanking anywhere else but at Infiniti gas stations only. Infiniti is safe to drive on Infiniti only. :rotfl:

 

[wlvrn97]

Anyone know what the total gallon capacity is for our gas tanks??

Sent from my C6606

 

[la_fx35]