Does anyone use fuel additives

Old gasoline?
The way us Americans go through it?
I thought there was barely a week of reserve sitting around.

You know what I was told by a small expert????

 

Sure, in many, many similar threads, on many, many similar topics, I have admitted to embracing the "Placebo Effect" of striving to keep Top Tier gas in the tank and occasionally adding a fuel treatment such as Techron.

I admit it could all be placebo. But? IMO, it's cheap, cheap placebo. IMO Chevron, Shell, the top tier stations are not that much more expensive than any other station. If you want to believe throwing a fuel system additive in doesn't do any good? Well I'm pretty sure it doesn't do any harm either, so a once every 8000 mile addition of a bottle of Techron? Is a $6.00-$8.00 action I'm willing to take.

To me, you've spent or are spending, multiple thousands and thousands of dollars on your automobile. Why am I going to put it all at some type of even minimal risk by striving to save what are essentially pennies?

Maybe discount gas...is perfectly fine. Maybe "Top Tier" gas, really adds no benefit.....MAYBE. I don't go overboard with additives...but Techron get's a lot of respect.

I think on a yearly basis using Top Tier and a very occasional fuel additive, probably costs me about $20-$40 dollars TOPS. Given the cost of investment into my automobile...this is a cost of operation I'm willing to absorb and embrace, even if any benefit "might be" mostly placebo.

 

It all tastes the same.

You are all being finicky over nothing that is provable.

Use your powers of OCD for something useful !!

Have a good weekend !

BTW,

What is the best brand of Soft Serve?

Now that I would drive miles out of my way for !!

 

Seafoam in fuel.

 

I use additives. I pay a multi-billion dollar company to add the best into their gas. Forget the name...something called Chevron or something??? Need some help here.

 

For many years I have used STP Complete Fuel System Cleaner, about $6. which is the only product that has cleaned dirty injectors for me in all my cars. When MPG drops off I use this and it comes back. It is very concentrated.

 

MM Oil in oil and gas tank

 

In the early 90s', Consumer Reports tested gasoline and came to the conclusion that most of the gasoline brands on the US market are the same. Gas stations woud buy gas from the same local oil refineries and the differences between them usually the amount of detergent added to the tanks at each station by their owners. At that time I had a few-year-old Camry and I decided to switch to a cheaper brand (Arco) and not for long after that, I saw the consequence for being cheap...

The reason for the differences in gasoline prices is usually the amount of detergent they add at each station. To keep the gas price low, I guess that some of the gas station owners just skip that part or just add a little detergent to their tanks. After 3 months, I noticed that my Camry began to ping when ever I tried to climb a steep hill. After 6 months it became so annoying. Every time I pressed the gas pedal, I could hear the ping loudly. At that time my car was too new for me to mess around with. I had the car serviced by a toyota dealer. Timing belt was replaced; valve clearances were checked... but the problem was still there. One day I wandered in a Target store and found a bottle of "Engine Cleaner something" made by Chevron which promised to take out the knock. Amazingly, after one bottle added to the gas tank, 90% of the ping was gone. One more bottle after that, my car was totally fixed. And you know what? I've never used Arco since then. Anyway, I just realized that Chevron has renamed the "Engine Cleaner something" to "Techron Fuel System Cleaner". It is the same stuff they add to their gas at each station.

I have switched to Costco gasoline for a few years now and very, very happy with it. I still have that old Camry and it was used to test the Costco gasoline for about 6 months before I completly switched to it for other cars. Costco gasoline has 5 times the amount of EPA recommended detergent added to its gas. I have no doubt that their gas is as fresh as anyone's else!

Newer cars has knock sensors which automatically adjust their engines' timing and you would not notice anything with bad gasoline for a long time. Without detergent, carbon would build up on top of the pistons and cylinder heads and that changes the compression ration. Toyota engines are designed right over the edge for fuel efficiency. For older Toyotas (without knock sensors), with a little increase in compression ratio would make the engines knock.

The conclusion is never put no name or dirt cheap gasoline into your cars.

 

Fuel additives can help keep your wallet clean and free of cash.

 

Yes, if one uses quality fuel in the first place.
But, additives can be helpful if one has a problem.

 

Thanks Mr. friendly_jacek for making it clear to everyone.

If you have used gasoline from Arco or no name brand on your Toyota, it is a good idea to switch to different or known brand ones. You should also treat you first tank with "Techron Fuel System Cleaner" to burn off all of the carbon deposit in your cars' engines. (I haven't use any different additives to recommend other than Chevron's one.)

Costco gasoline is a very good and cheap if you have Costco membership. I have used it and get the same MPG as other known brands. In one of my trip to CA from Seattle, I made a list of Costco stores with gas stations along the way down there. I saved not only a little money on gas, but I also knew my car had trustable gas.

Have a great 4th of July everyone!

 

If you are using a non top tier gas, I would use a can of Techron at every 5000 miles. As far as I know, additives are not put in the gas at the gas station, they are put in at the fuel terminal. Costco gas is not a top tier gas.

Galaxy Nexus ? 2

 

I think BP is top tier. Check out the top tier web site Top Tier Gasoline and BP is on the list of top tier providers.

 

I changed from Quiktrip to BP and I got better MPG; however, my hypermiling skills are improving and that may have made the difference. I plan to try Chevron next because people in other forums like it because of Techron.

 

I have once but I am not sure if that helped or the gas changed at the station. Each load of gas is different and I have noticed a difference in summer gas and winter gas every year. This year I noticed my mileage went up on summer gas but in previous years it was the opposite. What is going on with our gas supply?

 

Both my Prius 'like' hot weather, I see this as a general Prius trend: gas mileage improves the warmer it is, until A/C demands so much energy that it dips again. (Over 95 degrees in MS)

 

I work in wholesale fuel for over a dozen different brands, it's all the same gas only the additives are different and how well the station you buy the gas at is maintained. I always get top tier gas from the brands that were already posted, ideally you want to buy gas from a high volume station (Busy gas station) and i always dump a bottle of Techron in at an oil change to make sure that everything is staying clean.

The things to worry about are water in the tanks, filters not changed in the dispensers and the wrong product dropped into the wrong tank or at the wrong station.

 

Also one has to be concern if they are getting 87 OCT or is it really less, I prefer to use 91 to make sure I am getting proper OCT level. Had Subaru that was to take 87, it would knock on it? Put 91 in it and it had no knocking. And this was at well know brand gas station.

 

Shell and many other brands are known to put extra additives in premium gas, the marketing people realized that the extra cleaning agents combined with higher octane reduces knocking while the cleaning agents improve performance by cleaning up a dirty engine. The extra additives cost literally nothing but the margins are significantly higher for premium fuel. I use Shell and i always buy the premium grade just because of that, they claim 3x the cleaning agents and the marketing rep that visits loves to harp on that fact.