name brand vs generic gas

I assume you're talking about the "Top Tier" program?

There are lots of posts/threads on it on here you can find by searching.

 

Excellent!

Thanks!

Sam's Club in Valley Ranch just sold me gas from a new pump but my avaerage went down 5 MPG. That tank I bought cheap at Race Trac. Was sure my lower mileage was due to the cheap gas. Hmm. Might have been the warmer weather or maybe my tires under inflated themselves. For sure it couldn't have been my driving the car compuer read 5 MPG higher.

Well I did zip around a bit, maybe quite a bit, well maybe quite a bit but I had the AC off some of the time

 

I compared Union 76, Shell and Chevron could not see much difference other factors made the comparison impossible. Several other people in my office have Prii and they have gone the low cost route and get a lot of variation from tank to tank. When I have been able to convince them to try top tier gas they have all (3) commented that milage improved. I got gas at costco once and did take a hit. Not huge numbers but it has at least been consistent.

 

The brand game with gasoline is really a joke. You're better off using a gas from a station with a high turnover rate, period. Anything else isn't important.

As for additives, all fuels have additives to a degree. You won't get enough fuel treatment with most gasolines to make a difference, especially in the lower grades. All fuels lack some solvency today. Fuel Power added at 1oz/5gal every fill-up helps lots in reducing insolubles and improving combustion efficiency, as I've seen from MANY oil analysis results. Techron also works well but is just too $$$ to add at every fill-up. (You don't get enough Techron with Chevron fuels to make a difference)

 

said it a million times before and will continue to say it...
ALL unleaded regular with matching octane is ratings are the SAME

according to several different sources, gas in the US is 97% fungible.

 

What removes the fung from the other 3%...

 

what's fung?!

 

some of the gas actually is received by the company that put it in the pipeline is all.

the gasoline pipeline works like this. brand a puts in x gallons in pipeline. then brand a knows that it can receive x gallons at any point along the pipeline so instead of having to wait 3-6 days for its specific gas to get to the location where its needed, it simply tracks how much it takes. NO ONE tracks whose gas it takes and from what i understand, they can and do track where the gas comes from for obviou quality monitoring purposes.

also, one pipeline transports all liquid fuels. they use a device called a "pig" that helps to minimize the mixing of unlike fuels. pigs also clean and inspect the pipeline.

soooo... there is no difference in the type of gas simply because only in the very small percentage of situations where a brand station is close enough to its refinery to be trucked fuel directly. keep in mind, refineries do not sell fuel directly to ANY retailer. all retailers must buy their gas from a distributor... that way they can spread the immense wealth a little farther. the average distributor will sell to retailers marketing as many as 100 different brands of gas...all of which are the same.

 

The problem is testing it yourself. Too many variables from tank to tank particularly in the Prius where you are using gas more slowly therefore over more changes in weather conditions. It all becomes anecdotal. I would love to see some real unbiased data on the subject. I would love to save a few pennies on gas but with the way the stuff is priced even from station to station with in the same brand... :angry: "Who you going to call?"

 

the History Channel had a very imformative special on gas.

couple things to think about... the volume that a station does is more important than anything else. higher volume stations have gas that has less water in them.

gasoline absorbs water out of the air so as you know Henry, our air has a lot of water to absorb. so the longer the gas is in the holding tanks, the more likely it is to get water in it. there is no way to completely prevent this. even the best holding tanks will suffer this so time is a killer.

for that, your best bet is usually the cheaper stations that have a lot of pumps because they sell the most gas.

just to let you know, the Arco station on Sleater-Kinney and Martin Way just had their pumps calibrated so they are currently accurate. and cheap...$2.49...

 

fungible means exchangeable,

the gas pipeline system uses a "take out what you put in" philospophy

the huge volume of gas being moved around makes it impossible for each company to only use the actual gas it puts into the system and pipeline systems are too expensive for each company to have its own system

 

Don't know if they still do it, or if it was due to the fact that Phillips, Texas is so isolated, but most of the gas for all different bands came from the exact same refinery and was the same basic gasoline. They added the various proprietary additives for each brand just before they left the refinery.

You could see the trucks and tank cars pullng in and out daily with many other brands other than Phillips.