Top Tier Gas ... vs

Your lead sentence just doesn't make any sense at all. What community college and what "university" are you talking about? Many for profit colleges and universities are now in the business of taking money from unsuspecting people.

No one has posted any real knowledge, just opinions, and just like noses, everyone has one. My opinion is that gas is gas and I have seen nothing that has made me change my mind. I will, all things being equal, buy from brand name gas stations but not because I think that the gas is "better" but because they are generally cleaner, more well kept and APPEAR to be better maintained so I may not get as much crud in the tank of my car from their underground tanks. I will also look for the best price, not the brand.

 

Graduates of community college with programs that feed directly into state universities programs often do better in their upper division than students that spend their entire 4 years in University. One of the primary reasons is that you get more full and assistant professors actually teaching at community colleges instead of the overworked, underpaid and often incompetent TAs you get in a University.

So I guess I agree, you can get gas that is as good and sometimes better at a no name station for less money.

 

Also untrue. The coursework and work ethic of community college students are laughable. I had a friend who went to CC for 2 years and then transferred to a 4-year school and was completely overwhelmed by how much more work she had to do. Indeed i took CC classes in high school and the work load is laughable. CC does not prepare you for university. Going for 4-years prepares you because you are immediately exposed. And i don't think anybody transfers from a community college to a reputable university like STanford or Columbia or Yale...etc. Thus...The quality of education in a CC is clearly lower than that of a university. i mean a real university, not the online "universities"

As for the gas, brand-name is generally better. And this is generally the rule in all things life. A no-name walmart speaker brand will never compete in sound quality to that of a sony, pioneer, infinity, polk audio...etc. Cheaper is not always better. I mean if cheaper was better, we'd all be driving hyundais, or a honda insight, which is cheaper than a prius in relation to gas and overall cost. And when you factor in the 11.9 gallon gas tank of a prius, the price difference between a brand name gas and a no-name is less than five bucks, so why is this even a debate? It's like people trying to save money by using non-oem that are cheaper but are of questionable quality.

This is not an opinion. Gasoline is made from crude oil. Not all crude oil is the same, therefore not all gasoline can be the same. Its simple logic really. So gas is not just gas. And people have posted here in this thread their experiences using gasoline. The mileage differences are not imaginary. And i'm not trying to be rude or anything like that, but if you're so concerned about price, why did you buy a prius V over a IV if all you wanted was navigation? There is no difference (besides price) between the two besides the 17 inch wheels if that's what you wanted, then alright thats cool. Cost difference between brand name gas stations and no-name are generally twenty cents or less. in an 11.9 gallon tank, and say you fill 10 gallons, thats two bucks. Yeah...

 

Thank you for substituting your infinite wisdom (opinion that is) for mine. While I went to a decent University, I know MANY people who had to go to a Community College because of money reasons who were fully qualified to and could have gone to a well known school had it been in their home town.

I know several people who went to what used to be known as Junior Colleges who went on to Ivy League schools. A good friend of mine went to Miami-Dade College and Yale. My daughter got an associates degree from MDC and went on to William and Mary, which isn't chopped liver.

As far as the other goes, I never said crude oil was all the same. What I said, and what others seemed to agree with was that gas is gas. Given the proper octane rating, they will all work. Additives (if they are, in fact properly added) might make a difference.

Colonel, I don't think just saying something authoritative with little or no backup works in the real world. Besides, unless you are really, really old, I think my date of rank makes me senior.

 

Wow, I'm sorry but it's kind of funny. This thread has broken down. It's gone from Top Tier vs. Just Gas...to Shell vs. Chevron, then morphed into discussions about gas production, distribution, octane...and now the icing on the cake...Community Colleges vs. Universities? What's next? Panda's vs. Koala Bear?

To me the whole debate is somewhat silly. Yes, everyone has the freedom and the right to put whatever fuel they wish into their automobile. If someone is convinced that all gasoline is the same, and additives either aren't added, aren't helpful or are nothing but a marketing ploy, then nobody is going to convince them otherwise.

If someone has driven an automobile for 200,000 miles and always used Top Tier Shell gasoline and never had an engine problem....good luck convincing them that running Shell isn't an advantage.

But really? Who cares?

I like the "idea" of trying to do what's best for my automobile. So even if I'm being conned by the big gas companies into a marketing ploy, I don't think it makes that big of a difference. As long as I'm driving a vehicle that employs an ICE then I'm forced to purchase gasoline to keep it running. I don't see a big price difference between gasoline at Top Tier stations and cut rate stations. At the most extreme difference of cost, a total from empty fill up might be $1.50 more at a Top Tier vs The cheapest gas I could drive around and burn more gas trying to find?

So for me I relax and abandon the debate. I don't really understand people who will invest a considerable sum of money into purchasing a nice automobile and then obssess over saving pennies.

I'll keep filling up at top tier stations, and maybe I'm seeing no real advantage at all, but maybe I am...in a decade? Maybe you've saved a whole tanks worth of cost by filling up at "Goobers Gas and Go" instead of Shell...

But for me? It's worth the marginal cost of "gambling" that there is advantage vs. not using Top Tier and then wondering if it would of made a difference when perhaps I do have engine problems 7 years down the line.

And...I'm betting on the Koala Bear based on classes I took at community college.

 

Hysterical thread. The ignorance astounds.

Gas, whether from Shell or the no-name discount station, all comes from the same pipeline, the same storage facilities. The argument that because crude is different from one batch to another, then the branded gas is different is absurd. All the gas is the same.

Write that down fifty times...

The ONLY difference is in whatever additives may be added. The most important additive is ethanol, because it detracts from the total energy of your fill-up and can damage your fuel system components.

If you're concerned about the mythical, magical "additives" that one station touts over another, have at it. But the real issue is the ethanol most stations put in.

 

Ethanol? Sure, but for me? At least in Oregon, in the city of Portland, it's not an issue because most of the time I don't have the time to drive 1/2 way across the city to find the one station that DOESN'T add ethanol.

Plus I think most people "get" that gas is the same and the only difference is additives. But when you say, there is no difference EXCEPT for additives..then that opens the debate up all over again. Because the Top Tier definition supposedly attaches standards to the amount and formulation of what?- Additives.

 

Well then apparently me and everyone else in this thread who have reported MPG differences in different brands of gases are just high and have no idea what we're talking about...right?

 

I was trying to be diplomatic, but when you're right, you're right!

I think most people understand that anecdotal, relatively minor differences in MPG are not explainable by any logic or reasoning.

 

The only problem is that personal observation on either side of the issue is NOT going to settle the debate. Because for every person that believes they witness or experience a MPG difference, you are going to find someone who swears they have filled up at different stations with Top Tier and Non-Top Tier and NOT experienced a MPG gain or loss...

Not to further expand the debate...but for me the only possible reason I might be convinced most additives "might" be beneficial would be for long term maintenance of the engine and fuel injectors. But I'm not really expecting a significant change in immediate MPG's with use of Shell, Chevron or any available Branded and sold gasoline.

 

Somebody needs to do a controlled study regarding this then lol. That oughta settle the debate. =)

 

Arguably, this thread is... arguable. Whew. :deadhorse:

 

Are all gasolines the same down to each molecule? No, of course not. But, we have a pretty good handle on which properties determine its suitability as a motor fuel, and yes, those are the same no matter where it comes from. That's what the refinery does.

Back in the early 80's, when port fuel injection was becoming more popular, BMW had major problems with solid deposits building up on the intake sides of intake valves and on the new electric injector pintles.

There were really two options to fix this. Remove the compounds in the gasoline that caused the problem (diolefins) or come up with a chemical that would dissolve or soften the deposits so they work their way through the engine. You can guess which is cheaper.

Chevron really took the lead in developing an additive system that did this without making anything else worse...that second part is tricky. They distributed it at the terminals so only Chevron gas would have it. Plus, pipelines don't like oxygen compounds in the fuels they move, due to trailback contamination into jet fuel.

This gave Chevron a marketing edge as "better for your car", and all the other majors were forced to compete or be relegated to Quick-e-Mart status.

The EPA got into the act when it dawned on them (they're a little slow) that deposits affect emissions. FI systems at the time treated all injectors the same (early Bosch systems even wired them in parallel), and just hoped that the fuel delivered would be the same across all cylinders. Same for airflow. Deposits mess up this assumption and therefore mixture varies between cylinders. Since the O2 sensor can only measure the average, emissions go up. The average looks ok to the sensor, but the individual cylinders are AFU.

So, in 1995 the EPA mandated that all fuel have some level of detergency. There was a test and specs, etc.

In typical EPA fashion, they screwed up the specs, and the minimum mandated detergency was low. Automakers want more than that particular minimum since they have to warrant engines to meet emissions for 100,000 miles, and pay to fix the ones that don't.

So, they (BMW, Honda, GM, and Toyota) came up with their own standard. They sold it to the fuel marketers as a way to re-differentiate their products (and maybe charge a premium) now that all gas has detergency. Chevron signed up, as did a little midwest marketer called QuikTrip. Others joined later.

I don't work for QuikTrip. I only mention them because you can't just buy from a major and be ok. You have to look them up. Some convenience store brands are fine, while some majors are not, like Valero.

The TopTier spec is better, but whether or not you really really 100% need it is debatable. If you like to err on the side of caution, then it's a cheap precaution. Since most major marketers now blend to the TopTier spec, it's really not that hard or expensive to use it.

Anyone who's driven a 1980's FI car (like, oh, say a 1985 Porsche 944) that ran poorly, and then dumped in a bottle of techron and had it clear up, knows this subject is not BS.

Car technology has gotten better in the meantime too. Exposed pintle injector designs have about gone away, so the injectors have gotten less prone to deposit restriction. Plus engine computers now look at instantaneous crankshaft acceleration to infer how much fuel got in on an individual cylinder basis, and compute correction factors accordingly. Now you can check the cleanliness of your injectors by how much correction is being applied in the computer. Small correction -> clean injectors.

This is great for little adjustments, but now you don't know you have a deposit problem until it builds up enough to throw a code.

 

ya know; during the 6+ years i have been here, if we took all the gas threads and put them together, it would be the 2nd largest site dedicated to Priuses...

 

Every car forum has an oil and gas thread going on at all times. It's mandatory. Thanks cit1991 for a great history lesson...very useful. You just increased my IQ.

 

Well if you are going to bring Facts, Science, History and Logic into the debate then I don't know what to do!

Good job. I actually felt I learned something.

But just to make me feel more comfortable couldn't you of ended with something like "My Baby Sitters Friend Vern used to drive a Gas Truck and he said..."

A little raw emotion, personal feeling and unfounded speculation based on short term speculated results are what makes life interesting.

That and graphs I can't understand. I love those.

 

I've wondered about the "top tier gas" thing for a couple years, and am still a skeptic. The car companies which were part of the "top tier" gas thing don't necessarily recommend it.

To wit, I e-mailed GM a couple years ago to ask if I should use "top tier" gas in the Malibu Maxx that I recently traded on my Prius. I received a reply, which said to "follow the recomendations in the owner's manual." The owner's manual only says to use gas with not more than 10% ethanol, and at least 86 or 87 octane rating.

 

One reason people's experience varies is that the gas varies. Here in the San Francisco area there are a number of major refineries. So you get Chevron gas at a Chevron station, Valero gas at a Valero station, and so on. Costco gas doesn't come from a Costco refinery, it comes from at least one of the majors.

In small places far from any refineries, it's likely that all local stations get their gas from the same refinery. That means that Chevron, Shell, 7-11, and Costco are the same product. Maybe with different bottles of additive, but basically the same.

If you want the freshest gas with the least water accumulation then buy it from the station with the highest volume. That would be a Costco...

 

I just performed an unintended experiment regarding Top Tier... A local Texaco station recently became a Shell station (Shell is my normal choice). Since the new Shell sign had been up for about a week, I assumed (yes, I know...) they had refilled with Shell at some point. As it turns out, they hadn't -- I lost about 8% (ROM) in mpg that tank. I then refilled at my normal Shell for the next two weeks (3 fill-ups) and gained the 8% back.

As a glutton for punishment, I went back to the converted Texaco and filled up, and lo and behold once again lost 8%. I called the station and confirmed that they were not yet receiving Shell gas there yet due to contracts, etc. I've since filled up at my regular Shell and have been reclaiming my 8% loss.

I realize this isn't the "perfect science experiment", but the consistency of mpg changes provide some very good circumstantial evidence of the Top Tier difference.

 

In our area, all of the fuel comes in on the same tanker ship, and is offloaded into one tank farm. That pretty much eliminates any differences in fuel quality from one brand to another, other than additives.

Tom