Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Who Has The Best Fuel?

I have always wondered about the differences between different fuel brands. Amoco claims to be the cleanest, Shell claims to be the purest, while Clark claims that all of them are full of zhit, and sells its gas at lower prices in order to sell more. We want some 'expert' opinions here! Take it away CEGers!

Mobil of your choices. I ran my 1985 Nova on a wide variety of fuels. It ran the best and got the best mileage on Citgo and Mobil, with Holiday close behind.

The car stalled on Amoco (more than one tank, different stations, but Silver and Ultimate are better (AVOID Blue!). Other brands I tried, including Shell, BP, Phillips 66, all got worse mileage (2-4 mpg) without driveability issues.

Speedway is to be avoided like the plague. They are called Super Americas here, and perennially have issues with water in their fuel. They also got the worst mileage in the Nova test.

I thought it was always Mexican beans!

Epazote, a native Mexican herb used in traditional cooking, will take care of the gas issue from beans.

You can buy at... www.penzeys.com

Huge fan of VP Fuels. 116 octane is the shizzle!

I think it's all bullshizzle. However you left off:

Exxon
Sunoco
Citgo
BP
Philips 66
Texaco
Getty
Conoco
Esso (for the canucks)

I work for an oil company and it is highly probable that the gasoline you buy at the pump at your local gas station was bought on the open market. Gasoline has many specifications but if it meets all the requirements you will not be able to tell the difference between Exxon and Shell gasoline except for the additive. Here is the basic route that most gasoline takes from the refinery to your gas station:

1) A Refinery makes the gasoline and it is sent into a pipeline.

2) The pipeline goes into a terminal. Many different companies? refineries feed the terminal. Here all the gasoline is mixed together. From the terminal, the gasoline could go to another terminal or a truck can pick up gasoline. When the truck picks up the gasoline, the additive will be added to the gasoline. If Chevron buys the gasoline, they will add Techron to the gasoline and the truck will deliver the gasoline to a Chevron station.

There are many different variations of how gasoline gets from the refinery to the pump but the above is basically how most gasoline gets to the pump. Moral of the story, just because you buy gasoline at a Chevron station does not mean the gasoline was made in a Chevron refinery but it does mean you are definitely getting the additive Techron in the gasoline you buy at Chevron. The only real difference between brands of gasoline is the additive.

You need to ask the question like this:

Which brand of gasoline additive do you like best?

how could you leave out sunoco?

TLavern,

I agree, we have only two refineries here in the St. Louis area, not to mention we use enthanol mostly as the oxygenate, so chances are, the gasoline you buy is refined in one of those two refineries.

I don't believe they put ethanol oxygenated fuels in pipelines, for some reason. I read that somewhere, I think the Chevron website, IIRC, but perhaps you could shed light on that as well.

So, it comes down to what big bottle of fuel additive was added when the fuel was delivered to your local filling station.

TB

Found it,

The fuel is piped without the Ethanol, then Ethanol is added at the terminal for those areas that use that particular oxygenate.

FWIW,

http://www.chevron.com/prodserv/fuels/bulletin/motorgas/ch4.shtml

TB