TimeOut

I'm sitting in my car now waiting to meet someone for lunch, and I was thinking about the different brands of gas you can fill your car up with.

Over in California here, you have many choices of gas stations to pick from: Arco, 76, Shell, Chevron, Exxon/Mobil, BP, among others.

The gas stations that are the cheapest price, in general, are Arco and 76. And the most expensive usually is Shell.

When I fill up with "cheapo" gas from Arco, I seem to notice a lack of power and pickup; but when I fill up with "good" gas at Shell, my car feels like it's ready to accelerate at any time. Car seems to drive smoother, and I wouldn't feel surprised if I got better mileage (will need to test this) which then compensates for the higher price u pay for the gas. Driving with Shell gas makes the driving experience much more rewarding.

Does anyone else feel this way?

And does Shell gas actually have something inside (additives or chemicals)which accounts to its more expensive price?

Or am I just imagining things and gas is just gas, and they're all the same if u buy the same octane level?

- Anthony

Arco is know to car enthusiasts as really bad grade of gasoline.  I recall that in the past the Porsche forum guys had a technical post about the different gas available in Southern California.  Costco if there is one close by is inexpensive and good gasoline however you need to be a member.  

On a side note, there have been Porsche guys that have tried lower octane and noticed pinging when not using premium.  The octane Porsche recommends is not available in SoCal due to the additives for less pollution.

many times. My car doesn't feel like it's lagging or slow with Costco's gas, unlike when I fill up with Arco gas, but I'm not sure if I get as much response from the car as compared to when I fill up with Shell. Costco gas seems to be the same as Chevron and Exxon.

One benefit of where I live is Shell gas is only a couple pennies more expensive than Costco gas because the Shell station is right next door to Costco, so I try to fill up with Shell now.

Cheers,
Anthony
This message has been edited by AnthonyTsai on 2008-09-28 11:16:41

. . . and the common conception about Arco might be due to it's being refined from mostly lower grade Alaskan crude. I've noticed differences in response, too, when I was driving a relatively high performance VW GTI, but now that I'm driving a Honda Civic, I've never noticed a significant difference between brands. I still prefer to buy branded gas rather than from independents due to a few bad experiences with sediment contamination, though . . . it's cheap insurance to pay a few pennies more per gallon than to have to replace a fuel filter . . . regards, Art

... A PUNCH UNDER THE BELT ...... LOL, .... SO YOU SAY HE DRIVES A DAF VARIOMATIC ?

Cheers, Filip

I don't even know what a Daf Variomatic is :P

Cheers,
Anthony

Hi Anthony,

the DAF Variomatic is (i think) the only car ever made by the Dutch. It is a very small economical car with an automatic transmission.
Due to the belt-drive transmission you could theoretically go as fast in reverse as you could go in forward gear.
My cousin's grandmother had a car like that at the age of 88+ and when she drove off the drive-lane in reverse our heart stopped beating every time, the speed she reached was incredible ... LOL.
So to us , the DAF is a VERY funny car, not the car in which you wear your average "haute horlogerie"-watch ... LOL ... (but you always can offcourse)

So Anthony, whenever you come to Belgium i'll be looking out for the DAF ...

Greetings

Filip

PS. I'm not sure if Don had the DAF in mind when he was writing his post .... DON ?

Are you becoming ...Reasonnable? LMAO

Best.

Nicolas

and selling a few other cars ... then maybe i'll have some money left for a FF ... LOL

filip

You can still buy a DAF if you want one. New.

It's a Truck though.

The old DAF 600 was the first car to use CVT (in the late 50s). Quite an interesting car. Not vintage though, that would make it pre-1930.

 

... due to refinery closings associated with hurricanes, one can no longer be selective. I normally use BP premium, but I don't know if it really matters for AMG 5.5 liter engine. For last couple of weeks we have been dealing with gas lines like the 70s and the only ones that typically have gas are the independents like QT and RaceTrac. Also, no guarantee that higher octane is available when you do find a station, brand or not, with gas. It's really scary because who knows when our local supply shortage with end.

I spent 2 hours today looking and waiting in line (with engine off) for gas so that my parents could make 200 mile trip back home. It varies from day-to-day which gas stations have gas and which have run out. In many cases a police patrol car are hired by station (no kidding) to control lines and related issues.

Anthony, I have noticed intermittent differences in performance but not sure if related to use of "cheaper" gas sometimes or lower octane from name brands. Basically now I fill-up with whatever brand or octane I can find to avoid running out. Hopefully this won't cause long-term performance issues.

and found that I pretty much get the same mileage no matter which I use. As for the performance, I purposely used the various brands to see if there would be any change in performance but I didn't notice any. I need to use the premium, higher octane. But now, the stations here have to use 10% ethanol, which was supposedly to keep costs down. Of course, that never happened. With the ethanol, though, I did notice a drop in my mileage from about 350 down to around 320-330 per tank.

Bob

If your car has a knock sensor, it will compensate for the lower octane rating by modifying the ignition curve - basically retarding the ignition a little.

This may account for the worse consumption (as well as the lack of 'zing' that Anthony notes)

maybe I should take your post to my dealer?

Thanks, BDLJ, for the info.

Bob