My observation. Recently, against my will, I leased a new car for the 1st time in my 53 years. Anyway, amongst all the other hi-tech shit, is an accurate "trip" meter. So, in 2 months, I've noticed somewhwere along the line I got FIFTY more miles to the tank with someone's fuel. So, I'm retracing my steps to find who's gas has more bang for the buck. Anyone here give a shit to the outcome?
It's new, but there's been tanks with worse mileage SINCE the good tank of gas. I'm gonna take notes and try to figure which fuel "bested" the others
damn skippy groucho , share the wealth man! its gotta be nation wide , i used to buy nothing but premium for all my vehicles for the higher octane but sense the price of gas has gottin to this point no ones buying premium anymore and i worry about trash and condinsation in the holding tanks at the stations ..
I've noticed the same thing here in Texas. My car would run great and get good mileage on one gas and run horrable and get no mileage on another. I've noticed it on more than one car. Old cars and brand new cars. There are quite a few places I won't buy gas just for that reason.
Groucho, I'd be betting it's a name brand that is getting you good mileage. Here in the right coast, we basically have CA rules cause the socialists here want to be just like your polictions. All the vapor collection stuff we got copies CA, and probably the blends of fuel are similar too. But anyway, the name brands, Shell, Exxon, Sun, Gulf have different blends then the independents and cut-rates. Differences in the base stock before the ethanol is added, and also other additives like detergents and BENZINE. A always thought that Benzine was banned because of it being a carcigen, but our Shell delivey has 1.3% volume of Benzine in it. We have a few small engine guys (landscapers) that have come back to us because of terrible problems with equipment using the local cut-rate gas. These guys use some amount of gas, each crew uses 150 to 200 $ a day!! Problems being hot engines, hard starting, screwed up carbs, fried engines. Bad stuff. Frank
I'm interested. You may see some differences as the engine breaks in and gets a little looser. The first year on my GM diesel the fuel milage went from 14.5 mpg to 18 mph running fuel from the same station every time.
Back here in the east Pgh. PA. the same150 mile loop into Ohio. 33mpg on midrange BP and 27.5 on Sunoco mid range. People told me Sunoco was lousy but until I experienced it I didn't think it was that bad. After the tank was 1/2 empty I filled up with Marathon, It jumped to 31mpg. 2007 VW Passat 2.0 Liter turbo, 200hp direct injection, inercooled 6 speed Tiptronic automatic Ago
The more ethanol that they blend in the fuel the worse milage you will get. Ethanol will burn leaner and make your engine managment computer richen up the mixture.
I've found that the name brands seem to give my dailey p/u about 3mpg better than those with 10 percent alky. Can't tell with the roadster cause the speedo ain't all that great.
I noticed it with my daily driver,95 Chevy pick-up,also. I used to go to the Mobil at the end of my street,but it's usually 10 to 15 cents a gal. more than the ARCO down the street. Now I only go to the ARCO. I used to ONLY burn 76,til they closed the only one around here.
My fiance just started using Chevron b/c she moved and there's a station close to her house. Since switching over, she's noticed that she gets 3-5 more mpg. I'm not sure what she was using before, but I'll find out...
I wonder if it has more to do with the accuracy of the pump itself. I remember seeing some fox special about the department of weights and measures and how there are just too many pumps for them to check the accuracy of. They are allowed to be a certain amount "off" but ill bet there are some gas station owners that leave them a little "off" on purpose.
I guess this is possible in some cases, but in my case, the info above is from the car. The car displays mpg for the car since she bought it as well as for the 'trip.' I spoke to her on the phone a few minutes ago. He said she was getting Shell before and getting around 21 mpg. With Chevron she is getting about 26.
depending on the amount of ethanol in the fuel, they are allowed to have x amount of water in the tank. so they are making damn sure to have all the water they are allowed. and water costs $4 a gallon out of the pump, just like the gas you THOUGHT you were buying. LINK
It's too soon to tell. But, this is where I'm at so far. I post this because of I agree with 63 chevyII. With plenty of break-in miles I find the tank that got the best mileage was 3 tanks ago. So, as I get more miles, I get worser mileage. So, it's not lack of break-in miles in my opinion, or the better tank would've been the most recent. I get a lot of miles out of a tank, so I'm confident it's an accurate "average" of different driving conditions. Anyway, with the unknown fuel that I'm now in search of, I got 31 MPG (400 miles per tank). SINCE the awareness, and subsequent testing- Union 76= 29 MPG (350 miles per tank) Mobil=29 MPG (350 miles per tank) I have Chevron in it now. It's too soon to tell, but if I had to guess, it's the better one. If not, I'm on to Shell, then Exxon. I hope this helps. I think with the current cost of gas, a FREE 6 MPG ain't bad. One thing's for sure. I got FIFTY more miles out of a tank of somebody's fuel
There is only one type of gasoline that gets supplied to every gas station. The octane selector just mixes an additive package to the very same fuel that all comes from the same tank. The price for the additives and extra octane has not changed and is still around 10c/gal, so you are not saving anything compared to a few years ago by going with lower octane now. Btw: All gas stations get the exact same gas from the same refineries. The same gas tank truck stops at all the gas stations... The additive package is what makes the difference and name brands add pennies to pay for advertising. The difference in mileage that you have experienced comes most likely from different driving habits. Another less likely reason may be the time of day that you fill up your tank. Early in the morning when the gas is denser and temperature is cooler, you pay less for the same full tank. If you fill up during the heat of the day, you pay more for the same full tank. In Canada they already have pumps that compensate for the change in density according to temperature. US gas stations don't have this regulator at the pumps yet, so we can all get a little more bang for the buck, if we fill up in the morning..... Just not much in the short term and barely noticeable at just one fill-up.
Thanks for that. I was thinking the same thing. I had heard that too, that there are only so many refineries that supply gas to all the different distributors. Its kind of like buying name brand aspirin vs. the generic brand, even though they are the same chemical compound, you are paying for the "brand". I wonder if the additives they put really make a difference at all? I know when I worked at Thrifty's as a teenager, the manager told me that thrifty's supplied baskin robbins with their ice cream, but we weren't supposed to talk about it.
The part about all the stations getting the same base gas is true, but the part about the different temperatures is bullshit. Those tanks are underground where the temperature is constant. Think of a well insulated building. Stays cooler during the day and warmer at night. It's been tested, there's only a couple of degrees difference at the tank between noon and midnight. It sounds logical but it's an old wives tale. As for the gas I buy, my 300TE requires 91+ octane (we all have 93 here in Wisconsin) and there are 3 gas stations in my hometown, a Mobil, a Kwik Trip, and a BP. BP offers premium with no ethanol added, where all the other stations all have a 10% blend, and the price of premium is the same at all the stations, so I get BP premium without the ethanol. I'm not anti-ethanol, I just don't think it should cost as much when there's less energy in a given unit of ethanol vs. gasoline.
This may be true, but the additives that are added at the station to strech the fuel is where the mileage veriation can come from. If the additive package contains more ethanol or other chemicals that do not have the same combustion properties as the base fuel, Then the cars engine managment computer will enrichen the mixture to compensate for the different combustion readings that the O-2 sensor reads. Causing you engine to use more fuel. As far as fuel temperature is concerned, the fuel storage tanks at the stations are burried far enough bellow ground to protect them from the the average ambient temperature veriation that occures on a daily bases. Unless you live in a climent that averages more then @ 110 deg., You won't see a segnificant difference in voulme veriation from pumping fuel in the morning then doing it in the afternoon. The states standard for volumetric veriation of the dispensing equipment is greater then the change in volume due to temperature changes. I would be more cocerned with the station operator tweeking the pumps to read more then what is actualy dispensed, then the effect of temperature on how much is pumped into your tank. My $0.02
Mileage is about the same reguardless of who's gas I am running (about 8 miles per), but the cutlass consistantly runs better on Chevron. addative package or not, The motor won't lie to me. it lika da Chevron.
EXACTLY. It takes days/WEEKS to alter the temp that far down, that much, to make a difference. Even then, it won't make the FIFTY miles per tank difference I've experienced. Stay tuned, and see if Da Grouch finds his 400 mile per tank brand......... PS-who wants to see NAZI BASTARD under my name here?
Any test would greatly depend on the climate zone. Right now during the summer we get a 40 degree difference between night and day, where I live. It's just not practical or cheap to burry and insolate a gas tank so deep that it isn't affected by surface temperature. Gasoline expansion in gas station tanks has been a know factor for a long time. The price of gas just hasn't been high enough to make any real difference and to upgrade all gas stations. The reason why Canadians have installed the regulators is to protect the consumer and give accurate gas volume for each penny spent.
Apparently now it is....! However a few years ago nobody gave a rats ass what time of day to fill up the tank. I only fill her up once a month, so I wouldn't see any savings. Just passing on established public info that I thought everybody knows already, before I read this post. Take it or leave it - Do your own simple tests and depending on your location and amount of driving it may help saving a little.
Our fuel supplier sent out a letter two weeks ago to inform all their customers that while Washington has mandated ethynol in all gasoline as of 12/1/08, they are starting to supply the ethynol laced fuel now to ensure that the supply is clean as of 12/1. They warned that fuel filters will probably need to be watched more closely due to the increased suceptability of ethynol to mix with water, which will also apply to the vehicle as well as to the station. Since there is less energy in a gallon of ethynol laced fuel, the average mileage per gallon will drop as will the performance of the vehicle.
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