88 octane isn’t premium, it’s not even mid-grade. 91 octane is the bare minimum for “premium”, with most areas of the country having 92-93 octane for premium. If your car requires premium then 88 or 89 octane isn’t going to do (on paper).
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Every gas company I know say that the same additives are at all grade levels. Could you show me one that isn’t.
I’m old enough to remember we always called it ethel (don’t know to spell it). Maybe that was just shell.
Ethyl for tetraethyl lead: lead with 4 ethyl groups. I remember lame jokes punning on its similarity to Ethel, say made by William Frawley on I love Lucy. That must mean there was unleaded gas back then. Did you call it ethyl or did you see it written on the pumps too?
Both. It was just what everyone called it. Thanks for the spelling. Couldn’t seem to get it.
Note, he did say “old days”, yeas some companies marketed there premiums, true or not, having more cleaning power.
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There was unleaded gas back then, but not for cars. White gas for your camping stove and lantern.
E85 was $4.40 and regular E10 was $4.85 at a local gas station. If ethanol contains .7 times as much energy then E85 should contain 0.745 times the energy as regular gas. E10 is .97 times the energy. The difference is 0.775 compared to E10. 4.40 / .775 = $5.677. E85 users are paying the equivalent of $5.677 for gasoline
Hmm, eventually pumps may change from ‘octane’ to ‘proof’.
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Currently, Circle K is running ads on the radio which say that their premium fuel has better detergents to keep your engine running well, and gives better fuel economy to “put more cha-ching in your pocket”. The way the ad is worded, it implies, but does not explicitly say that their premium fuel actually does contain better detergents versus their regular fuel, or that one can expect better fuel economy even on a car which was designed to run on regular fuel.
According to their web site, their regular ‘meets EPA specs’ for detergent (which aren’t all that high), and ‘We doubled the normal cleaning detergent in fuel’ for their premium. So it looks like it does have more. Wonder how it compares to ‘Top Tier’ requirements…
Then I’ll guarantee it’s NOT. If it was then they’d say it without any deception. They can’t say anything that’s not true…so it’s just a misleading ad to get people confused.
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But their web site explicitly says premium has 2X the EPA required amount of detergents, unlike regular.
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