There is a good an somewhat inconclusive discussion below on premium vs. regular gasoline.
On a related note, do any of the experts have an opinion on quality of different gasoline brands? I stay away from small stations with no business but otherwise shop by price which often goes to places like WaWa, Sheetz, etc and rarely to the big name companies. I typically get 175K out of a car before I sell it and they have run well.
I only use Top Tier gasoline http://www.toptiergas.com/ for the reasons explained.
After fighting with problems with ethanol in gas since 1993, and what deposits can form in an engine from inferior gas, you finally realize they don’t make things the way they use to.
Tester
What area of the country do you live in Tester, every time you have posted this link I have checked it and there are no stations on the list in my area (western new york)
The lists of “Top Tier” retailers is below. You must be able to find some of those big names like Chevron, Shell, etc.
TOP TIER Gasoline Retailers:
QuikTrip
Chevron
Texaco
MFA Oil Co.
Conoco
Phillips 66
76
Entec Stations
Shell
The Somerset Refinery, Inc.
Kwik Trip / Kwik Star
Aloha Petroleum
Tri-Par Oil Co.
Turkey Hill Minit Markets
Mileage Stations
Road Ranger
CountryMark
Chevron Canada
Shell Canada
Petro-Canada
Sunoco Canada
I use Top Tier (QuikTrip) partly because it’s just down the street and normally cheaper than most other brands. With fuel injection, I’d be willing to spend a few cents a gallon to get either Top Tier, Shell, Chevron, or another major brand. But I bet I wouldn’t really need to.
No, he or she “must” not. None of those are in my area either.
Weird
Minnesota.
Tester
I have 3 of these in my area, but don’t always use them. There are a number of local cooperatives as well as Costco with much better prices.
The only stations I avoid are dirty and neglected ones, as well as very low volume ones like “Joe’s Bait & Tackle” in the Ozarks, who sells very little in the winter and has mostly stale gas.
I don’t know about your gasolines up in Minnesota, but I think that that your Grain Belt beer is really top tier. Nothing beats being out on a Minnesota lake fishing with a cooler of Grain Belt in the boat.
I live in a rural area and buy almost all of my gas from small mom and pop operations. (Not much choice; that’s all there is)
After 25 years with no problems I’ve quit worrying about this issue, and all of my cars routinely get double to triple the mileage of yours.
My brother in law in TX (Dallas/Ft. Worth) delivers gas for a living and his stops include both mom and pop and big name chains. It all comes out of the same tanker.
If the mom and pop ststions are the only game in town, that’s OK, since they’ll have good volume and are not “seasonal” outlets. I grew up in a town of 1000 people, and we had 4 gas stations with 2 pumps each. I did not notice any difference.
We also had a Farm gas tank (with tax-free gas) with a hand pumpo for our farm machinery. Keeping the water and dirt out of the farm tank was always tricky.