They did this once before and the FTC got mad at them but it doesn’t matter because the fine really didn’t hurt Shell. They just get richer and richer because they sell good top tier gas.
Pure 100% marketing hooey! I work near the port in my fair city and I watch the tanker trucks from both the “top tier” and “bottom tier” stations all filling up every day at the same MOTIVA fuel terminal. From my window I can see their brand names on the sides of the tankers lined up for the manifold. They’re all selling the same gas! Shell has simply found one more way to dupe the masses into believing their MOTIVA gas is better than everyone elses’.
Thats funny that Sinclair would do that, in 1963, since lead was in the fuel, protecting the valves.
I finally saw the ad. Clearly it was carefully written to be correct, but to infer something other than the truth.I decided to research this a bit, and it turns out that Sinclair made two claims for their nickel additive. They stated that it cut down on engine deposits and that it “reduced engine wear by up to 29% with regular use”.
These claims may have been true, but then again, we should remember that the Sinclair Oil Company was the creation of Harry Sinclair, one of the guys who robbed US Naval oil reserves and whose thievery was revealed in the wake of The Teapot Dome Scandal. If Harry (who died a few years before the “nickel advertising campaign”) or his family had anything to do with those claims, then those claims were undoubtedly just pure hype.
I am still looking around for that tiger that I supposedly put in my tank every time I filled in in the '70’s. What’s up with that???
Hess. Good German gas
GERMAN??? Not to many Europeans are interested in American Football. CEO of Hess owns the NY Jets.
He moved to your kids cereal.
Hess is “German” in the same way that the fabled Indiana-built Duesenberg automobiles were “German”–in other words–NOT.
For some reason, people see a German product name on a US-made product, and forget that the Germans were the second largest group of immigrants to the US, and have been assimilated for more than a century–in most cases.
Back in the era of the Esso Tiger, a Shell station in my town posted a sign stating that they specialized in “removing tiger hair from your gas tank”. I think that this was a fairly innovative bit of home-grown marketing.
If it were Chinese gas, they’d be putting melamine in it!
In other words they’re putting something like N,N-Dimethylformamide in their gas. Which does clean very well. When I change my oil I put about 100 mL of DMF in the empty chamber to clean it. This dramatically reduces carbon deposits, cleaning it very well. I’m a chemist so I can legally do this, otherwise I wouldn’t play with DMF, it dissolves practically anything. So basically their new gas cleans your tank a little better than other gas.
Motiva Enterprises LLC is a joint venture between Shell and an affiliate of Saudi Aramco, though Texaco was originally part of the joint venture, before its acquisition by Chevron.
Motiva is the refiner and marketer of Shell brand gasolines in 26 eastern and southeastern states.
Fuel terminals typically supply fuels to multiple brands; unleaded fuel is a commodity. However, the detergent additive packages may be different among brands, and each brand’s additive package is added as the tanker is filled.
Since you are a chemist–would you be able to tell me where the nitrogen goes–what chemical reaction occurs? Specifically I am interested in whether or not it is converted to a gas and is part of the exhaust–thus adding more nitrogen to our atmospheric deposition…
Yea, and it would be neat if modern cars needed more detergents, but the government mandates good amounts and very few cars need more. If your car needs it, you will find a statement in your owner’s manual advising you to only buy TOP TIER fuel.
good question. hydrocarbons are C,H compounds like octane, hexane, butane etc… (although butane is a gas) and when they burn, they produce CO2 and water. Like ohters said, nitrogen (N2 the inert gas) would do nothing to help an engine (short of oxidation problems) but if it’s amines (and I’m not sure which ones they are using, that might go to NO2 I guess. I’m a chemist too. I wouldn’t really use DMF in my car like that one guy said. It is a polar, non-protic solvent that dissolves lots of organic compounds (and maybe rubber seals). DMSO would be your equivalent if you can buy that in stores??? I know when I was in grad school, we’d mix toluene, hexane, benzene, ethanol, methanol, (you name it) and put it in the gas tank. I had one guy from singapore and we used to add a gallon of this mix to his car. can’t figure out why it didn’t blow up!!