And fifty years ago 110 octane was available and there were several cars that required it @chaissos. The price was an outrageous 32.9c.
I accidentally grabbed the wrong hose and pumped the expensive gas into my 2011 Toyota Sienna. I was on a trip at the time and the expensive fuel made absolutely no difference in gas mileage. I put in,15 gallons and the only thing that happened was I was out $3 over what the regular gas would have cost.
There’s a refinery here in Minnesota I drive by every day on my way to work. It’s the Flint Hill Resources refinery, formerly known as the Koch Refinery, located on Hwy 52. It produces the vast majority of the fuels used in the upper Midwest. I see tanker truck pulling out of it every day with just about every brand sold in the state. In other words, all the gasoline, regardless of the brand, comes from this plant.
The others are right. Change your oil religiously, be gentle on the throttle, and your engine should live to a ripe old age.
“I see tanker truck pulling out of it every day with just about every brand sold in the state. In other words, all the gasoline, regardless of the brand, comes from this plant.”
I was told that it is at that point (filling the truck) that a specific brand’s additive formula is put in the gasoline, making some of the products unique.
CSA
The use of "Nitro" as a marketing ploy goes WAAAAAY back
The term “nitro” makes sense here because smokeless powder was originally called nitro powder and is still called that in Great Britain. When the old black powder express cartridges were offered with nitro powders, they became known as nitro express cartridges.
Nitro is now big in beers - nitrogen instead of CO2.
And tires.
Nitro is just another marketing term. Just like the term Classic…remember Coke Classic.
Soon you will see the sings for Regular gas disappear and it will be called Classic 2.0!!!
I for one, have been looking for nitro underwear.
I searched “Nitro” on the web and found (non auto related) Golf clubs, Rugs, Vitamins, Snow boards, Golf balls, Cigars, drill bits, and even Fishing lures.
Yosemite
I’m looking for cholesterol free unleaded myself. Anyone have a lead on where I can find it. And the free range organic version would be a real plus. Only the best for my Ride.
“Nitro” invokes an image of explosive performance. As B.L.E. pointed out, it goes all the way back to the invention of nitroglycerine in 1847, and maybe before. In the past century it’s been appallingly misused by marketing people from everything from gasoline to (probably) sexual enhancers. But, then, that’s what marketing people get paid for. 
OOOH! Nitro beer in tres! You never have to go thirsty on the road again!
Oh, wait, that will add a lot of unsprung weight. Never mind… ; )
Naw. The air is 77% nitrogen anyway, 33% other. If you compress the tires to 29 psi on a gage “baselined” at ambient, as most are, using 100% nitrogen… typical ambient pressure is 14.5psi, so that would make absolute pressure twice ambient, compressing the ambient air in the carcass to half its size…, or 16.5% of the total gas in the tire. The difference between the nitrogen a 100% ambient air tire and a tire brought up to pressure with 100% nitrogen is 33% vs. 16.5%, or 16.5%. So the difference between the tire with ambient air and the one filled with nitrogen is 16.5% of the volume of the tire.
The atomic weight of oxygen is just over 14. The atomic weight of nitrogen is just under 16.
Ergo, 16.5% of the tire would be filled with atoms with less than two protons difference in weight. No significant weight difference IMHO.
WAIT! Beer, you said? OH, that’s different!! Never mind. :lol:
the same mountainbike , I think you have the atomic weights of nitrogen and oxygen reversed. Besides that, both nitrogen and oxygen exists as diatomic molecules, oxygen has a molecular weight of 32 and nitrogen has a molecular weight of 28.
The noble gases, helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon exist as individual atoms instead of molecules.
Both oxygen and nitrogen are free radicals in monoatomic form which are highly reactive. Spontaneous combustion at room temperature reactive that is.
You’re right, in fooling around totally from memory I reversed the weights… however you also have them incorrect. See the attached table. The fact that they may be reactive in monoatomic form is irrelevant to their weights. Their atomic weights are per atom. Their instability does not change their atomic weights. Nor does it change the rest of the statement… which, admittedly, was never checked for accuracy. You might even find another error in there if you look hard. Go for it. 
The difference between the stability of monoatomic molecules and diatomic molecules I never got into. Not necessary, since I was responding in jest to JT’s comment about “nitrogen beer” being in the tires and making them heavy. Whatever nitrogen beer is. I assumed JT was fooling around too.
Nice catch, by the way. 
Yes, I was joking. @texases mentioned nitro beer in a previous post and I was continuing the fun. Well, trying to anyway.
Actually, nitro is now a ‘thing’ with beers. Guinness used it for years in their stout, that’s why the head is different. Now they’re using it in other beers, and other brewers are jumping in with their ‘Nitro’ beers.
The air is 77% nitrogen anyway, 33% other.
Hmmm…110% nitrogen + other…??
The math was probably influenced by the Nitro IPA! But the basic idea is correct.
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I wish it were… but it was only influenced by old age and lack of attention to detail.
Nice catch. I may regret having such a weird sense of humor… 
When you have a mixture of gasses, you can use atomic mass to ratio their percentage provided that all the gasses are diatomic gasses. When you are dealing with a mixture of monoatomic, diatomic, triatomic, or gasses with even more complex molecules, you have to ratio them by molecular mass.
In other words, 6.022 X 10^23 molecules of any ideal gas at 0 C and one atmosphere of pressure occupies 22.4 liters of volume, whether it is helium atoms, oxygen molecules, or methane molecules.