Discount gas vs. major chain station's gas?

I only use Top Tier fuel in my vehicles. Top Tier fuels have substantially more detergents whereas other refineries only use the minimum required. Shell, BP, and Mobil only is used in all of my vehicles. It's always the same price or pennies more than the other stations.

Unfortunately, there are no longer Top Tier stations in my area that offer ethanol free fuel. For all of my small motor and lawn equipment I only use ethanol free with the proper amount of B12 Chemtool in every fill up.

 

As long as you stick with higher volume 'Top Tier" fuel suppliers you will be fine. The 'no-name' gas stations are often "Top Tier" as they purchase their fuel from others.
Kroger Food Stores is Shell top tier in much of the country including where I live.

 

Not to digress... much (talking gasoline), the refineries having so much gas on hand due to covid-19 inactivity, prices could drop to $1.25 per gallon. Of course, they'll scale back refining. I'll take this elsewhere. Oil dirt cheap and plenty of it.

 

What do you think this is, the Lunchtable BS?

 

Supply and demand, I remember learning about that in the early years of school. Not much demand for it now cause people can't go anywhere so price goes down.

 

we are still in an ice age 'technically'

 

Avgas is 100 octane, it's not used for reliability, it's due to the compression ratio, same as a car engine. And most engines can run on regular without mods, they just need the paperwork from the FAA.

 

It also still has a ton of lead in it even though its labeled "Low Lead". You can buy the fuel at most airports but you have to sign paperwork that you aren't using it in vehicles.

 

It's given me some habits lol

 

So much to unpack here, but I'll stick to the ethanol thing.

1) Ethanol burns cleaner, so even though it is less efficient per mile driven, it is still cleaner overall.

2) Ethanol is generally cheaper, offsetting the decreased efficiency. Total cost is all most people care about anyway.

3) There have been several studies showing that ethanol fuels are actually more efficient in some circumstances, and further advancements in the chemistry of ethanol fuels will more than likely lead to better efficiency in the future.

That said, I generally don't like the idea of using food production infrastructure to produce fuel for our vehicles anyway. The government subsidizes the corn industry so much that we produce an absurd amount of corn that WAY out paces demand, so we're left with a bunch of crap we don't know what to do with. I know, let's make fake sugar and fuel for our cars.

 

Circle K puts a LOT of emphasis on having good coffee and drinks. A lot of people swear by their coffee. I really like Kwik Trip's Karuba coffee. Kwik Trip just recently switched to that crunchy ice Circle K uses in their Polar Pops too. Pretty much any gas station is always trying to add gimmicks of some sort to their drink area, considering that shit is like 90% profit for them.

To be fair, COVID-19 doesn't have much to do with what's going on with gas prices at the moment. Saudi Arabia is kinda having a pissing match with Russia right now and flooding the market, as far as I understand.

 

1. It burns cleaner but has only 70% the energy of gasoline. Is it really cleaner if you have to expend the energy used to grow, harvest, and produce 30% more corn to get the same energy?

2. E85 might might be cheaper but you have to do the math based on local prices to see if it is actually cheaper. Usually it isnt.

3. Ethanol can only produce X amount of energy per molecule. Technology has to become more efficient to extract the energy from ethanol to align more with gasoline. Its not impossible but combustion engines are so inefficient due to wasted energy through heat that it is extremely hard to make up that difference.

I don't like ethanol but it is what it is I suppose.

 

The Holocene, which is the current epoch, is an interglacial, "technicaly".

The last glacial was the Pleistocene which ended about 11,000 years ago.

 

Price of oil was already on the way down due to the OPEC countries increasing production at a price that can’t be matched in the US just like you said. That compounded with the crazy drop in world oil consumption because of the virus led to a crazy supply glut. I don’t think I remember a time when the WTI was below 20

 

gunk...

https://www.shell.us/motorist/shell-fuels/shell-v-power-nitro-plus-premium-gasoline.html

corrosion...

 

So far in So.Calif. ARCO regular is at $3.49 ! $3.20 at discount stations. When's the price gonna fall? This summer? I keep hearing gas prices may fall to the lowest they've been in decades. Not happening yet where I am.

 

$1.66/regular, $1.86/premium at Costco here in Tucson. I just filled my 4runner up with premium, 18.4 gallons for $34.25.

 

Heh, my truck is probably the right side pic. So...2 miles per gallon less? I'm gonna buy some additive at AutoZone at my next fill up when tank is near empty. Any suggestions? Are some additives not what you want to add?

 

are your taxing authorities keeping the prices 'inflated' by continuously raising the taxes on your local gas?

 

Lol, I'd like to see their testing procedures, or even better, an unbiased test from a neutral 3rd party.

This is a commercial for Shell. It's no different that Chevy's claim of having "the longest lasting most dependable trucks on the road."