Costco gas....... yeah or neh

We live in an era of government regulation: the EPA has regulated the crap out of gasoline until now there is very little individual refiners can do to the gasoline itself to differentiate their product in the marketplace. EPA has done this because of the 4 or 5 thousand dollars worth of sensors, computers, catalytic converters etc. on every new vehicle. Designed to reduce emissions, they demand specifically formulated gasoline to work correctly and not be damaged early in life.

Gasolines are also formulated by season: if yours seems to start running better it could just as well be because the new station happens to have a different seasonal formulation.

Some areas of the country are required by law to sell oxygenated fuels for enhanced pollution control. The safe way to do it, now that MTBE was found to be a pollution source, is ethanol. But it's only required by law in certain dense urban areas so far.

Gas companies do put in proprietary additive packages but it's so small it's mostly an advertising gimmick used in an attempt to differentiate their product in advertising. Before everyone waxes eloquent about the virtues of Techroline and other 'clean fuel' formulations from their preferred gas station you need to know that EPA already mandates an efficacious addition of detergents and other cleaning additives that you will get even at the local no-name station run by a Sikh and his underage nephew. I, for one, would be very scared of using a gasoline with 5 times that amount on a continuing basis, IF it is true.

For the most part, responses to this gasoline question just demonstrate quite clearly how powerful the placebo effect is on people's perceptions.

 

FYI. The slower the pump is operating is a direct result of how dirty the pump filter is.

 

Spoken in the finest status conscious tradition of American consumerism! Well done!

Don't forget the stickers!

 

So the answer seems to be: gas is mostly the same, gas companies are not, and gas stations are not. On average I'd say gas from major brands is virtually the same, minus whatever small amount of additives each brand puts in. Then you'd have to beware about individual stations doing fishy things with their gas to make/save more money (watering down gas? I'd never heard that!).

So, unless you're buying gas out of somebody's trunk in a back alley, you're probably OK with any brand, so might as well go with the cheapest and most convenient available. To drive 5 extra miles to save 5cent/gal wouldn't make sense.

Then if you feel that one particular brand gives you better performance or mileage, then go with whatever you're comfortable spending, but it probably makes a smaller difference than you think.

Also, I wouldn't bother putting a higher octane than what's specified in your user manual: modern engines are design to operate within specific temperature ranges, and different octane fuel have different flash point: so putting a higher octane in your engine than what's specified will actually make your engine perform less efficiently, as it is optimized for a specific flash point.

That said, I do gas up at Costco if it's on my way, otherwise I use GasBuddy.com on my phone to find the cheapest options around me in real time.

I know that people will continue to use whatever gas they feel it's better, and many people will continue to think that more expensive gas equals better gas; just try to remember that we by and large drive relatively simple trucks in normal driving conditions, not F1 racers with super-tuned engines... ;-)

Just my 2 cents!

 

Can anyone find out Brand of Gasoline Toyota used to test their car or Truck? I am sure not from Costco or Arco. So Brand is matter

 

I use Costco and Sam's Club gas whenever I can. I service all the Costco's in So Cal so it's handy for me. Here is what I find interesting though: same seller, Costco, different locations have different prices. I got into an argument one day with the Costco guy that hangs out at the pumps about it. You would think if Costco buys their gas in bulk they would all have the same prices right? Not so, it's all supply and demand. The kid at Costco was trying to tell me it has transportation costs built in. If that were true then the farther you get from any freeway the gas should be more expensive. But it's just the opposite. The farther away you get from any freeway, the cheaper the gas is. That goes for Costco, Sam's, Grocery Stores and all the gas stations. Check it out. Where I live I'm about 5 miles from any freeway and gas is cheaper here. Also the more depressed and run down an area is, the gas is more expensive there. Those poor people don't shop around, they just gas up at their local station. It's all supply and demand. Sad but true.

 

If your refering to my comment with this ^^^

The station near us had tank leakage from ground water, it was an accident, not deliberate.... or was it

 

No, I was referring to this ^^^. Apparently they were doing it on purpose, not because of a cracked tank...

 

Accident... where water can get in, gas can get out and people can go to jail for intentional pollution. (probably won't happen, but you have to agree legal expenses will destroy you.) In my area you can go by a station one day and the next it's shut down and week following the tanks are being dug out 'cause they discovered something fishy. The EPA has zero tolerance with such things nowadays.

But most importantly: maybe you recall from junior high science, maybe not, but gas and water don't mix... the gas will float on top because it has the lower specific gravity. You can add alcohol and it will carry water through and be burned in the engine harmlessly. But if it exceeds a certain ratio it falls out in a phenomenon called phase separation. When that happens your engine doesn't just run with lower power and reduced MPG; it' pretty much stops. There can be huge repair bills and you're so not alone as everybody who filled up with you will have the same problem. It gets nasty for station owners.

Gas station tanks are regularly inspected for water accumulation on the bottom and the excess is pumped out and hauled off for disposal. Because they don't want to start pumping water their pickups are well off the bottom, above the maximum level of water where they pump it out and haul it off.

 

If we had diesel engines, I could use the waste gas from our helicopters at work. That would be cool... but alas, we don't.

 

When, in the 1960's? I do a lot of tank jobs and can say that the smallest amount of water sets off leak/moisture detectors. They are sensitive enough that they can go off from condensation. When there is a leak it is almost always product going out of the tank and contaminating ground water. You would need many many gallons of water in the UST to have any effect on the vehicles.

If you are really worried about it go to a station built more recently, as they are more likely to have double walled fiberglass reinforced plastic tanks and leak, line and overflow detectors galore.

 

What do your helicopters burn... Jet-A? JP-4? JP-3?

You probably could burn it safely in multi-fuel military diesels, but I'm not sure you'd want to burn that in an automotive diesel engine. It might not be safe for the rather complex pollution systems they're putting in modern common-rail diesels. Could find yourself with a very expensive repair bill just to save a few bucks on diesel fuel. I just read that the reason European cars (like VW and MB) slowed (stopped??) importing diesels was because they had gone over to low-sulfur fuels before the US did and didn't want to make two variants.

Now that the US has low sulfur available they've started in again. Anyone want to donate their Jetta TDI for testing?

 

I have a had station that sells gasoline without ethanol, but in premium. The other two flavors have the 10% (minimum). I don't mind paying $ per tank so I won't have ethanol poisoned gas.

 

Look for the nearest bulk station and you can be pretty certain that most of the stations in the area use it as the supplier.

 

Side note, Jet-A, I fucking love that fuel

And this was an OOOLD gas station, one of the originals on the 450km split from Edmonton to fort mcmurray, middle of no where sorta station, but it was probably 100 feet (if that) from a large lake. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was before the age of moisture detectors.

All I know is, water contaminated the tanks, cars engines got destroyed, it was shut down a few days later. never been open since. They just use the paved area as a rest stop now.

 

That is exactly the scenario I've seen play out like 4 or 5 times in my area. They just shut the station down, yank the tanks, fill in holes and leave it be with a fence around it. I am imagining it to be because there are legal battles being played out over who's paying for the ground water clean up and other pollution abatement costs.

And no one in their right mind will buy/lease the land to locate another business there because it opens their deep pockets for anything the government may want to levy in the future, no matter how crazy.

 

Which is sad in a way, I used to fish there as a kid.

 

Do you understand that gasoline and water don't mix? Gas floats to the top, so there's no way to 'water down' gas. If they had water infiltration in their tank that's one thing, but there would be no way to dilute gasoline by 'watering it down'.

Lots of consumer misinformation about refined petroleum products.