Costco Gasoline Quality: Do you get your gas at Costco?

Yes and....never had a problem with it.

 

WTF?

 

I use Costco gas in my Tacoma and my wife's Odyssey and never had any issues. However, in the last week the stations here in SE PA have clearly switched on the "Winter Blend", and my MPG have dropped about 10%. Happens every year, still doesn't make it feel any better.

 

I've been using it on and off for about a year. No issues.

While the refined fuel, no doubt, comes from just a hand full of places....I do think each company blends it their own way once purchased. There's a government mandated minimum when it comes to detergents that all companies have to meet. Some just go above and beyond that requirement.

It's like saying all chocolate cake is the same. Well maybe, in that they all contain milk, eggs, flower. But each individual recipe is going to vary beyond the common basic ingredients....resulting in lots of different chocolate cakes....some better than others

 

Hah! $1.44 a Gallon!!? Shit, we pay that per liter (4 litres in a gallon - $5.76 Gallon), up here in Canada. Must be nice

 

Never had a problem with Costco gas. It's usually 20 cents a gallon cheaper but lately it has been the same price as surrounding stations.

 

Sure do, I manage fuel contracts. You're "buddy" if he really exists, works for people like me.

 

Wow. Just wow.

 

As soon as you idiots realize it's all the same shit with a bottle of whatever approved by whoever to burn in your mass production whatever, the better you will sleep at night. Get your dicks out of your gas holes and drive confident knowing someone smarter than you takes care of this stuff.

 

My cousins sisters uncle's best-friends former roommate drives an oil tanker and operates a refinery and works the night shift at 7-11. He says you're all way too concerned about this.

 

Haha I once had an gas station attendant fill my tank. All those petroleum guys work for ME.

 

I made the stuff for 20 years. I know absolutely nothing about the composition and quality of gasoline.

I could go into all of the mixing of different brands that occurs in shipment, not to mention octane ratings. But facts straight from the guy who did it are always trumped by organizations that have skin in the game.

 

I have been using there 91 octane for the last year no problems

 

I just wish the COSTCO gas tasted as good as Sam's club gas

 

If you put 3-4 gallons. The price in your area between Costco and street stations is $0.80 -1.00. .

 

Again, the people that are anti Top Tier, how hard it is it to link to something supporting your position? Anything.

All we get is "I worked there", "I work there", or "I know the guy who drives the tanker".

For Pete's sake put something up that refutes Top Tier being anything more than a marketing gimmick that isn't a personal anecdote.

 

where I live there’s a 58 cent difference between chevron and Costco. I’d save roughly 11 dollar a tank. 11 dollars isn’t worth the 30+ minute wait for me plus the 30 minute round trip to get there and back. To my closest Costco. So 60+ minutes to fill up to save 11 dollars isn’t worth it. Imo.

 

No worries. I would not do it either.
I leave 5 min from Costco and it is a no brainer..

 

Nope.

And Texaco ceased to exist as a company a long time ago.

Really, what do you do?

Do you know what any of that means?

Ding.

Means that a 500 Mbbl tank at a storage facility can contain gasoline from multiple different refineries. Or one. Just depends on what tanks are free and what shipments are going where.

There is some truth to this. Although unless the refiner wants to pay stiff penalties and endure a nasty public relations campaign, the shipment of gasoline that is sent to sales will always have a COA certifying that the gasoline meets EPA and customer specs. If by accident a batch of gasoline is sent off to sales and there is something wrong with it, say high mercaptan content, sometimes off-spec gasoline can be patched using specialty chemical additives to bring the fuel back into compliance, depending on what exactly is out of spec. If the RVP is off, sometimes butane can be blended into the gasoline... it depends on what is wrong with the cargo and how much money the offending refiner wants to pay. Its going to be absurdly expensive, so there are multiple checks throughout the certification process at the refinery to minimize the risk of this happening.

Ding.

Interesting. Did not know Costco did this.

Costco didn't develop and create the fuel additives themselves. They're buying it off a third party who does.

Regardless of which refinery the gasoline was made...

Every gas station that sells Shell branded gasoline will use Shell proprietary additives. Exxon gas stations will use Exxon proprietary additives. Same thing with Chevron (if you happen to have a Texaco gas station near you, they'll use Chevron additives since Chevron bought out Texaco many moons ago), and so on and so forth.

There are third party companies that have developed their own fuel additives outside of the refiners* and they will sell them to market retailers like Costco, Walmart, etc.

*The only exception to the refiners is Valero. They teamed up with a third party to provide the additives to comply with the Top Tier designation.

What we have here is a nice logical fallacy.

Yes, refiners have always marketed their products as being the bestest evar. Whether or not that was true was a completely different story. Your example of "Shell with Platformate" is a good example, although unless you're in your seventies, I doubt you remember either. In the broad strokes, "Platformate" is the same as reformate, which is a high octane blendstock used in gasoline production. The "Plat" part comes from the particular CCR technology used; Platforming is a UOP licensed CCR technology. In the 1960's, Shell patented a method by which better yields and longer catalyst life could be achieved using the Platformer technology and catalyst. Eager to capitalize off this, Shell marketed their gasoline as being "better". Furthermore, this was done in an era where it was extremely likely that the gasoline you bought from a particular gas station really came from that brand's refinery. So for example, if you bought Shell gas, you were buying gasoline refined in a Shell refinery.

That said, the Top Tier designation is far from a scam as its supported by research, development, conferred metrics, standardized ASTM testing... So how did you develop your opinion that Top Tier is an advertising scam?

...in conjunction with the API, which stands for the American Petroleum Institute, and ASTM.

huh

Ding.

How the gasoline is blended to meet final specs will vary, but it will always meet EPA/customer specs.

the faq?

You're educating yourself with good information. Hopefully you understand it.

...and do you know why this is?

Circle back to your previous post with Dr. Shah's article.

A particular additive will usually be a variant of a handful of molecular formulations. Certain formulations are more effective than others in a given application, but they all work to some degree or another. The refiners that have developed their fuel additives in house have much deeper pockets and will usually be more likely to develop a particular molecular formulation that is more effective than the third party's formulation. There are exceptions though.

It was your cousins sisters uncle's best-friends former roommate's ex-Sancho.

ooooh. Do tell. I'm especially interested to hear you expand on all this.


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The winner of this thread is this guy:

Yes.