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When you stop to fuel up your street car, what’s the most important draw? Price? Location? Points? Clean toilets? Artisan sandwiches sporting the perfect amount of lettuce?
Probably not the gasoline itself, right? After all, aren’t all pump fuels the same?
Well, no.
I wonder what they mean by "19 times less". Does it mean 5% of the deposits of the non detergent fuels?
I have a Conoco and Phillips 66 in my town. Neither advertise as having Top Tier fuel. The Phillips 66 a couple towns over does have the Top Tier sticker on the pump and I have noticed an increase in fuel mileage with that fuel. I drive the exact same 100 miles everyday so it's pretty well controlled.
rpasea said:I wonder what they mean by "19 times less". Does it mean 5% of the deposits of the non detergent fuels?
You can read the entire report, but here are some of their findings:
In reply to Patientzero :
I go to an Arco station that has top tier fuel and it's one of the least expensive sources in our community.
In reply to timcking :
Wow, haven't seen an Arco in years.
Was talking with a auto repair shop and the owner said that they see a near 100% corelation between cars with gummed up valves and the owners using off-brand/mini-mart fuel.
Also remember that more valve deposits are created by PCV Systems than fuel, especially on direct injection motors where the fuel does not come in behind the intake valves to help clean them, but comes into the combustion chamber by passing the valves. So a good catchcan or oil separation system is pretty much a must.
Since we bought turbo DI cars for the first time in our lives, I've been almost exclusively running Top Tier 93 octane fuels in them. We do about 12,000 miles a year between 2 cars, so it just doesn't make sense to try and save a few bucks on cheaper stuff.
Most places don't have the Top Tier sticker but my understanding is that big name brand stations meet the standards with their premium grades. Regular grade is of course a commodity and not guaranteed to even match the brand of the station.
Exxon, Shell, BP, and Sunoco are the 4 most common around here, in that order.
Here's the current list if interested (just fyi).
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
Wow, thanks. That's a much longer list than I would have expected.
I also didn't know that to get Top Tier status, *all* grades have meet the standard. I was given to understand that low-grade regular was a commodity item purchased from whatever distributor was closest to the given station, regardless of brand.
Good to see Costco's Kirkland gasoline on that list!
"At the time of this report, the preferred method for evaluating fuel deposits is the ASTM D6201 test [8], which involves running the test fuel in a Ford 2.3L port fuel injected engine in a dynamometer test cell."
I find it surprising that they haven't updated to a DI engine.
In Canada Shell is now the only national brand with top gas. It's a shame top tier it is out of fashion.
Watching the SCCA Runoffs today and Sunoco has an advertisement in rotation stating it offers 94 octane at the pump. That's something I didn't know. Their competitors here in Texas offer 93. I don't have a problem with knock in my daily driver so I don't need 94.
But logic and fact be damned; my lizard brain is wandering into the "more octane = mo' better!" trap. 
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
Yes, Sunoco has brought back 94 to select locations. I found some info here.
A request for Sunoco - 94 octane gas at the pumps in SoCal, please. Charge six-fifty a gallon if you have to. It would change motorsports here and get the lead out.
David S. Wallens said:In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
Yes, Sunoco has brought back 94 to select locations. I found some info here.
Thanks. Nothing within 100 miles from me. Just as well to keep me from overspending.
Now dealing with FOMO syndrome. 
Snrub said:"At the time of this report, the preferred method for evaluating fuel deposits is the ASTM D6201 test [8], which involves running the test fuel in a Ford 2.3L port fuel injected engine in a dynamometer test cell."
I find it surprising that they haven't updated to a DI engine.
In Canada Shell is now the only national brand with top gas. It's a shame top tier it is out of fashion.
Because it's a fuel deposit test, not just a plain intake deposit test.
Coniglio Rampante said:David S. Wallens said:In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
Yes, Sunoco has brought back 94 to select locations. I found some info here.
Thanks. Nothing within 100 miles from me. Just as well to keep me from overspending.
Now dealing with FOMO syndrome.
I remember seeing Sunoco 94 back in the day down here in Florida. Maybe we’ll get some again.
Duke said:Since we bought turbo DI cars for the first time in our lives, I've been almost exclusively running Top Tier 93 octane fuels in them. We do about 12,000 miles a year between 2 cars, so it just doesn't make sense to try and save a few bucks on cheaper stuff.
Most places don't have the Top Tier sticker but my understanding is that big name brand stations meet the standards with their premium grades. Regular grade is of course a commodity and not guaranteed to even match the brand of the station.
Exxon, Shell, BP, and Sunoco are the 4 most common around here, in that order.
While I'm not faulting your logic, I will give you some anecdotal info that you probably don't need to do that. We tow with a 2.0l GTDI small SUV- it's rated to 3500lb.
Anyway, on one trip, I decided to run an experiment to see if it mattered or not- couple of tanks on premium after running with regular up until then. And the gas mileage didn't change. Telling me that it's not retarding spark much due to knock, as the knock system will try to reset every fill up. So I just stick with regular. Given how I know how these are tuned, I really expected to gain some gas mileage and range, as they normally have some head room to give for premium fuel. But it didn't change anything.
Of course, YMMV. But I just run regular on my GTDI that mostly runs high load under boost since we tow so much. And I will also admit that I'm certainly more brave with it, since it's not my car (lease). And the fuel requirement is regular- so if it breaks, Ford gets to pay for it.
One thing I will also add to the top tier story- California listened to the OEM's back in the early 2000's when we pointed out how vital a spec fuel is to consistently low emissions. And one of the recent Tier2 federal updates, the EPA also updated the nominal fuel spec for the rest of the US- so there is a min detergent package required for all pump fuel. Not quite what we (the OEM's) want, but at least better than not, as the cars age better than they could be.
If it were me, I would make huge, sweeping, reforms on the fuel spec in the country. Right now, regions can change local fuel requirements so that they can deal with non-attainment issues in the area. Which is pretty stupid when you see that we have to worry about really bizarre fuel evaporation specs in regions- meaning cars generally run a little too rich to prevent hesitations and stalls. With a single spec, fuel would be cheaper, since unique, regional, blends would be a thing of the past, and emissions and fuel economy would be better as a nation.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Just playing around on that search feature and it seems available in areas in and around Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, and Dallas. (used "100 mile radius" option)
Entered *a lot* of major cities around the country and nothing else popped. Interesting.
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