Anyone here fill up with Sam's Club gasoline? Am I a bad person for putting 91 octane (it's the highest we have here in our state) from Sam's in my car? It's been fluttering and sluggish since filling up there. My husband put Octane Boost in it yesterday and it runs gorgeously now. Didn't know what I was missing!

Just wondering if anyone's had this problem. Seems it's not bad gas since Octane Boost fixed the problem.. seems like they might be fibbing on the Octane level a bit. No?

Thoughts?

- MeToo

 

not all Sam's gasolines are the same, you probably want to specify which Sam's Club you filled up at so people can make better comments.

 

Good point. I filled up at Sam's Club in Albuquerque, NM on Eubank.

 

If I'm going to use a discount gasoline co, I use Costco gasoline premium grade which is usually 92 or 93 and the car runs beautifully....I wouldn't trust a damn thing from Sam's Club and the Walmart empire, especially not to run a 30K+ car

/trying to be brutally honest :p

 

Brutal is good.

Yeah.. my Sam's membership is just about over. Maybe I'll switch back to Costco.

 

could be the driver of the tanker put the wrong level gas in the supply tank...goofs like that happen more often than you'd think they do.

 

Or you could just be the only person buying premium right now and the gas has gone stale.. all the aromatics ( toluene 114 octane the main octane booster in pump gas and the main ingredient in octane boosters )have evaporated and you are left with bad gas. In certain locations Premium does do this is much more volatile and since so few buy it it tends to stick around for a long time.

 

Remember that in Albuquerque - at our altitude - 91 octane is the same as the 93+ you will find at places closer to sea level. You will be hard pressed to find 93 octane anywhere in this part of the country. Further I usually run 87 octane without issue. You can find lots of threads on this forum about the pros and cons of the various octanes and what you should use. In the RX8 manual you will find that it says you should use higher octane fuel, but it doesn't say you have too.

 

I wouldn't trust Sam's Club or Wal-Mart. Shadeball corporation if there ever was one.

 

I regularly fill up at Costco myself, no problems.

 

Costco for me (93 octane). About 8 cents a gallon cheaper than most. More money for the 55 gallon drum of peanut butter.

Also bought my BF Goodrich KDW'2 there.

 

Hubby said the octane boost should've fixed it.. but it started that fluttering on the way home again today. So it's not that. Now I'm gonna have to take it in and I'm sad. =(

 

Store bought octane booster isn't really octane booster. If you read the fine print, it basically will only raise the octane value by something like 1/10 of one point. So now your 91 octane is boosted to 91.1 octane. Snake oil.

 

don't use their gas, but Costco rocks, Sam's prices suck, highly recommend the switch

 

If you are looking for High Octane Gas here in Albuquerque all you have to do is go to the gas station on the corner of Indian School and Juan Tabo (S.E. Corner). They sell 104 Octane gas there know as TRICK* fuel. You can even look them up on their web site
http://www.cosbyoil.com/racing.htm > Lots of luck!

 

What you're describing almost certainly has nothing to do with octane rating of the fuel. Your RX-8 will run just fine on 87 octane fuel. You may have gotten fuel that was contaminated with water or some other foreign matter. Or the problem may be totally unrelated to the fuel. Regular, 87 octane fuel will not make your car sluggish or make it "flutter". Look elsewhere for the problem.

 

yeah, sounds like a water issue. so not sure where inline fuel filter is but that may also have become contaminated(trash in the fuel you pumped in)........

 

I had an interesting experience recently. I had a CEL for a few weeks and chalked it up as a glitch. At the time I was running 87. Upon switching to premium the CEL has cleared and not come back. This has never happened before when running 87.

 

Engine knock caused by low octane gas can bring a CEL on ...

Or could be that there was something in the gas that was knocking your O2 sensor out of whack.

I filled up in Iowa a few months back and got some 87 octane gas that caused the exhaust to smell very sulphurous ... like rotten eggs. after about half the tank burned, the CEL came on. I quickly retanked with the best quality 93 I could buy (BP Ultimate) and the CEL went out after a few miles and never came back. The dealer said there was probably heavier sulpher content in the gas and that caused higher O2 sensor readings. Adding the fresh premium corrected things just enough.

I let the whole tank burn through then used the next 3 tanks as best premium possible.

Now I'm back to 87 from Marathon and Citgo (usually a nickle cheeaper than the "majors" (BP, Shell, Mobil) but I trust the gas just as much. Seems to be fine.

 

For the benefit of additives, I suggest the use of those listed as being a Top Tier Gas supplier --- www.toptiergas.com