Top Tier (Gasoline) Brands
 

I ran across this recently: http://www.toptiergas.com/index.html

It's a auto-industry supported standard for gasoline that is claimed to be significantly higher than that required by EPA, most particularly wrt detergent additives. Will such gas reduce carbon problems in rotaries? I haven't a clue, but maybe. It's an aspect to fueling quite independent of the endless premium/mid-grade/regular debates.

Discussion?

I use BP. never missed a beat.

Who ever has no ethanol is where I go.

The list of gas stations that do this is almost a full list of all major brands, and that sites FAQ says "2010" so it has been around for at least a few years. I have been buying my gas at rebel since I bought the car, and they are listed.

Its almost impossible to find ethanol free gas. There are probably more places but if you check http://pure-gas.org/ it only lists a single station in my whole city here. That single place is a hole in the wall no brand gas station that I would not buy gas from unless it was the last station around here. Not sure if its the same in other places but here it says "All gas stations in Clark County are ethanol-free from March to September, E10 the rest of the year." I had no idea about that.

BP and shell v-power 93 for me

It's been discussed at length in the ethanol thread. MM was even having his gas tested. I found that in San Antonio it is impossible to find Ethanol free gas and I also found that a lot of the "facts" about this stuff found on the internet are BS.

It the same as the BS rumors that HEB (large supermarket chain here but fill in your own chains name), Walmart, etc. use cheap gas or gas that is left over. It's BS, they typically buy the same gas you get at an Exxon station or other independent stations. There are usually local distributors that deliver to most of the stations.

Yeah, we ever landed on the moon, there was no Jewish Holocaust, and Dick Cheney was the real mastermind behind 9/11 :rolleyes:

There are places here with no ethanol.

So you think. Others have thought so as well and when they tested it they found out differently. How much ethanol is actually in it is a whole other issue as well.

Well maybe i should test the gas use.lol I do notice that when i get gas from the two places that advertise no ethanol i get better mileage and it "seems" to run better. Wether or not it's actually true or i'm just an idiot idk.lol

Plenty of Ethanol here in Oregon. They (Oregon) even produce it for state. Unfortunately it something we are forced to accept.

Anyway, I use Chevron 99.9% of the time and use Shell as a backup.

"Top Tier" gasoline is a marketing gimmick. You have to pay to allow to have your fuel tested and be listed to be a part of the group.
You will notice that BP is not on that list. Do you think their fuel is inferior to others listed their?
About every 2 years, someone posts something about Top Tier gasoline. A search will confirm it.

Local search confirms there are a lot of posts with the words top or tier in them. General search brings up some mainstream articles that seems to take top tier seriously, but not blindly: http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...gas-usat_N.htm

In any case, it seems to be mostly about additives, not ethanol.

Apologies if the topic is a rerun - over the course of 8 years I'd suspect most everything is at this point.

Chevron with techron...never misses a beat.

The only thing I have to contribute to this thread is that I get at least 300 miles to a tank when I use Shell gas, without exception.

For any other gas, I get anywhere from 270 to 285 miles per tank or so.

This is measured from the time of fill up (usually near 13.35 gallons on the nose) to the time the low fuel light barely comes on.

I know it's not significant in terms of a difference, but it's significant enough to notice, and I find it intriguing.

This is mid-grade (89 octane) by the way.

**For those who don't own 8s and think 300 miles per tank is terrible, it's not great, but it's not that bad, since the tank is relatively small at around 13.4 gallons to achieve a real world fill up from the time the low fuel light first comes on (so around 22mpg, and that's driven 'robustly,' I might add).

MazdaManiac went around and tested gas from all the major suppliers here and found that QuikTrip had the lowest ethanol percentages and was the most consistent. The only time I don't use QuikTrip now is if I'm using race gas.

I don't know if it is a gimmick, but with some makes of cars the owner's manual recommends to use Top Tier.

Other than that, the list is helpful when driving across the country so you know what is decent. The TT standards are held across all states and octanes.

It is helpful to mix up brands as well. I try to throw in a Chevron now and then, even though usually I end up at a Shell.

This is just an opinion based on general distrust, but I suspect that the auto makers who recommend Top Tier are shortchanging something in their design, and are expecting the additives in Top Tier gas to make up for it.

Ken

When I had Audis, the idle would get rough every 10k miles or so. The only fuel additive I found which seemed to work was Techron. (Testimonials are not proof ... but that was my esperience).

I've been using Shell this past summer after 'seeming' to notice a similar effect. I don't have an oft-repeated long-distance route any more for a reliable test though.

My mpg also tends toward the high side among RX-8's :ylsuper:

I went to a Exxon Oil school, and they even said Techron was good.

I was using the Exxon gas I was selling, and I had to dump Techron additive in ever few years or so to get my F150 to idle smooth.

I've even come over to Texaco since they merged with chevron, and have the Techron, also.

Shell premium seemed to give good mileage to me, too.

:icon_bs:refineries do get there formula's screwed up regularly and as a result the batch either gets reformulated, which gets costly,to get back to specs or is tanked as off-spec. so I would guess as an end seller of the product, pricing does very as to what they will be delivered and ,or what they order.

Well, 40W8 (aka REDRX3RX8, aka 007) used to buy and sell it so he should know...............

Not at my refinery, they test it several times a day to make sure it's right.